Looks like Old Mexico is going to get the schnitz (with Cancun turned into Rangoon), tomorrow through Thursday. Hopefully, after crossing the Yucatan’s jungled, hilly waist, however, Dean will be a shadow of its former self. At least the cenotes will get recharged.
Comments Off on Dean’s course
Posted in South of the Border, Weather/Climate
Tagged Hurricane Dean, Old Mexico, Yucatan Penninsula
The road to the docks was covered by rising water yesterday at Anderson Mill Marina. I had to turn around on the steep hill descending to the road, in order to retreat. I noticed half a dozen cars and trucks parked on the hill, as if their owners had come early to taken their boats out before the water came up. They would be be in for a surprise, I thought, when they came back and found the water had risen to block their retreat. But I see now that it didn’t. In fact, it has fallen a little, by this morning, to 686.43 feet msl. Mr. B. and I might be able to sail, after all, in this last week before school resumes– if Hurricane Dean stays well south of Texas. So far it looks like it will.
Comments Off on Lake Travis declining
Posted in Mr. Boy, Rancho Roly Poly, Sailing, Weather/Climate
Accuweather’s Joe Bastardi, as usual, has some out-of-the-box thinking on hurricanes, such as the saving grace of the high peaks of the Hispaniola mountain ranges:
"I can remember my [meteorologist] dad saying to me ‘[D]o you realize how much worse things would be for the southeast United States if there was no Hispaniola?’…as big as Flora [1963] was it never got its core back, nor did Inez in 1966 until it was out in the gulf and even then it never got back to what it was before Hispaniola…In 1998, Georges did battle with the island and because of that, was not the storm it could have been. And in 2005 Jeanne got tangled up there for a while."
The mountains, guarding part of the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico, have skimmed the intensity of more than one big hurricane. Unfortunately, those peaks only tugged on Hurricane Dean as it passed well to the south instead of trying to cross them.
All eyes are still on Dean, as it gets ready to clobber Jamaica tomorrow. Inevitably, someone has put up a page of nothing but hurricane and Gulf of Mexico graphics (some of them in motion) to facilitate the Dean watchers. Stare at them long and hard. Repeat after me: "Dean will stay away from the Texas coast. He will stay away from the Texas coast."
UPDATE: Be a voyeur. Read the "Pleas for Help" bulletin board at stormCARIB, the Caribbean Hurricane Network. Be glad you’re not there.
Comments Off on Dean-o
Posted in Science/Engineering, South of the Border, Texana, Weather/Climate
Tagged Hurricane Dean, hurricane graphics
Lake Travis is getting an unfortunate boost from heavy Hill Country rains (12 inches in 24 hours along the Pedernales River which feeds the lake) generated by the remnants of Tropical Storm Erin. The LCRA is forecasting the lake to rise to 690 feet msl by Monday–and higher if we get more rain by then–which is about four feet too high for the dock extension to shore at Anderson Mill Marina. Six ninety is one foot below the height that the Army Corps of Engineers allows flood gates to be opened on Mansfield Dam to quickly lower the lake. Once again, lake levels are taking the family sloop out of our reach. At least we got the rerigging done. Too bad we can’t use it. What a year!
UPDATE This morning, they revised the peak rise to just 688 feet msl by Sunday afternoon, still two feet too high for the docks at the marina. Also three feet below where they’d open flood gates, though they are running the hydrogeneration gates which lets some water out. So the 688 will linger awhile. Then, we’ll see if Hurricane Dean sends us a lot more rain to raise it still higher.
Comments Off on Up she rises
Posted in Sailing, Texana, Weather/Climate
Tagged Anderson Mill Marina, Catalina 22, Lake Travis
This sucker doesn’t compress well, but it shows something hopeful for Texas. Namely that the models like Hurricane Dean going into Mexico instead of the Texas coast. Crossing the Yucatan should slow it down a lot, and if it doesn’t get stalled when it comes out, it could be a minimal storm after that. Link via Fresh Bilge where Alan has more.
UPDATE LCRA’s Bob Rose doesn’t see Texas getting off easy at all, and notes that the Hurricane Center now sees Dean only clipping the northern Yucatan, which would hardly slow it down, and a low pressure area moving toward Texas could pull it farther north: "…Dean will be a large storm upon landfall and could threaten much of the Texas [coast?] with high winds and torrential rain even if it makes landfall along the lower coast."
MORE I do like this note of Accuweather’s Joe Bastardi: "Here is what the weather over the past has done… Through the Yucatan channel, most major storms hit the US. Through the Yucatan from east to west, they dont."
Comments Off on Mean Dean
Posted in Weather/Climate
Tagged Colorado State University, Fresh Bilge, Hurricane Dean
Dean looks like another story. Hopefully, it will hit Mexico. Terrible to hope someone else gets the grief, but there it is. Down at Port A we watched the precursor storms of Erin gather strength on Monday and Tuesday, and weathered the Weather Channel’s exaggerations, wishing all the while we had a laptop so we could be checking the Web for the detail the talking heads seldom got around to. Long on coiffed beauty and emotion and short on everything else. But when Erin arrived Thursday morning, we got about five inches of rain which mostly was gathered up by the sand. A little ponding on the roads. Nothing special. The waves were steeper–if still short–than usual, and the backwash was a little frightening, such that neither Mr. B. nor the teenage boogie boarders ventured too far into the surf. It was actually sunny by noon on Thursday, a few hours after Erin had swept ashore and fallen apart. Back here in Austin, the rancho got almost an inch of new rain from Erin’s northward careering remnants. Dean, well, it’s been Biblical in the Caribbean, so stay tuned.
UPDATE Well, Erin was a pussycat on the coast, but not in West Texas where it caused floods that killed and is doing the same thing now in Oklahoma, of all places. Almost a week later!
Comments Off on Erin was a pussycat
Posted in South of the Border, Texana, Weather/Climate
Tagged Caribbean, Dean, Erin, Port Aransas
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 
