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rapier
Joined: 16 Feb 2003
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Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2005 7:46 am Post subject: Hurricane Rita Hits: N.Orleans flooded again |
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After Katrina, came Rita. Prayers for Florida:
By MICHELLE SPITZER, Associated Press Writer
28 minutes ago
KEY WEST, Fla. - Rita strengthened into a growing hurricane on Tuesday as it lashed the Florida Keys with heavy rain and strong wind, threatening the island chain with a storm surge of up to 6 feet and sparking fears the storm could eventually bring new misery to the Gulf Coast.
Rita became a Category 1 hurricane with sustained top wind of 85 mph during the morning, said meteorologist Michelle Mainelli at the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
Thousands of residents and tourists had fled the low-lying Keys island chain, where forecasters said Rita could dump up to 8 inches of rain, down from earlier forecasts of up to 15 inches.
Rita promised to continue gaining strength as it crossed the warm Gulf of Mexico for a weekend landfall, most likely in Texas although Louisiana could end up in the path of what could become a major hurricane.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050920/ap_on_re_us/tropical_weather;_ylt=Av24RABEFmh6r55uMNL9YNqs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--
New Orleans jittery on Rita threat
2 hours, 14 minutes ago
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - New Orleans readied itself for a new evacuation on Tuesday amid fears that a new hurricane threatening to hit the Gulf of Mexico could wreak fresh havoc in the city devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
Mayor Ray Nagin, whose ambitious plans to bring residents home had been questioned by U.S. President George W. Bush, urged anyone remaining in the city to leave ahead of Hurricane Rita, which he warned could swamp the levees that collapsed and flooded the city three weeks ago.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/katrina_wrap_dc;_ylt=AqXT8etPv7k3alrxqv6lKY6s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--
Last edited by rapier on Fri Sep 23, 2005 8:24 am; edited 1 time in total |
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rapier
Joined: 16 Feb 2003
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rapier
Joined: 16 Feb 2003
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Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2005 8:43 pm Post subject: |
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Levees unlikely to hold if rita hits new orleans:
"There is deep concern about this storm causing more flooding in New Orleans. If it were to rain a lot, there is concern ... that the levees [flood defences] might break." - George Bush
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21092005/17/new-orleans-awaits-sister-katrina.html
Hurricane Rita Grows In Ferocity Wednesday September 21, 01:15 AM Hurricane Rita has increased in strength and is now a category two hurricane, packing winds of up to 100mph.
But a turn east could take it dangerously close to devastated city of New Orleans.
Rita was a tropical storm until Tuesday when it was upgraded to hurricane force.
Forecasters have warned Rita could grow to category three.
Authorities have ordered the evacuation of Key West and the rest of the Florida Keys.
They have also urged residents in low-lying areas around Miami to head to safer ground.
Rita's growing danger prompted the Mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, to stop the return of people to the city following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21092005/140/hurricane-rita-grows-ferocity.html |
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Tiger Beer

Joined: 07 Feb 2003
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Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2005 12:33 am Post subject: |
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I got the graph for it.. you can watch it coming in.. just refreshing this .gif.
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rapier
Joined: 16 Feb 2003
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RachaelRoo

Joined: 15 Jul 2005 Location: Anywhere but Ulsan!
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Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2005 8:23 am Post subject: |
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Category 4!! I'm not familiar with Hurricanes, other than what I've seen on CNN, but I'd be very interested in hearing from anyone who is - is this normal? I mean, it's not just a high number of hurricanes this year - it seems to me that they are unusually strong as well.
I sincerely hope that this one does not hit New Orleans. Not that I would wish this on anywhere else, but that city has just been through too much. |
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Tiger Beer

Joined: 07 Feb 2003
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Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2005 8:35 am Post subject: |
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RachaelRoo wrote: |
Category 4!! I'm not familiar with Hurricanes, other than what I've seen on CNN, but I'd be very interested in hearing from anyone who is - is this normal? I mean, it's not just a high number of hurricanes this year - it seems to me that they are unusually strong as well.
I sincerely hope that this one does not hit New Orleans. Not that I would wish this on anywhere else, but that city has just been through too much. |
Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans as a Category 4.
As far as hurricanes go, a Category 5 is as high as they go. |
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kermit_ojp

Joined: 11 Jun 2005
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rapier
Joined: 16 Feb 2003
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Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2005 8:05 pm Post subject: |
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Yeah, and at 175mph.
Forecasters said Rita could be the most intense hurricane on record ever to hit Texas, and easily one of the most powerful ever to plow into the U.S. mainland. Category 5 is the highest on the scale.
The U.S. mainland has never been hit by both a Category 4 and a Category 5 in the same season. Katrina, at one point became a Category 5 storm, weakened slightly to a Category 4 hurricane just before coming ashore.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050922/ap_on_re_us/rita
I don't think its anything to worry about though. It is forecast to lose momentum before landfall, and it is headed for places that have already been well evacuated. Katrina was disastrous because of the flooding- that is unlikely to happen again. If it swipes New orleans, there is nobody left there anyway and the damage has already been done.
Rita serves as an example of how they should've handled katrina.
Re: global warming & intensifying storms: warmer oceans are leading to much more destructive storm activity.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/krwashbureau/_wea_rita_intensify |
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hypnotist

Joined: 04 Dec 2004 Location: I wish I were a sock
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Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2005 8:36 pm Post subject: |
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And so my friend who moved from the UK to NoLa just to be evacuated to Houston is now being evacuated again... and I think my life is hard to organise! |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2005 10:10 pm Post subject: |
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I looked at this site trying to find a defense for the connection between global warming and the recent hurricanes, but I couldn't even find any mention of global warming. I'm not sure that global warming has anything to do with these disasters. |
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Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2005 10:22 pm Post subject: |
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Kuros wrote: |
I looked at this site trying to find a defense for the connection between global warming and the recent hurricanes, but I couldn't even find any mention of global warming. I'm not sure that global warming has anything to do with these disasters. |
Good point Kuros.
I think that global warming is probably a real issue and a threat to us (deforestation, industrial-related environmental damage, those who propose to mine Antarctica, etc.). On the other hand, there have clearly been natural disasters and patterns of extreme weather (take the ice ages, for exampe) for millions of years where "global warming" could have made no contribution. Yet they occurred.
I'm not sure that these hurricanes are sypmtoms of global warming either. |
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hypnotist

Joined: 04 Dec 2004 Location: I wish I were a sock
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rapier
Joined: 16 Feb 2003
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Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2005 11:26 pm Post subject: |
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Kuros wrote: |
I looked at this site trying to find a defense for the connection between global warming and the recent hurricanes, but I couldn't even find any mention of global warming. I'm not sure that global warming has anything to do with these disasters. |
Sorry, I was a little lazy with my comment there. What I should've pointed out is a few significant sentences in there:
1)That's because Rita and Katrina both(1) found the perfect hurricane fuel - ultra-deep, super-warm water - and then lingered there, storm researchers said.
1) the worlds oceans have warmed significantly over the past 40 years,
http://marine.rutgers.edu/cool/education/OCEAN24.htm
due to global warming:
Our results support climate modeling predictions that show increasing atmospheric greenhouse gases will have a relatively large warming influence on the Earth's atmosphere"
http://marine.rutgers.edu/cool/education/us-warming-oceans.html
2)The result: For the first time in one hurricane season, two Category 5 hurricanes powered across the Gulf of Mexico toward the U.S. coast.
Clearly, Hurricanes are increasing- along with new and unusual weather records worldwide. Due to Global warming.
"As global warming causes oceans to become warmer, and more moisture is held in the atmosphere, the intensity of hurricanes and the amount of rain they produce will likely increase, according to NCAR scientist Kevin Trenberth and others. There is strong evidence that global warming has been increasing the intensity of hurricanes for over the past few decades."
http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/earth/climate/hurricane_climate.html
3)"As Katrina passed over an eddy of the Loop Current in late August, (2)it should have cooled the water by about 5 degrees Fahrenheit. It didn't and that surprised scientists."
But it didn't surprise me:- as earlier this year the upwelling of cold deep currents failed for the first time in recorded history, in the N. Pacific. it eventually arrived, but about 2 months later than usual.
This shows that warm water is extending deeper than ever before, and even a hurricane is unable to cool it down now.
A dynamo, creating monster after monster, is now in place, thanks to man-induced global warming. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2005 11:59 pm Post subject: |
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I believe global warming is a phenomenon, but I am skeptical about how much people attribute to its power. Most of the evidence for this contention comes from one study made by Kerry Emanuel at MIT.
Live Science
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Before this study, most researchers believed global warming's contribution to powerful hurricanes was too slight to accurately measure. Most forecasts don't have climate change making a real difference in tropical storms until 2050 or later.
But some scientists questioned Emanuel's methods. For example, the MIT researcher did not consider wind speed information from some powerful storms in the 1950s and 1960s because the details of those storms are inconsistent.
Researchers are using new methods to analyze those storms and others going back as far as 1851. If early storms turn out to be more powerful than originally thought, Emmanuel's findings on global warming's influence on recent tropical storms might not hold up, they said.
"I'm not convinced that it's happening,'' said Christopher W. Landsea, another research meteorologist with NOAA, who works at a different lab, the Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory in Miami. Landsea is a director of the historical hurricane reanalysis.
"His conclusions are contingent on a very large bias removal that is large or larger than the global warming signal itself,'' Landsea said. |
Should a second study confirm it, I will be a little less suspicious. The rising temperature in the ocean is interesting, however. |
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