2022 North Atlantic Hurricane season

Tropical Storm Fiona is centered southeast of Puerto Rico:



At 7:14 PM Saturday their time. The entire island will probably get 5 cm rain, with high elevations >15. Then Dominican Republic, then start recurving over Atl Ocean. Looks like not much in Haiti which is good because they have weak infrastructure.Off shore for FL and so on. May eat some surfers there.

 

Now-Hurricane Fiona has stayed south of friction mountains of Puerto Rico. How soon it turns north seems less sure than models assert. Haiti might get more action from this than we were hoping.

It is still raining a lot across Puerto Rico, and electricity is not being supplied. Island leaders say that fix will be quick this time; let us hope it will be.

 

Rain seems to finally have stopped in PR. This was a good setup for very large rainfall totals across the island.

It will be among the large events recorded in offshore sediments, possibly to be 'cored' by future researchers. I have mentioned sediment-core records before. Seems worth mentioning that events detected are not exactly hurricane intensity. They are rainfall amount and intensity in an interesting combination.

H. Fiona is forecast to become much stronger by the time it reaches Nova Scotia or thereabouts. But first, Bermuda. Not Boston this time.

 

Arrival in Nova Scotia may be the strongest weather event up there in a long time. Fall foliage viewing Friday only. After that it's downed trees for firewood collection season.

 

H. Fiona's center of circulation is now tracking more eastward. Through easternmost Cape Breton, part of Nova Scotia. This is not a small difference ... if I may explain

On eastern side of these spinners, wind speeds are increased by along-track speeds. On western side they are equally diminished. Our Fiona is moving fast. All of Nova Scotia thus now presents itself to diminished wind speeds. Those are still enough to remove leaves from trees, and do other damage. But overall wind-energy damage should be less. Yay.

Total rainfall and coastal storm surge will still be large. Sydney (major city on Cape Breton, part of Nova Scotia) will still get whacked. But a small change in track (compared to earlier models) looks very helpful.

==
Meanwhile not distracted, we see TS. Ian forming up, and intending to do very typical things to Florida's west side.

 

Carib-Ian has an excellent underlying energy source:

https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/ocean/ohc/images/ohc_naQG3_ddc.gif

There seems to be a disagreement among models for Ian's path (recurving east across central Fl, or right at Pensacola) and NHC favors an intermediate path for now.

 

The center of H. Ian made landfall around Punta Gorda which is far south of Tampa. So, quite until landfall, track was still difficult to predict. This means that evacuations and storm prep may not have reached far enough south. Find out later.

FL is not tall but it is wide enough to weaken this a lot. It entered as category 4 and will exit east side as cat 1. It seems. So the area of wind damage will get narrower from westside to eastside. Area of heavy rain is much wider than the wind zone though.

Exit will be south of Titusville; maybe as far south as Melbourne. Models still show second landfall in SC. It would be nice if they get that wrong and Ian stays offshore. We'll see.

Forward motion is slow about 8 mph (other units on request). This means that the 'right' side will not have much stronger winds than 'left' side. Fiona was an example of fast motion. Slower storms like Ian have more contact time. That is their super power.

 

Storm surge on west coast looks like the thing doer this time.

Most lightning is offshore east along outer rain bands. Not a pattern I've seen before

https://www.blitzortung.org/en/live_lightning_maps.php?map=32

 

We now have indications that H. Ian in FL has done more damage than H. Andrew 1992 there. But less than 2005 H. Katrina which will for now remain our benchmark for bad-thing-doing against US interests. With 2017 H. Maria in PR being treated differently; not quite AMERICA.

Were a race afoot, I'd guess that FL will restore full electrical service before PR in this most recent recovery.

There are places in W coast of FL that have been wiped. I get it that immobile residences are immobile, but why in the H did so many boats remain tied to piers and destroyed, when enough days of warning should have led boat owners to move their valuable properties northwest. ???

This is not first example of such a 'whoops'. Every time, the insurance industry pays loss claims.

Maybe we actually can begin to understand loss risks in hurricane-exposed places. Maybe that will lead to more sensible insurance pricing. But maybe not. eh? Maybe I can just leave my effing boat in harms way, and an industry behind me will externalize costs from my my errors on to their other clients.

 

I appreciate that effort to cover for boat owners in areas where big trouble was expected days in advance. I had not thought about boat trailers for saving, but yes, that could have been done in many cases. Sailing away surely would require fuel and staff. If those are things boat owners lack, I'd wonder why they bought those things in the first place. Are boats not for sailing?

Possible lack of harbor elsewhere is an interesting thought. It excludes the idea that boats have anchors and can simply park offshore for a few days before returning home. But returning to what eh? A lot of owned moorings on west FL coast have been wiped. But you'd still have an undamaged floater and with option to decide what to do with it. Instead of having been 'totaled' onshore by the local storm surge.

Not being able to escape reminds me of personal evacuations. Meaning I can't just 'go' because others would have got to hotel before me and taken all available rooms. Does it seem like that to any other readers?