31 thoughts on “Hurricane CATegories”

  2. I am at my Florida house and have closed up the hurricane shutters and await 90 mph (145 kph) winds between midnight and 2 AM. The storm is due to be cat 4 but the center will pass 60 miles east of here, I hope.

      1. I am 6 miles from the Atlantic, but the problem is canals. The Home Owners Association lowered the canals the other day, hopefully enough. Much of South Florida has canals because it used to be part of the Everglades.

        1. Are the canals at sea level? And are they isolated from the sea (locks, etc)? If they’re not connected to the sea, then they won’t be noticeably affected by the storm surge.

          1. The canals are not directly connected to the sea but they can still fill up because the land that used to be Everglades drains into them and the rain can fill them up pretty quickly. Some of the rivers in the area are connected to tidal surge between Lake Okeechobee and the ocean. Some of the locks and berms of the lake are 100 years old but are controlled by the army corps of engineers.

          2. AIUI, from the 1953 great flood in England and the Netherlands, the big cause of flooding isn’t rainfall, but the rise in the surface of the sea due to decreased atmospheric pressure (the “storm surge”). While the water in the canals will feel that decreased pressure, unless the end of the canal has pretty much unrestricted access to the sea, there won’t be much if any rise in the canal itself.
            Not a lot of consolation, I know. How did it go? I was away hill walking over the weekend and didn’t bother listening to the radio news when we were driving.

    2. I must be near you. We are bunkered in and having a little party. We are about 3 miles outside the evacuation zone.

          1. You were hit harder than here. The eye was 60 miles away from me at West End, Bahamas, then it went near your coastline.

          2. Yes, we had a close hit but we came through it fine. Very little serious damage, though power is still out. Surprisingly mild, especially compared to 2004. The kids were disappointed.

    3. The storm knocked down part of my wooden privacy fence but I was able to put it back up without too much trouble. Otherwise my cats and I got through Hurricane Matthew without too much trouble and I got 3 extra days off from work with pay.

    1. Thank you from the Fort Lauderdale area.

      As of 3 P.M. it looks like the storm suddenly made an unusual right turn and is headed eastward, away from us. To me that’s both good and bad: It’s good that it turned away, but bad that it’s apparently so totally unpredictable and might do anything.

        1. Freewill hurricanes are indistinguishable from non freewill hurricanes until they become totally predicable. But if you could do that you’d be the one running the simulation. ✋🏼

          1. free will hurricanes go anticlockwise and determinist hurricanes go clockwise, and sometimes they do a twist

      2. It’s also one of those things where we’re glad it’s moved away from us (I live in an evac area but am riding out the storm with family in western PBC) but I’m really concerned for people in West End. They’re getting clobbered right now.

  5. It’s beginning to look as though the eye will be about 100 miles (161 km) off shore when Matthew passes by the Ft. Lauderdale through Palm Beach portion of South Florida. That should put most of us outside hurricane force wind fields. (Sustained winds of at least 74mph or 119kmh at 10m for one minute.) We’re still looking at a high probability of tropical storm force winds to go along with localized flooding and widespread power outages, but it’s still much better than the alternative.

    1. It’s 5:00 EDT and it looks like we’re in the clear here in Fort Lauderdale. It doesn’t look like it’ll get any closer and right now it’s raining here about the same as it’s been doing practically daily for the last month or so.

      The storm’s still CAT 4, meaning that the cat still has all four paws on the ground.

  6. Now that is some dangerous looking storms. When I lived in Typhoon alley, also known as Okinawa, they had TC4, TC3, TC2 and TC1. These number go down as the typhoon gets closer and tells everyone what to do. Examples are: TC4 just means typhoon season. TC3 means winds of 50 miles an hour are expected in 48 hrs. TC2 is winds of 50 mph in 12 hrs TC1 you are restricted to indoors only (lockdown). It goes something like that. In the job I was in, the TC numbers told us to do certain things at specific times – such as TC3, it was time to deliver typhoon supplies. TC2, finish deliveries and everyone go home.

  7. Kitty’s in a Hurricane, that’s not very nice, poor kitty’s, bring them inside and give them some canned cat chow. Alice is inside now having some canned mackerel (She hates commercial canned cat food, won’t eat the stuff)—outside, here on Key Largo, wind’s blowing about 25-knots off Florida Bay. The the back end of Matthew is passing by off shore to the north of us. Alice says if I put her out in that she’ll scratch my eye-balls out.

  8. Oy the winds are howling. Nasty storm – bunkered down here as well. Such tragedy in Haiti.

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