Hurricane Isaac

[phw115wvwx]

The 5 PM EDT advisory now shows Isaac is strengthening.  The winds are up to 80 mph.  Isaac is going to hug the LA coastline and move inland at an agonizingly slow pace, which means there will be a ton of long-lasting rain and storm surge.

[toxictwister00]

What a great looking hurricane! (from a meteorological perspective) So large, yet so symmetrically shaped now. The eye is fairly large as well.



However, there's nothing great about the havoc it will continue to unleash.

[toxictwister00]

Advisories will be issued hourly from now until the next landfall. The first landfall was in SE Louisiana at 6:45pm CDT.

[Trevor]

At least two models are showing Isaac stalling just NW of it's current location until Thursday morning.

[Trevor]

Double post...sorry, but this is worth it.

There are unconfirmed reports that some of our worst fears have come true...there are unconfirmed reports of a levee breach in Southern Louisiana.

[Localonthe8s]

Double post...sorry, but this is worth it.

There are unconfirmed reports that some of our worst fears have come true...there are unconfirmed reports of a levee breach in Southern Louisiana.

Oh no, this is BAD. I hope everyone has evacuated.

[Pop Light Brown]

Some observation ,eh?

[Localonthe8s]

Some observation ,eh?

Heavy snow in Louisiana? Unheard of

[Zach]

Wow, just look at this observation out of Lakefront Airport!

[toxictwister00]

Jim has been taking a beating in NOLA during WUWA this morning. This might be the first time I've seen Jim dare I say.......exhausted out there?

The is the most bizarre, yet most interesting storm to track this season and even though apparently it has made a second landfall, I doubt it will be the last, most of the center is still in the Gulf S of LA! It's just sitting and spinning and as Dr. Knabb said himself not only do large storms take longer to organize, they take longer to wind down so Isaac ain't giving up without a good fight.

[gt1racerlHDl]

WS 4000 Emu Port Sulphur, LA AM Local Forecast 6/29/12

[toxictwister00]

I feel pretty bad for that Plaquemines Parish Pres. His house got damaged badly, he lost most of his roof, a back wall and flooding waters is rushing in because water has overflowed the levees and they're on the brink of being compromised. He said himself he thinks this is just as worse if not more worse than Katrina in that area.

[Eric]

At least Katrina wreaked its havoc and moved on.  Isaac is just sitting pretty much in one place and barely budging, not getting any weaker, and dropping tremendous amounts of rain on the same areas that have already gotten a lot, not to mention the continuous storm surge the coast is getting.

[phw115wvwx]

I have to rant as I'm hearing people and the media complaining that they were unprepared as it was only a tropical storm and later a Category 1 hurricane.  Apparently, they forgot that the categories only refer to wind as described in the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, which NHC posted on their website months ago.  Every tropical storm and hurricane is dangerous, which is why NHC issues warnings for all of them!  The hurricane watches and warnings were even extended 12 hours compared to previous seasons.  There are people trapped in areas that were under mandatory evacuations for the past two days.

Maybe Isaac will finally get the point across that you don't need a major hurricane like Katrina to cause extreme problems.  Because Isaac is a large cyclone and is being blocked by an upper-level ridge to the north, it's going to spin over LA for the next 24 hours while dumping tons of rain and pushing lots of water onshore.  It will finally move northward once the ridge clears to the east, but Isaac will continue to bring major flooding issues far inland.  I'm really glad all of you in this forum are far more intelligent and know what to do with dangerous weather conditions, but I'm really shocked at how poorly the general public doesn't understand or care.

[WeatherWitness]

I have to rant as I'm hearing people and the media complaining that they were unprepared as it was only a tropical storm and later a Category 1 hurricane.  Apparently, they forgot that the categories only refer to wind as described in the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, which NHC posted on their website months ago.  Every tropical storm and hurricane is dangerous, which is why NHC issues warnings for all of them!  The hurricane watches and warnings were even extended 12 hours compared to previous seasons.  There are people trapped in areas that were under mandatory evacuations for the past two days.

Maybe Isaac will finally get the point across that you don't need a major hurricane like Katrina to cause extreme problems.  Because Isaac is a large cyclone and is being blocked by an upper-level ridge to the north, it's going to spin over LA for the next 24 hours while dumping tons of rain and pushing lots of water onshore.  It will finally move northward once the ridge clears to the east, but Isaac will continue to bring major flooding issues far inland.  I'm really glad all of you in this forum are far more intelligent and know what to do with dangerous weather conditions, but I'm really shocked at how poorly the general public doesn't understand or care.

Thank you!   This is exactly what our meteorology professor was telling us yesterday.  A rating on the Saffir-Simpson scale almost means nothing as it just refers to wind speeds, and he said the NHC finally updated the storm to a hurricane just so people would act differently (because, as he mentioned, it's likely that people will take more precaution when they hear the word "hurricane" than when they hear the word "tropical storm.")  Yeah, at the time it was upgraded winds were probably at hurricane strength, but still.  The main problems of this thing are going to be flooding/storm surge, which can be more catastrophic than winds.

It just makes me wonder, and possibly others, if NHC should think of some other scale that assesses ALL aspects of a hurricane.  Is this even possible?