At the Weatherbell Site Joseph D’Aleo and Joe Bastardi, (whom I consider among the best of the old-school forecasters), have been warning us that Harvey could be a threat to Texas since last week, (when models were suggesting Harvey was headed for Mexico or Central America, or even would die out after crashing into the Yucatan.). Now others are catching on, but Bastardi’s map of a possible track is a sort of worst-case-scenario that needs to be soberly considered, if you live down that way. Of course, though I like Mr. Bastardi a lot and wish him no ill, I’m praying he’s wrong. (After all, it is no sin for a meteorologist to be wrong; anyone dealing with the weather is often surprised by the twists and turns of chaotic systems. But what would be a sin would be for a meteorologist to fail to alert us of danger, and, as Mr.Bastardi is alerting us of danger, we should sit up and take notice.)
Here is the scenario he has drawn up:
Notice Bastardi has the hurricane loop over land and then restrengthen over the Gulf of Mexico, with the ominous note, “May be close to, if not, major at both landfalls.”
To the east of the storm this involves persistent south winds and persistent heavy rains. The rains are somewhat beyond the comprehension of me, up north, where three inches is “heavy”. Parts of the Texas coast could get three feet! Here is one of Dr. Ryan Maue’s maps (from the Weatherbell site; week free trial available.) Even his excellent map can’t comprehend the rainfall, as the color-key maxes out at 25 inches (two feet).
What does this potentially mean for people on the Texas coast, east of the eye of the storm? It means a nasty storm surge from the south, due to the winds, at the same time as nasty flooding comes from the north, due to rains.
They say everything is bigger in Texas, (including egos), but there is some truth to this saying, when you look at the history of their floods and storms.
A saint delivered the book “Isaac’s Storm” to my hospital bed as I recovered from an operation a few years back, and I felt a lot less sorry for myself, reading about the unmitigated disaster the Great Hurricane of 1900 brought Galveston, a disaster which lost the fair city thousands of its thriving, young lives.
If you visit that area one thing that strikes you is how amazingly flat the coast is. In the case of a flood, you have a long, long way to go, if you are going to find a hill to head for. Therefore, if you are going to head for the hills, you should start early.
Galveston is now protected by a huge seawall they lacked in 1900, because they learned their lesson. They know the waters can pile up on that coast, and tides can rise twenty feet above normal. These huge tides can travel miles inland, with the landscape so flat. You can be ten miles inland and have salt water lapping at your front door.
Meanwhile, even if the landscape was perfectly flat, you’d have a flood of two to three feet, simply because of the rain. But the landscape isn’t perfectly flat, and all that rain starts to flow south.
The Texas landscape has wide, dry rivers crossed by long bridges, which causes visitors to wonder, especially when years pass and the dry river only has a small flash flood towards the middle, caused by a big thunderstorm. Visitors wonder why so much money was spent building such a long and expensive bridge. Then they see the same bridge, spanning dirty brown waters surging south from bank to bank of the “dry” river, because a tropical storm has dropped the equivalent of a thousand big thunderstorms, with its drenching rains.
Usually the floods from the sea have receded as the Hurricane dies and rains out over the land, and tides withdraw before the floods from the lands peak. What is so nasty about Mr. Bastardi’s track is that the winds don’t quit, and the sea keeps surging north even as the rainwater floods south. Where land-floods and sea-floods meet, the water could become absurdly deep, even in places miles away from both the coast and the river banks.
Then, as a final twist to the knife of this worst-case scenario, if the track of Harvey is as Mr. Bastardi predicts, all the water piled up against the coast will abruptly be pushed south, as winds swing swiftly to the north. This would push water out to sea, you might think. But, in terms of the Houston Ship Channel and Galveston Bay, it would drive high waters against the landward sides of places that perhaps don’t have seawalls facing north towards land, including Galveston itself.
Yikes. For this reason I pray Joe Bastardi blows this forecast. Joseph D’Aleo, at his Weatherbell blog, points out computers offer other solutions; other paths Harvey might take:
I think people should recognize the way meteorologists stick their necks out, when they make a risky and threatening forecast. If they see a real danger, they need to speak, to save lives, but they also face a nearly unlimited opportunity for looking like a chump. What would you chose to do? If you are right, you look like Paul Revere. If you are wrong, you look like Chicken Little. And you must chose NOW!
It is wise to turn to scripture in such situations. What did the prophet Jonah do? He was asked to deliver an unpleasant forecast to the people of Ninevah. Basically he was suppose to tell the Hell Angel’s of his time to shape up their act. Quite wisely (in my humble opinion) he said, “no bleeping way”, and headed in the opposite direction as fast as he could scamper. Then he got redirected, and wound up back in Ninevah, telling the Hell’s Angels fire and brimstone was going to rain down on them, because they were way too rowdy. Then he retired to the hills to watch the fire and brimstone rain down. However he blew his forecast. The people of Ninevah completely shaped up their act, for a little while (around a generation,) and the forecast fire and brimstone was delayed. Therefore you have this great scene in the Bible, with Jonah rather irate and sulking in the hills above Ninevah, because he has (against his will) told the Hell’s Angels they’d get rained-on, but no rains fell.
Every meteorologist is, at some point, in the shoes of Jonah.
This is especially true if, as some suggest, people facing bad weather can change the weather by prayer, or New Age diets. or Hopi rain dances, or by buying anti-Global-Warming curly light bulbs. In fact, if human behavior can change the weather, meteorologists should keep their forecasts a secret, for, if they tell people, people will pray, and prayer will ruin their forecasts.
I would recommend meteorologists to do what psychologists do. When the forecasts of psychologists are absurdly wrong, they blame the client. In like manner, when the forecasts of weathermen are incorrect, they should blame the Baptist Church, or New Age dancers, or whatever, but those weathermen never listen to me.
Instead meteorologists attempt to forecast chaos, and confess when they are wrong. They are pretty amazingly humble, compared to the way the rest of us behave. Therefore, when the likes of Mr. Bastardi sticks his neck out, and makes an unpleasant forecast, I tend to think we should heed it.
Just as the tough dudes of Ninevah once heeded the oddball called Jonah, the tough dudes of Texas should head for higher ground.
Update
Friday Morning (5:00 EST) 25.9°N 95.4°W Winds 105 mph. Moving NW, 9 mph.
1:00 PM 27.1°N 96.3°W; moving NW 10 mph; Winds 110 mph; pressure 27.91
5:00 PM
27.5N 96.5W; Moving northwest 10 mph. Winds 125 mph. Pressure 29.79
Harvey’s northward movement hasn’t yet slowed towards any sort of a stall, which is likely a good thing, as getting the center over the land will weaken the winds.
The eye wall went through a reformation today, where a small inner eye wall is replaced by a wider outer eye wall. Often the storm’s strengthening hesitates during this process, but Harvey kept right on growing deeper, with stronger winds. Fortunately the wildest winds are close to the center and hurricane force winds, at this point, extend out around 35 miles from the center. Also the center appears to be aiming for a relatively uninhabited area between Corpus Christi and Galveston, rather than hitting either city with the full brunt of his fury.
9:00 Update
27.9°N 96.9°W; moving NW at 8 mph; winds 130 mph; pressure 27.79.
NHC reports:
“A station at Aransas Pass run by the Texas Coastal Observing
Network recently reported a sustained wind of 102 mph (165 km/h)
with a gust to 120 mph (193 km/h).
A station at Aransas Wildlife Refuge run by the Texas Coastal
Observing Network recently reported a sustained wind of 71 mph
(115 km/h) with a gust to 102 mph (165 km/h).”
So, with the eye just about to go ashore, prayers apparently have been effective, as the core of highest winds are hitting a wildlife refuge, rather than a populated area. (Tree-huggers will groan about damaged dunes, in which case I will remind them a hurricane is as”natural” as a natural park.) Also we should be thankful the storm is not as vast as Hurricane Carla was in 1961. Carla gave the entire Texas coast hurricane-force winds.
However the danger now is that people away from the center get lulled into a false sense of security. Hopefully Harvey will continue inland as Carla did, and politely die. But Harvey has slowed a bit, from 10 mph to 8 mph, and this may be a sign it will loop-de-loop as Bastardi forecast. In that case, because part of the storm will remain over the warm, refueling waters of the Gulf of Mexico, it will not weaken as swiftly as Carla did. Furthermore, if it manages to loop back down over the warm water, it may even restrengthen. In this case the people northeast of the storm in Galveston, who may currently be thinking this is just another example of media sensationalism and hysteria, (because they are only experiencing rain and moderate tropical force winds), will notice the rains just won’t quit, nor will the winds. This will get old after a couple days, and if the winds and rains increase after three days, it will be more than old; it will be ancient.
Therefore people shouldn’t yet breathe a sigh of relief and drop their guard, (nor should “prayer-warriors” stop praying.) (A hurricane is like a rattlesnake; you don’t joke about it until it is all the way dead.)
SATURDAY AUGUST 26
8:00 AM: 28.7°N 97.3°W; NNW at 6 mph; 978 mb; 80 mph
1:00 PM –Harvey downgraded to tropical storm–Nearly stalled–
29.1°N 97.6°W; Moving NNW at 2 mph; Winds 70 mph; Pressure 29.15
The feeder band seen in the above satellite view passed through Galveston with heavy rain but now is east of them.
Here is a great view of the tight, small eye just before it went ashore.
In some ways it resembles an oversized tornado. Fulton got creamed as Corpus Christi laughed that all the hoopla was blown out of proportion. In fact the proportions of the strong winds near the eye were tight and narrow. If the hurricane had another day over the warm waters things would have been very different.
Now it will just be day after day after day of rains, as we wait to see if Harvey can get back down over the water and restrengthen.
SUNDAY, AUGUST 27–Harvey headed back to Gulf of Mexico–
10:00 AM 29.0°N 97.4°W; Moving SSE at 2 mph; Winds 40 mph; Pressure 29,53
The feeder bands kept reforming and heading up over Galvelston and Houston last night. The far from the center at times they got rain at a rate of four to six inches an hour, and in places have totals up near twenty inches.
5:00 PM Harvey stopped weakening; still heading for the Gulf of Mexico
29.0°N 97.0°W; Moving southeast 2 mph; winds at 40 mph, pressure 29.53
9:00 PM
28.9°N 96.8°W Moving southeast 3 mph; winds at 40 mph; pressure 29.53
Harvey is drawing in dry air on his west side, shown on the moisture map.
I’m nervous this may push the storm farther south than models see. I tend to see a storms isobars as a solid form, like a solid top, but they actually move like waves, and can shift in a manner a physical top can’t. Hurricanes seem to seek warm water and juicy air, and to flee dryness and land. Harvey may get drawn away from land, and even away from the waters his first passage cooled (which remain warm enough to strengthen a storm) towards the untouched and above-normal waters south of Galveston. Time (and sunrise) will tell.
MONDAY, AUGUST 28 –Harvey Reaching Sea; Slight Restrengthening
5:00 AM 28.6°N 96.3°W; Moving SE 3 mph; Winds 40 mph; Pressure 29.48
The dry air has circled right around and is now coming up from the southeast , giving Houston and Galveston a break. However moister air has also circled right around and is now collapsing south from the north towards the center.
The heaviest rain-band is east of Houston, over Beaumont. The danger is a new rain-band will form southwest of Houston and come north, as Harvey strengthens again.
11:00 Am 28.5°N 96.0°W Moving SE 5 mph; Winds 40 mph; Pressure 29.44
The fact the pressure is falling when diurnal variation usually uplifts makes it look like Harvey is already starting to ramp up despite not being over the water all the way and despite dry air. Cloud shot looks like some small convection is bubbling up as well. And though the water is “cooled” and “only normal”, normal is darn warm. I expect the storm to blow up faster than most expect.
TUESDAY AUGUST 29 —Flooding Rains Continue In Houston—
2:00 AM 28.0°N 95.0°W; Moving ESE 5 mph; Winds 45 mph; Pressure 29.44
The only good news is that Harvey hasn’t ramped up, despite being over water. But the nighttime infrared picture does seem to hint at an eye-line structure south of the official center, and the storm hasn’t yet turned north towards land, which will kill it for once and for all.
Of course this flooding will be blamed on Global Warming, though history shows us other examples of amazing Texas floods. (What amazes me is Joe Bastardi’s forecast and the fact Joe D’Aleo was posting charts of historical Texas floods a week before the storm even hit.)
Houston’s growth has been amazing, but it has sprawled out into many flat areas that were flooded in the past without anyone even noticing. It is now the fourth largest metropolitan area in the nation.
year rank population
1900 85 44633
1910 68 78800
1920 45 138276
1930 26 292352
1940 21 384514
1950 14 596163
1960 7 938219
1970 6 1232802
1980 5 1595138
1990 4 1630553
Quibbling about politics is not needed in this situation, though I have to state politics is in disgrace, when you consider the amounts of money squandered for patronage and cronyism that should have been spent on actual engineering. (New Orleans has been given billions by the American taxpayer, and hasn’t even kept its pumps working, and is currently threatened by a failure of those pumps).
5:00 AM —Harvey Starting Recurve—
28.1°N 94.8°W; moving East 3 mph; winds 45 mph; Pressure 29.44
Not daylight yet in Texas, but notice the new convection popping up out to sea southwest of Galveston in infrared picture below. They don’t need that.
4:00 PM 29.2°N 94.3°W Moving NNE at 6 mph; Winds 50 mph; Pressure 29.36
8:00 PM –Storm Strengthening; North winds pushing Bay into north Galveston; Rains finally ending in Houston.
28.7°N 93.9°W; Movement E 6 mph; Winds 50 mph; Pressure 29.36
Not sure why storm swerved to the east.
THURSAY, AUGUST 39 –Harvey moves inland and weakens
1:00 AM CDT Wed Aug 30
Location: 29.2°N 93.5°W
Moving: NE at 7 mph
Min pressure: 995 mb
Max sustained: 45 mph
4:00 PM CDT Wed Aug 30
Location: 30.8°N 93.1°W
Moving: NNE at 8 mph
Min pressure: 998 mb
Max sustained: 40 mph
Sunrise's Swansong 
Dead right, Caleb. Saw Joe’s forecast this a.m. NZ time, didn’t like the look of that double or triple whammy. Hadn’t thought of the inland unprotected side of Galveston, for instance, though Joe mentioned it. Once those inland waters act cumulatively on the ocean ones (sounds Deluvian, even), the time for heading for the hills may be past…..
Joe sounds like he hopes his forecast is wrong, and the storm behaves like Bealah in 1967. That one didn’t complete the loop, and headed southwest inland, weakening.
Lets hope Joe is wrong but what I find most impressive is the three day hit for this area. Admittedly much of the time will be sub hurricane but just imagine the rain totals and many sites are saying the power will likely be out for most of the time. Hopefully folks take this seriously and stay safe.
Did you ever get down that way? The landscape is unbelievably flat south of Houston. The ocean can come miles inland with little but the coastal dunes in the way. In 1967 Hurricane Beulah created and filled-in inlets and changed the map of the coast.
Re getting down that way … no and it is on my bucket list but so far the ass cancer recovery is keeping me pretty close to either the Calgary house or the Fernie condo. Re flat … you just have a different perspective on flat … in Saskatchewan they joke about being able to sit on the porch and watch your dog run away for 3 days …. now that’s flat!!
I think you would have liked university level geomorphology classes … a really good observational science if ever there was one.
I hate to admit it, but I had to look up the word “geomorphology.” But you are right. I would have loved those classes.
Re geomorphology – see even though we are older than dirt and missing a bunch of our innards we are still learning. Arthur C Clarke said he wanted his gravestone to read “He never grew up but he never stopped growing”.
Lots of hurricane postings at WUWT suggest Harvey is bad but not the killer that was feared … which is a very good thing.
Obuoy 14 was showing what I thought were spectacular pictures of the ice and ocean last night …. I think excellent lighting from the midnight sun was partly responsible. We will miss that buoy when it finally fails.
Thanks again for all your posts.
I saw your comment on WUWT poking fun at the differing ways of measuring wind speed, and asking what the winds were, measured in furlongs per fortnight. Got a good laugh out of that. Did you see a fellow answered you?
So far Texas has been fortunate, both in terms of how small the core of very strong winds has been, and where the center hit. But it ain’t over ’til its over. It may be still on the map, still over Texas, a week from now.
Yeah, Joe is serious about his work, but he doesn’t forget what a bad storm does to people in the area that is caught in it. As a human he rather be wrong with his predection than having it right, and learn that there are casulties in Galveston
I think the main thing is to warn people, so they can make the right decisions. That is actually the media’s job, but unfortunately the media has gotten lost in a strange mix of political correctness and sensationalism, neither of which is all that strict about the Truth.
Before the 1900 hurricane that killed thousands in Galveston the Cuban weather bureau warned Washington that a powerful hurricane had stayed south of Cuba and was heading straight west across the Gulf of Mexico. The political appointment running the Washington bureau ignored the crucial information, because he didn’t believe Cubans were properly educated. One bleeping elitist snob put thousands at risk. The people of Galveston had no idea of the size of the storm bearing down on them.
Not that they would have been wary, for the developers has blithely misinformed buyers that Galveston was invulnerable to storm surges “because off-shore waters were too shallow.”
People need the Truth. The average guy can make smart decisions, if he isn’t misinformed by bleeping bleeps.
I am thankful we still have some of the old-school forecasters around. They tend to just tell it like it is, admitting the uncertainties involved.
Check out DMI’s pressure map this AM … Greenland is surrounded by a posse of ralphs … interesting. The Iceland low is common and seems to almost be a permanent feature at times but I can’t recall seeing the herd of lows like this before ===> certainly the mythical “climate change” the brainiacs speak of 😉
The wife has a buddy that moved back to Houston and is trying to start a trip to Spain but there is almost no way out at this time and they were joking that the cold and snow of Canada isn’t looking too bad at this time. I can’t imagine day after day of the roaring wind and driving rain and the flooding. I will remember this when shoveling this coming winter!