Author Topic: Hurricane IRMA  (Read 28011 times)

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Offline Jstx

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Re: Hurricane IRMA
« Reply #150 on: September 10, 2017, 07:31:14 PM »
Looks like she's inland for a while so the weakening trend will continue.
Latest wind forecast still calls for 50-60 in my area but I gotta believe that's pretty generous.
Sometime around 5 or 6 tomorrow morning should be the height of the storm for me.
Might be able to get through this without losing power.
Still have the threat of tornadoes though.
Yeow! Lookout, the TW's are popping up all over, upwind of Ocala.
The Key West radar is kaput too.
Typical of land falling tropical systems. Fortunately they're almost always EF0's and 1's.
I was wondering if Key West radar would survive, the eye passed over or very close to it. Couldn't stay awake last night long enough to see.

The Key West radar didn't go down until quite a while after the eye passed, eye was almost to Marco I./Naples; so WTH, guess it caught something on the backside of Irma. The page normally has a "status" link to see a note about the condition, but it didn't appear on my KW radar screen window.

Offline BeaverMeadow

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Re: Hurricane IRMA
« Reply #151 on: September 10, 2017, 07:38:48 PM »
Observed sea levels at Naples Fl. It looks like the storm surge has peaked for that city:

https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/waterlevels.html?id=8725110

Offline Intheswamp

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Re: Hurricane IRMA
« Reply #152 on: September 11, 2017, 10:58:07 AM »
Winds speeds here in south central Alabama have slowly been increasing over the last two hours....from 6mph to 9mph...gusts have increased from 8mph to 20mph.  Predictions are for winds of around 35mph later today with gusts slightly higher.  Thankfully, Irma has had a lot of the wind knocked out of her...gonna be a wet, soggy and windy day for the rest of the southeast.   Looks like Georgia will get a good bit more rain than we will get here in 'Bama.   Best wishes to everybody down south that caught the worst of it and for those still getting strong tropical storm winds, hopefully things will get back to normal quickly.  Folks in Georgia, be careful of high water areas and possibly limbs an powerlines down.

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Offline rdsman

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Re: Hurricane IRMA
« Reply #153 on: September 11, 2017, 12:19:54 PM »
Ed:

I'm northeast of you in Phenix City.  Plenty of rain here!  The worst of it is still on the way.....

Ray

Offline Glenn

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Re: Hurricane IRMA
« Reply #154 on: September 11, 2017, 01:04:48 PM »
Hang in there guys. Hope all goes well in your areas.

It was certainly good news that the storm lost a lot of steam down in FLA. It really looked like it was going to be a lost worse than it actually was.
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Offline Intheswamp

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Re: Hurricane IRMA
« Reply #155 on: September 11, 2017, 02:19:40 PM »
rdsman, I've got a sister over in Columbus that I've been keeping trying to keep updated so much similar weather as to what you're having and will have.  It looks like the rain down here as "set in" for a spell.  I've gotta check on three locations and then back to the house to dry out.  I've been watching the weather trends on my website ( http://www.beeweather.com/wxtrends.php ) and for the last 2 hours the wind has stabilized at around 10mph.  Barometer is dropping slowly...29.707 down to 29.64 in the last two hours.  Getting a steady, light rain...0.35" per hour rate.  Should increase a bit later on.

Glenn, yes, a good thing the storm has weakened.  Looks like Jacksonville got caught by surprise with the flooding that they're getting.  Saw some spots in far south Florida, Naples area, a little from Key West, etc.,....looks like a lot of people got hit pretty hard, but could've been worse overall. 

We're hanging tight, but shouldn't be too bad (hopefully) in my area...

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Offline forecasterjack

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Re: Hurricane IRMA
« Reply #156 on: September 11, 2017, 04:50:23 PM »
Irma is slowly dying this evening. It's a beautiful sight to watch on GOES-16. Crazy to see the storm's cloud shield spreading from Mobile to Boston! Link to the satellite loop: https://blog.weather.us/irma-continues-north-through-georgia-will-dissipate-tomorrow/

Offline Intheswamp

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Re: Hurricane IRMA
« Reply #157 on: September 11, 2017, 11:40:16 PM »
Sheesh.  The wife and I were leaving to go pick up our youngest granddaughter.  I got in the car and glanced back towards the house.  What do I see?  A blasted 12" diameter pecan tree laying against the roof and service drop.<sigh>  Cut the rootball off and let it flop back down and sectioned the rest until it dropped from the wire.  A little damage to the edge of the metal roof, but we still have power.  Oh well,...

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Offline Glenn

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Re: Hurricane IRMA
« Reply #158 on: September 12, 2017, 08:04:31 AM »
It certainly did cause some destruction on Northern FLA and when it left the state. Some serious flooding in areas outside of FLA.
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Offline Jasiu

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Re: Hurricane IRMA
« Reply #159 on: September 12, 2017, 08:51:31 AM »
Regarding underground electricity wires... Just saw a report from Miami where a neighborhood lost power because the roots from the toppled trees ripped up the underground wires there.  So while it would help in many (most?) situations, it isn't foolproof.

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Offline hankster

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Re: Hurricane IRMA
« Reply #160 on: September 13, 2017, 07:35:05 AM »
House survived as did my weather station. Just a little damage on my house but others in the neighborhood didn't far as well. I have no power so can't extract data from the logger. Should be interesting to see what it holds since the eye passed maybe 30 miles away at most. Will post info once I'm able to get the data.

Offline WeatherHost

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Re: Hurricane IRMA
« Reply #161 on: September 13, 2017, 09:02:48 AM »
Regarding underground electricity wires... Just saw a report from Miami where a neighborhood lost power because the roots from the toppled trees ripped up the underground wires there.  So while it would help in many (most?) situations, it isn't foolproof.



And EACH outage of that type would be more expensive and time consuming to fix. 

Offline Jstx

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Re: Hurricane IRMA
« Reply #162 on: September 13, 2017, 03:57:55 PM »
Regarding underground electricity wires... Just saw a report from Miami where a neighborhood lost power because the roots from the toppled trees ripped up the underground wires there.  So while it would help in many (most?) situations, it isn't foolproof.



And EACH outage of that type would be more expensive and time consuming to fix.
Airborne/strung wires are VERY EASY to 'see' where the problems are; buried wires are NOT easy to 'see' and require special electrical "bridge" meters & equipment to "guess" where problems (shorts, opens, cross-connections) are located underground.

The telephone companies have always had very sensitive test equipment for locating almost all line and cable faults. From inside the central offices (CO's), local test desks (LTD's), remote TD's, and of course devices used by outside plant crews.
A full set of line tests are run on every originating and terminating telephone call for most possible line faults, completely transparent to the caller/callee. Mobile calls too, but far different types of tests.
Certain 'hard' faults will result in not completing the call, but other, more minor faults will just result in an internal report, and may or may not be noticed by the customer.
The CO's have both various manual test panels, and automated ones (ALIT). Old style bridge test circuits and newer forms of TDR's are used.
Even as the switches have almost all become digital, such devices are still needed for copper cables inside or out (whether telco or cable company). A different suite of similar tools are used for fiber optic and co-ax of course, but many of the same principles are used.

Many different types of TDR (time domain reflectometer) are used (have one in my workshop). They are even used with microwave waveguide.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-domain_reflectometer
The power companies also use similar equipment to locate faults.
They all can work on active cable and lines.

Of course, like all tech stuff, success depends on the skill of those using it.
The equipment will locate the fault, and it's distance, pretty accurately, but some factors can throw that off a little. No "guessing" involved, if there is a question before digging, some other test equipment can pinpoint the location.

Offline hankster

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Re: Hurricane IRMA
« Reply #163 on: September 13, 2017, 06:39:59 PM »
I was able to extract data but some bad news. It appears there was some water egress and the ISS stopped reporting. It started again about 20 hours later but now the anemometer and wind direction is no longer reporting correctly. Only getting 1-5mph readings since it came back online. What I did see is that was a we had a 70mph gust before it stopped reporting.

Offline ocala

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Re: Hurricane IRMA
« Reply #164 on: September 13, 2017, 07:18:49 PM »
House survived as did my weather station. Just a little damage on my house but others in the neighborhood didn't far as well. I have no power so can't extract data from the logger. Should be interesting to see what it holds since the eye passed maybe 30 miles away at most. Will post info once I'm able to get the data.
Great to hear that the house wasn't damaged too bad.
Too bad about the weather data though. That sucks.
Only had a 35 mph gust here but I'm surrounded by trees so I didn't expect much more. Although I know they were higher. Leesburg Airport to my SE had a gust to 69.
Lowest pressure  at my station was 28.95.
All in all a pretty good storm. I woke up about 1:30 Monday morning and it was a pretty good show. Power went out about 4:30, just came back on last night. No real damage other then 1 big tree down and a crap load of branches and limbs.
Still many people without power up here. I'm one of the fortunate ones.
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Offline WeatherHost

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Re: Hurricane IRMA
« Reply #165 on: September 13, 2017, 07:24:00 PM »
No "guessing" involved, if there is a question before digging, some other test equipment can pinpoint the location.

But there's still digging.  If 1,000 feet of wire is down or torn up but fallen or uprooted trees, which is going to get service restored first:

A boom truck stringing cable between poles and making splices in air.

A backhoe that has to dig up every foot, watching for anything else buried, then having to fill the trench back in.

-----------

I know the concept is that buried cables are less prone to damage and the need for repair or replacement.  But that simply isn't reality.  In severe weather, the argument can be made that less buried cable will be damaged than overhead cable.  However, every foot that is damaged will take longer to find and restore to service.


Offline hankster

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Re: Hurricane IRMA
« Reply #166 on: September 13, 2017, 10:06:07 PM »
Lowest pressure  at my station was 28.95.

Mine was 28.705 and dropping when it stopped reporting.

Offline Intheswamp

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Re: Hurricane IRMA
« Reply #167 on: September 14, 2017, 09:00:48 AM »
95 miles inland, north of Destin, Florida, our high gust was 35mph with 1.45" of rain.

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Offline Stratocaster

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Re: Hurricane IRMA
« Reply #168 on: September 14, 2017, 09:43:33 AM »
Here in Nassau, Bahamas, it was almost a non-event. Peak winds of 35 mph, 0.7" of rain.
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Offline hankster

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Re: Hurricane IRMA
« Reply #169 on: September 14, 2017, 03:52:39 PM »
I have a correction. Just looked at WU and I see the figures are a bit different than what I seen in my WD logs, but I might have missed that since I was pretty whipped from all the travel when I looked at them. WU shows an 84 MPH wind gust at 6:14 when the anemometer stopped reporting and and 28.11 barometer at 7:00pm. Rain was 5.11" but I'm sure sure that isn't correct. With the wind speed and the shaking of the pole mount in those winds it could be just about anything. Didn't start saving data again until 8am the next morning.

I'll have to take a closer look at the log files when I get a chance.
« Last Edit: September 14, 2017, 03:54:22 PM by hankster »

Offline ocala

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Re: Hurricane IRMA
« Reply #170 on: September 14, 2017, 04:41:13 PM »
No "guessing" involved, if there is a question before digging, some other test equipment can pinpoint the location.

But there's still digging.  If 1,000 feet of wire is down or torn up but fallen or uprooted trees, which is going to get service restored first:

A boom truck stringing cable between poles and making splices in air.

A backhoe that has to dig up every foot, watching for anything else buried, then having to fill the trench back in.

-----------

I know the concept is that buried cables are less prone to damage and the need for repair or replacement.  But that simply isn't reality.  In severe weather, the argument can be made that less buried cable will be damaged than overhead cable.  However, every foot that is damaged will take longer to find and restore to service.
Just guessing here but I assume when they bury cables they would bury them pretty deep to avoid the above scenario. Short of a long tap root from a pine tree most roots don't run that deep. Also, again just guessing here, I would think that they would be a good distance from said trees.
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Offline Intheswamp

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Re: Hurricane IRMA
« Reply #171 on: September 18, 2017, 08:24:59 AM »
Several years ago the telco went through the procedure of burying drops going to peoples houses.  Living in a rural area we were familiar with a couple of overhead wires coming to our house.  Well, when the dug a trench up through my yard that left a nasty scar...I wasn't overjoyed.  Then, about a year or two later they decided that wire wasn't good enough (phone service was fine) so they trenched another one in through my yard.  Again, I'm not a happy camper.  Well, a couple more years later and they *again* decided they needed to bury a new wire coming to the house.  I told them they could bury one but not through my yard, they could move just over the fence into the pasture that was right beside my driveway.  I told them the pasture might one day be plowed or otherwise disturbed and they assured me that they would put it deep enough to circumvent that issue.  They wanted the lines underground for wind and lightning damage prevention.  They also, at that time, changed my phone box from one side of the house to the other to be able to ground it to the house ground.  So, after burying the wire through the pasture what do they do?  They run it up the lightpole sitting about 50' from my house and run it over head to the new interface box.  :-|  Anyhow, to get to the point...so far we haven't had any issues with the buried cable coming to the house through the pasture.  We just had a major brush clearing done that pushed up that old fence (and associated privet hedge) and had a small turn-out bladed across the wire path close to the short metal pole that is close to the highway and we had no issues with the cable.  No problems with the buried cable.  I figure most of them are probably 3' deep or more.  Speaking of tree roots, though, I may find out one day...I've got several aging pecan trees and a few oaks lining that old fence that if they get blown over just might be close enough to the cable to create an issue.  I would imagine, though, that main supply lines running beside the highway would indeed be clear of trees for an appreciable distance.  The power company requires a ROW for buried cable...I'm just not sure if it's a wide as for overhead lines.  I discussed running power down to a spot in the swamp several years ago with the power company.  They would have ran it down the middle of the small road going down there...the road is 10' wide *between* pine trees so in some places that would only leave 5' either side of the cable before they ran into an actual tree *trunk*...they said they could do it.  But, that's not a main line servicing multiple neighborhoods. 

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Offline Intheswamp

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Re: Hurricane IRMA
« Reply #172 on: September 18, 2017, 08:26:52 AM »
Btw, as I stated earlier, we got 1.45" of rain from Irma.  This past Saturday, when we had a small amount of rain predicted (maybe .25"?) we got 2.03".  Go figure, eh?  #-o

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Offline rdsman

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Re: Hurricane IRMA
« Reply #173 on: September 18, 2017, 10:23:08 AM »
I was in the direct path of Irma until if fizzled out just a few miles southeast of me.  While it seemed that it rained here for at least 24 hours, I only measured 2.11 inches of rain.  Perhaps due to the fact that the rain was blowing sideways for the majority of the time.  Maybe I needed an "elbow" to divert the rain?

Intheswamp:

How did your sister make out?
Ray

Offline Intheswamp

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Re: Hurricane IRMA
« Reply #174 on: September 18, 2017, 05:12:42 PM »
She managed to make it to Panera Bread so she was happy.<grin>  Lots of rain and a some wind for her...probably more rain than I got.

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