Hurricane Isabel becoming a monster...

Hurricane Camille was insanely large- that was a very interesting read. I've heard about that storm all my life, but never realized it was one of only three cat. 5 hurricanes to hit the US. I think I was getting it confused with Hurricane Carla, which was a big storm as well.


http://www.geocities.com/hurricanene/hurricanecamille.htm

As Camille marched toward the Mississippi coast in darkness, brick by brick, civilization from near Ansley to Biloxi, was erased. Homes, motels, apartments, restaurants, and other buildings were swept off their foundations, and deposited in mountains of rubble together with trees and automobiles. The local effect resembled an atomic bombing. Camille's 200 mph wind gusts and 25 foot storm surge, destroyed 100 years of growth and progress along the Mississippi coast in only three hours. Survivors near the eye reported a deafening roar of wind, that was by itself truly terrifying, often compared to speeding freight train. Although the damage in all of southern Mississippi was appalling, within about 1/2 mile from the ocean, most of the structures seemed to have just vanished. Only footings and slabs remained. Even plumbing systems had been removed. (W.Guice 1970).

 

Downgraded to a Cat. 4 with 150 mph winds, but it's better organized and still moving west at 10 mph.

Cool pic:
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories/images/isabel091303-1545z2.jpg

 

Sept. 13, 2003 — The NOAA National Hurricane Center in Miami, Fla., reports that recent reports from NOAA and Air Force Reserve hurricane hunter aircraft indicate flight-level winds of 180 mph and 182 mph respectively. Also, dropsonde wind reports indicate winds of 192 mph just a few hundred feet above the surface. Based on this information, the intensity of Hurricane Isabel is being increased to 160 mph as of 2 p.m. EDT. This makes Isabel a Category 5 hurricane again. At 11 a.m. EDT, the center of Hurricane Isabel was located near latitude 22.2 north, longitude 61.5 west or about 405 miles northeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Isabel is moving toward the west near 10 mph, and this general motion is expected to continue for the next 24 hours.

Looks just like Hurricane Andrew tight and compact.
More pics:
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories/images/isabel091303-1545zc2.jpg

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories/images/isabel091303-1545zb2.jpg

For comparison Hurricane Andrew:
http://www.noaa.gov/images/hurr-andrew-082492.jpg

 

Looks like all the forecasting has been spot on so far, I have a feeling this storm is going to weaken significantly before it hits the east coast.

Hurricane Isabel Sets Course for N.Carolina Coast
By Jim Loney

MIAMI (Reuters) - Residents of North Carolina's vulnerable Outer Banks cast a wary eye seaward on Monday as powerful Hurricane Isabel whirled through the Atlantic with its sights on Cape Hatteras and the Chesapeake Bay region.

Still one of the Atlantic's most powerful hurricanes in recent memory, Isabel weakened only slightly to winds of 140 mph and slowed in forward speed on a path that could see it hit land around Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, on Thursday.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center (news - web sites)'s five-day forecast, which has a large margin of error, had the storm moving onshore near Cape Hatteras and then northward along the Chesapeake near Washington D.C., through Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania.
"Right now the forecast is very uncertain. It looks like it's going to hit somewhere in that Outer Banks area," hurricane center meteorologist Ken Haydu said. "But we're still looking four days ahead and our confidence starts to wane a little bit at that point."

Residents of the tiny Outer Banks islands began hurricane preparations as emergency managers met to discuss whether to evacuate, a process that takes a long time in an island chain full of vacation homes linked the mainland only by narrow roads and ferries.

"We have made a lot of preparations. We've got to get everything lashed down, picked up and put away. We started doing that yesterday," said Bob Sebrell, reached by telephone at his Tradewinds tackle shop in Ocracoke. "Checked the generator out, made sure it fired up. "But today, we've got a number of customers who are still fishing. It's a nice, sunny, calm day today." No evacuation orders were in effect yet in North Carolina, the state's emergency management office said.

NAVY MAY MOVE SHIPS TO SEA
The Navy and Air Force were watching the storm closely but said at midday on Monday that no decisions had yet been made to move warships and aircraft away from bases along the central eastern coast in Isabel's potential path.

"Typically, the ships will move out to sea away from the hurricane, circle around the back side and then come in behind it," said Ted Brown, an Atlantic Fleet spokesman at Atlantic Fleet headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia. About 70 ships, from the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (news - web sites) to cruisers and destroyers, could be moved to sea to ride out a blow that might slam them against docks. Isabel's sustained winds, which have fluctuated as it moves through the open Atlantic, were at 140 mph, putting it at Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity. Such a storm is capable of tearing roofs off houses and can raise tides 13-18 feet above normal.