Re: Hurricane Rita
Posted by CypressTX on 9/25/2010, 9:12 pm
Jim's Rita show is great:  http://www.hurricanecity.com/video/rita.html

Subscribing  is worth every penny IMO

_______________________________________________________________________________

I remember the sick feeling, getting everything ready for a worst-case hit, waiting, looking for every new update & message - seeing the mobs of ppl buying anything they could at the last minute, local news showing the chaos of Houston's mass evac, the relief at the change in track
_______________________________________________________________________________

SciGuy mentioned Rita in his blog yesterday & there's a lot of stories in the comments section

http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/2010/09/matthew_aims_at_central_america_with_threatening_r.html

FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF RITA

Today marks the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Rita, which came ashore near the Texas-Louisiana border at around 4 a.m. on Sept. 24 with 120-mph winds. Most people will remember the storm for the massive traffic jam and the evacuation deaths it caused.

And it was a horrendous traffic nightmare for a storm that ultimately turned and weakened before landfall. But I think, as a result of the near miss, people forget how truly menacing Rita was.

I haven't.

The following graphic is the forecast track from the National Hurricane Center at 10 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 21, just two days and six hours before it finally made landfall.



If you gaze up to the right side, you can see the storm's maximum winds at the time were 175 mph, which roughly corresponds to an F3 tornado. Only this wasn't a tornado but a hurricane spanning hundreds of miles.

And the storm was forecast to come ashore to the west of Galveston Island, pushing a massive 20- or 25-foot or greater storm surge across the island, into Galveston Bay and up the Houston Ship Channel.

Winds over downtown Houston probably would have exceeded 120 mph. Damage would have been catastrophic. People had every right to be freaking out about the storm. It absolutely was a worst-case scenario for Houston.

Here's a satellite image that roughly corresponds to the time when the forecast above was made. Rita was one very impressive hurricane.



Anyway, my thoughts go to those who lost loved ones during the Rita evacuation, and to those in East Texas and Southwestern Louisiana whose homes were lashed by the hurricane.
94
In this thread:
Hurricane Rita - Beaumont, 9/24/2010, 11:55 pm
< Return to the front page of the: message board | monthly archive this page is in
Post A Reply
This thread has been archived and can no longer receive replies.