North American weather...

[Goatman]

Well I had a pretty good search and couldn't find anything sensible so here goes...

Last month it was catastrophic flooding in Texas. As I write its Hurricane Irma and lil brother Jose.

The thread title is deliberately opaque - cos in a year's time it will be something else....San Andreas,Yellowstone,Yucatan asteroid...place your bets folks.

Question: what have you lot done to piss off the weather gods?

Hurricane Irma regains Cat 4 strength as it targets St. Petersburg


The governor activated all 7,000 members of the Florida National Guard, and 30,000 guardsmen from elsewhere were on standby.

In the Orlando area, Walt Disney World, Universal Studios and Sea World all were closing Saturday. The Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa and Orlando airports shut down.

Given its mammoth size and strength and its course up the peninsula, it could prove one of the most devastating hurricanes ever to hit Florida, and inflict damage on a scale not seen here in 25 years.

Hurricane Andrew smashed into suburban Miami in 1992 with winds topping 165 mph (265 kph), damaging or blowing apart over 125,000 homes. The damage in Florida totaled $26 billion, and at least 40 people died.


National Guard getting a heap of Disaster Relief practice in...

Good luck folks,stay safe

 

[Goatman]

Looks like Irma quietened down a tad. How's Jose looking ?

 

[TXSapper]

Looks like Irma quietened down a tad. How's Jose looking ?

Same.

 

[vampireuk]

Damn these hurricanes coming out of nowhere at the same time every year since records began.

 

[Roadster280]

I'm hundreds of miles from the storm, but it's pissing down and windy here.

Must go on Twatter and bitch at Donald; it's his fault obviously

 

[theoriginalphantom]

It used to be blamed on El Niño.

Bloody foreign weather, going over there, erm, usually destroying trailer parks.

 

[Tedsson]

There was a kerfuffle over Hurricane Don as morons and halfwits assumed it was something to do with the ginger tiny fingered knobhead (getting my ad homs in early).

Despite the fact that the names of hurricanes are decided years in advance.

 

[Goatman]

Damn these hurricanes coming out of nowhere at the same time every year since records began.

...well yeah,hence the Caribbean jingle

June too soon
July standby
August she must
September - remember!
October , all over.



Not too often does the regular seasonal rainy spell result in a storm the size of France...

Size comparison with the last major hurricane to come ashore in Florida ,Hurricane Andrew...in 1992.

.

Hurricane Irma: Side-by-side comparison shows how much bigger Irma is than Hurricane Andrew


Hurricane Andrew destroyed 125,000 homes and killed over 60 people by the time it dissipated. It was the third Category 5 storm to hit the U.S. mainland, following in the footsteps of Hurricane Camille in 1969 and the Labour Day Hurricane of 1935.

Hurricane Irma: These photos reveal the destruction left in monster storm’s wake

That storm caused nearly $50 billion in damage in current-day dollars, according to NOAA.


For those Brits with longer memories...compare and contrast:

Great Storm of 1987 - Wikipedia


The storm cost the insurance industry £2bn, making it the second most expensive UK weather event on record to insurers after the Burns' Day stormof 1990.[22] Peak wind velocities were in the early hours of the morning, which may have helped reduce the death toll. The storm hit the Isle of Wight at 2 a.m., and Shanklin Pier on the south-east coast of the Island was broken into three pieces as a result of mountainous waves. Plans to rebuild the pier were soon abandoned, and the rest of the pier was demolished by contractors shortly afterwards. A monument now stands in front of what used to be the pier entrance.

A great deal of effort and money was put into the post-storm clean-up of forests and wooded areas. The writer Oliver Rackham and the charity Common Ground, were active in trying to prevent unnecessary destruction of trees which, although fallen, were still living.[23][24] Some landowners, such as the National Trust, did not attempt complete clearing and replanting, realising that there was a unique opportunity to study the patterns of natural regeneration after such an event.[25]

A number of wild boar may have escaped from captivity during the storm, after enclosures were damaged by falling trees. These boar have since bred and established populations in woods across southern England.[26]

 

[DeltaDog]

Even the weather is Donald Trump's fault. And people wonder why nobody listens when they bring up legitimate concerns about him.

 

[Goatman]

The poll was tongue in cheek..to alleviate a rather dull topic ( meteorology) Obviously touched a nerve...

 

[AlienFTM]

Some landowners, such as the National Trust, did not attempt complete clearing and replanting, realising that there was a unique opportunity to study the patterns of natural regeneration after such an event.[25]

There's a wildlife sanctuary near me carries a design that tells us that a living tree can support ten diverse wild creature types. Whereas a dead tree can support 100.

 

[Goatman]

Ashdown? Aye,well in the Caribbean,the rate of regrowth will tend towards the explosive.

Its like saying forest fires are part of the natural cycle and the regeneration is a bonus.


Barbuda used to look like this

This week it looks like this

While the world watches Florida, Hurricane Irma has ripped apart a tiny Caribbean Island

BPM says Barbuda will take years to rebuild (VIDEO) | Antigua News Room

 

[Tedsson]

There's a wildlife sanctuary near me carries a design that tells us that a living tree can support ten diverse wild creature types. Whereas a dead tree can support 100.

There is an Attenborough video where they put plastic over a BFO tree and gassed the inhabitants who all fell onto plastic sheeting. There were hundreds of different species, mostly insects. Mostly dead.

 

[DesktopCommando]

So you live in an area that gets hurricanes, do you ?

a) build a big house out of wood, and enjoy the hot weather and BBQ's blaming everyone else when it goes wrong.
b) build a hurricane proof house and store supplies incase.
c) own an Island build a wine cellar, build a wood house, blame UK government for everything, despite paying no taxes to them

Hurricane-proof building - Wikipedia

 

[AlienFTM]

Yesterday BBC showed what might have been the biggest yacht marina in the BVI, with dozens and dozens of expensive looking yachts piled on top of one another by the wind and tide.

The owner of twenty years was complaining about HMG's response.

I put it to him that after 20 years living in Hurricane Alley taking lots of money from rich bastids to park moor their yachts, he ought to have had the money and the experience to know that he needed a hurricane insurance policy. Ditto the yacht owners.

There may have been more sympathy (yes, between sh¡t and syphilis) from this callsign had BBC shown subsistence fishermen whose ramshackle livelihood fishing boats had been trashed.

 

[DeltaDog]

It amuses me that the people complaining about our response to the hurricane are the same people who would otherwise be whining about how much we spend on the Royal Navy.

 

[Tedsson]

I noticed a lot of homes and shops were boarded up very securely with wood, metal etc.

I thought you were not supposed to do that on the grounds that houses are built to resist an external pressure but if the house is effectively sealed up it blows apart from the greater pressure inside when the low pressure front arrives.

Anyone care to enlighten me.

 

[DeltaDog]

I noticed a lot of homes and shops were boarded up very securely with wood, metal etc.

I thought you were not supposed to do that on the grounds that houses are built to resist an external pressure but if the house is effectively sealed up it blows apart from the greater pressure inside when the low pressure front arrives.

Anyone care to enlighten me.

Sounds like bullshit to me. Boarding up the windows doesn't make the house airtight.

 

[Tedsson]

It is bullshit.

It used to be "common knowledge" though and was accepted by all sorts of experts.

I found this:

Long ago, in the wake of tornados, houses and other buildings sometimes looked as if they exploded into a burst of debris from some sort of internal boom. It was thought that these explosions were the result of the pressurized air explosion imagined above.

So experts — including scientists — began to spread the notion that it’s best to open up a window, to allow the pressure from the outside to equalize with the inside.
​

It's not best to open a window!

 

[DeltaDog]

Fucking experts again.