Hurricane!

Every area of the country has its pluses and minuses. Californians have to deal with earthquakes, draughts, mudslides and wildfires. The central part of the country is called “tornado alley.” The northeast gets winter weather and the occasional “snowpocalypse.” Here on the gulf coast we get hurricanes.

The good thing, if there is one about hurricanes is that we usually know well in advance that they're coming. The various weather forecasting services have gotten fairly good in predicting where these storms are going and how strong they're going to be.

Right this very minute as I type this, the gulf coast is bracing for the arrival of Hurricane Michael. The center of the storm should happen somewhere near Panama City Beach, Florida (the red dot in the picture above), perhaps just to the east. 

Currently Michael is a Category 4 storm with sustained winds of 150 mph. Thankfully, that wind velocity doesn't usually extend out very far from the eye – 30 to 40 miles or so. As you move further from the eye, the wind diminishes. But still, even if you “only” see 100 mph winds, that can do some damage.

The threat from hurricanes is threefold.  First is the wind, with its attendant damage to roofs, trees and powerlines, etc.  Ahead of arrival of the eyewall, such high winds also push water ashore, generating devastating storm-surges along coastal zones. Finally, heavy rain bands can cause flash-flooding.

Big storms (e.g. tropical storms and hurricanes) have a counter-clockwise rotation. This means that when the storm is out over open water, the worst weather will be on the east and northeast side. When the storm hits the coast, the best place to be is on the west side. There, people will see winds out of the north and much less precipitation. So when we're watching the storm track on the Weather Channel, etc., we hope and pray that it will go off to our east. Such was the case when Hurricane Michael began seriously strengthening south of Cuba a couple of days ago.

Most of the time, big storms will bend around and track to the northeast. That's just the way the atmosphere works at these latitudes. But not always! You may remember a little event called Hurricane Katrina back in 2005. It crossed south Florida and came into the Gulf of Mexico, tracking mostly to the northwest before finally bending straight northward and into New Orleans. It didn't start heading to the northeast until it was well to the north of Lake Ponchartrain. And even though New Orleans got most of the publicity because of the direct hit of the storm, the real impact and effects occurred along the Mississippi Gulf Coast where the destruction was simply devastating. Sadly, this area got proportionately little news coverage.

In the case of this Hurricane Michael, the satellite and radar images broadcast on the media certainly looked terrible for the last couple of days. It would be easy to assume that the weather within that whole storm was uniformly bad. Not so.

Seeing this and being concerned for my safety, my sister Elizabeth in New York contacted me this morning. She simply could not believe that my weather in Pensacola was so benign. But all morning long, and approaching noon as I write this, we've had very little rain and virtually no wind. However, it is quite a different story just 80 miles to my southeast. In fact, when I pulled up the straight-line distance on one of my aviation apps, I was surprised to see that the distance was so short considering the drastic difference between our weather and theirs. But such is the nature of these storms. I would hate to be 80 miles east of Panama City right now.

The thing is, we here in Florida have gotten good at dealing with storms like this. A local television news reporter mentioned this morning that there were 600 trucks from various power companies all over the country, staged here in Pensacola, ready to spring into action once the storm passes, to get power restored as quickly as possible. The tractor-trailers with water and other supplies are also staged nearby and ready. Presumably (and hopefully!) they won't be needed here in this area.

The good news is that Hurricane Michael will pass through the area quickly. The bad news is that the effects of the storm will be drastic and long-lasting, especially in Panama City and to the east. The good news is that, east of Panama City, not many people live there. With the exception of Tallahassee which is fairly well inland, the gulf coast in that area is pretty swampy and sparsely populated. The bad news is that my friend Terry and I had planned a motorcycle trip down through that area soon – which will undoubtedly need to be rescheduled indefinitely.

But even with the occasional hurricane, I still prefer living here on the Gulf Coast.