Rockland County, NY.
Tracks
Snowbound. Manhattan, Nov. 7, 2012.
Manhattan.
Huge and slow,Tropical Storm Isaac lumbered up through the Gulf of Mexico from Florida toward Louisiana and Mississippi on Monday, growing stronger by the hour and putting coastal residents on notice of an extremely wet and potentially destructive next few days.
The tracking forecasts reached a consensus by Monday night that the storm, which was a little over 200 miles southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River and on the verge of becoming a hurricane, would land overnight Tuesday somewhere around southeastern Louisiana as a Category 2 hurricane.
But Isaac has been fickle and confounded predictions all along, and its intensification is just beginning.
The most serious danger may not be from the 100-mile-per-hour winds, but by the enormous amount of water that the storm will be bringing with it and pushing in front of it. Officials encouraged those in low-lying areas to leave, warning of 12-foot storm surges along a broad swath of the coast and days of nonstop rainfall, in some places possibly adding up to 20 inches of water.
“A slow-moving, large system poses a lot of problems,” Rick Knapp, the director of the National Hurricane Center, said in a conference call with reporters, describing the risks as “life-threatening, potentially.”
Any discussion among Louisiana residents about whether to stay or go was running out of time. Tropical-storm-force winds were expected to arrive overnight, rendering a last-minute escape more dangerous than sticking around. Gov. Bobby Jindal urged people in low-lying areas and places outside of levee protection to leave for safer ground, but in any case to make up their minds quickly.
(Graphic via the Times)
CLOUD CITY From a jet plane 10,000 feet above, former NFL player Dhani Jones snapped this photo of a thunderstorm wracking New York City. Though it may look familiar, the National Weather Service says no tornadoes struck the area — “just earth-shaking thunder, a downpour that dumped 1.7 inches on Central Park within an hour, more than 500 lightning flashes every 15 minutes, and one-inch hailstones,” according to the New York Daily News. (Photo: Dhani Jones / Twitter via the Daily News)
Resident Don Sharpe, left, and Port Richey Fire Department Lt. Tim Sirois stood in Suncoast Gateway Mobile Village in Port Richey, Fla., Monday. They used rakes to clear storm drains after heavy rains and winds from Tropical Storm Debby hit the area. (Photo: Brendan Fitterer / Tampa Bay Times via Zuma Press / The Wall Street Journal)
(Source: The Wall Street Journal)
This is almost the exact moment New York’s heat wave broke and the thunderstorms began.
For Halloween, fall decided to go as winter.
OCCUPY COLD STREET A storm bearing strong winds and wet snow rolled into the Northeast on Saturday morning, snapping tree branches across New York City and threatening to drop up to a foot of damp powder in parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey and southern New England by early Sunday. Above, Occupy Wall Street demonstrators huddled under tents and umbrellas in New York. (Photo: Robert Stolarik / The New York Times)
Just called the cops for a second time — falling tree ripped down some cables and wasn’t sure which was which. Dispatcher asked if there was any “arcing” — sparks and fire, which there wasn’t. So it’s likely not the electric wires. She was abrupt and curt, understandable considering the dozens of calls she just handled before mine. But that was an hour ago — and I had to call again to be sure the town’s salt and sand trucks didn’t go running into those lines. Looks like it’s just cable, since I still have electric but no TV. (This is where my hotspot comes in handy. That’s what he said.) I hope the cops can at least put a traffic cones or cones down.
This is happening all over the lower Hudson Valley and in Bergen, adjoining counties too. Hope y’all stay safe.
Every minute or two, you hear a loud POP, like during the nights before the Fourth of July when folks prematurely (but intentionally) shoot off fireworks. It’s the sound, capricious and distant and near, of thick limbs and branches giving way to wet leaves, snow… and gravity.
Route 7 past the mall
Fuck.
BATTEN DOWN A weather satellite image, courtesy of the Japan Meteorological Agency, shows tropical cyclone Yasi in the Coral Sea approaching the coast of Australia. (Photo: JMA via Reuters / the Telegraph)
