Damn I just woke up to this. I am actually in one of these mandatory evacuation zones. I live in Surfside. Don't think we will do an all out evacuation though and just move back to the house we are almost/essentially done renovating that is located in the county between Richwood and Angelton. Now I gotta get started on boarding up our house and our two other rentals down the road along with everything else we have to do before we leave. Damn its going to be a long day.
we still don't know. we'll know for sure after it makes landfall. http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/hurricanes/ike/ Hurricane Ike: Still in watch-and-wait mode. Little has changed overnight with Hurricane Ike, which now has 85 mph sustained winds. The storm has begun to organize, and it may soon undergo rapid intensification. That's because the storm's forecast track will soon bring it over the deepest pool of warm and potentially explosive water in the Gulf of Mexico. This feature is captured by a statistic called tropical cyclone heat potential, a measurement of the heat content of the upper ocean which feeds a hurricane. The following map shows that Ike will pass over the most favorable waters between now and late tomorrow night. Any value of 80 or above in TCHP favors rapid intensification if other atmospheric factors, such as wind shear, support strengthening It is these waters that will play a significant role in whether Ike blooms back into a major hurricane, as presently forecast. As for the track forecast, little has changed as well. Most of the morning models (7:30 a.m.) still bring the storm in somewhere between Corpus Christi and Matagorda Bay For Texas' major coastal cities, Houston and Corpus Christi, that's still far too close for comfort. Even a moderate jog northward, say 50 miles, by the model consensus would bring the storm's worst effects to the Houston and Galveston areas. And a slight jog southward would put Corpus Christi in the midst of the storm's strongest, northeast quadrant at landfall. Unfortunately, as I'll show a bit later this morning with a discussion of three-day forecast accuracy, such errors are well within the realm of possibility. They're the norm, actually. This presents a nightmare scenario to emergency managers as we really won't have a better handle on Ike's intensity at landfall until tomorrow night, and the track forecast could remain up in the air until the same time. All of Texas need take heed of Ike, especially residents from Corpus Christi to Houston.
Right now, in the last 24 hours it looks to be headed at Louisiana....but they expect it to go more Westward....soon. Longhorn...nothing official yet but they are monitoring it...I would expect them to wait at least until tomorrow. DD
if thats' the case...is the high steering it at all?? shouldn't it already be moving west given the forecasts and tracks??
I think evacuations will become a regular and accepted precaution from now on. People anywhere on the Gulf coast can expect to move at least once a year.
That is what I am wondering, because they show the High, but the last 24 hours it has jogged significantly North.... I am no weather expert but they could be underestimating the High pressure and it's effect.... Or, they may be right and this is just a minor shift and as it gathers strenth it will head more westward. FATTY....that is a little funny. DD
Reading again through Masters' blog...he indicates NNW until Wednesday (today) when the high starts pushing it further west. So we should see that change by the afternoon, I guess.
Check out stormpulse and click on the "historical track" button on the top right and you can see that Ike is going to be moving either out of the cone or the very top for awhile. Do not like.
Wow. You're right...so a bad case here for Houston would be that it heads further north in the gulf before getting picked up to move west/nw with that high.
i've heard they're going to bump up the intensity today to a cat 4; gov. perry said something about preparing for a 4 so we could be more prepared than necessary. i thought it was odd the way he said it IMO we will have a 4 tomorrow headed toward texas.
It really sucks that the landfall all depends on the high pressure and the cold front coming... What happens if it shifts slightly north? Will we experience hurricane effects? I would think this storm is big enough to give us problems if it hits north of Corpus Christi. Anyway, let's hope for the best. Grr, this is giving me a headache but I can't resist looking at this thread for updates. Hurricanes are beautiful but not when it comes to our houses!
I can almost guarantee you that you will see some strong thunderstorms this weekend at the very least. Given the side of the hurricane we are on...unless it goes further south than Rockport...we're in for some stormy weather. That's not necessarily a big deal, though. If it bumps in closer to Freeport, it will be a different story.
two different things...it's movement straight west means a strike further south on land. it's movement (to the west) and where it strikes in relation to houston (to the south of houston)...make sense? that westward shift has been forecast for a while now. the thought is it will curve more towards the north as it gets closer to texas.
I was pretty sure that the consensus was that the High wouldn't start pushing it more West until this afternoon.
