The birth of Hurricane Wilma?
October 17, 2005 12:34 AM   Subscribe

The birth of Hurricane Wilma? Tropical Depression 24 is expected to become Tropical Storm Wilma by Monday, and forecasters are predicting that it will turn into the Gulf of Mexico, where water temperatures and other conditions are favorable for it to develop into a large, slow moving hurricane. Oil futures have already started going up in response to the threat.
posted by insomnia_lj (44 comments total)
 
My bad. I meant for the main link to go directly to the main page for the National Hurricane Center.

A friend of mine on the gulf coast mentioned to me that the local meteorologist said that some of the models they have predicted that the storm will turn into the gulf and grow into a cat 4 or 5 hurricane before making landfall.

That said, it's still really premature, as they don't expect landfall until Friday.
posted by insomnia_lj at 12:38 AM on October 17, 2005


NWS COMMUNICATES OVER TELEGRAPH LINES STOP

Seriously, why do they write like that?
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 12:43 AM on October 17, 2005


Seriously, why do they write like that?

Twenty years ago when I was a commercial disc-jockey, we got our news from a real-live teletype machine that went clickety-clack all the time. NWS bulletins were easily identifiable in their all-cap blockiness. Not that this necessarily answers your question, but what the hell.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 12:52 AM on October 17, 2005


I just got back home to New Orleans. My roof is almost complete. That bitch had best be heading for the Yucatan.
posted by honeydew at 1:06 AM on October 17, 2005


THE TELEGRAM STYLE IS STILL USED by the UK Foreign Office. This example (pdf) is the correspondence between London and Baghdad after Saddam's chemical weapons attacks on the Kurds. The example is a bit old, but there are still plenty of all-caps telegrams flying around.
posted by athenian at 1:56 AM on October 17, 2005


Oil futures have already started going up in response to the threat

Oh FFS!
posted by lemonfridge at 2:10 AM on October 17, 2005


Gah. My link mojo just sucks tonight. Sorry everyone.

Let me try that again: The National Hurricane Center.


posted by insomnia_lj at 2:39 AM on October 17, 2005


It looks like they updated it to Tropical Storm Wilma as of 5am EDT Monday.

Look how slow it's moving in their predictions! It could get to be hurricane strength, wallop the Yucatan, and still have plenty of time to rebuild its strength and hit the U.S. A slow, wet hurricane would really suck for anywhere hit by Katrina previously. It could also screw with gulf oil rigs and tanker deliveries pretty badly, given the already maxed-out circumstances.

Landfall in the U.S. might be a full week away at this rate... Smoke em if you've got em.
posted by insomnia_lj at 2:48 AM on October 17, 2005


Not that there's global warming or anything, though. Rush Limbaugh says it's all a liberal environmentalist-wacko plot.
posted by alumshubby at 4:31 AM on October 17, 2005


And now, on to Greek letters!
posted by Captaintripps at 4:37 AM on October 17, 2005


The Buzz Game stock of Hurricane Wilma is up 8%.
posted by spazzm at 4:59 AM on October 17, 2005


The forecaster blogs at wunderground.com/tropical/ have a lot of good information on the hurricane's long range development.
posted by jjj606 at 5:09 AM on October 17, 2005


FWIW, it appears much of the destruction of the recent storms was imagined by the liberally imaginative media. Like, say 90% of the supposed deaths.
posted by ParisParamus at 5:29 AM on October 17, 2005


Tank up, folks -- I suspect we'll be at $3.00+ gas before Friday, esp. if Wilma decided to take a slow track through the Gulf.

IIRC, the NWS warning and message links still talk Baudot, to be compatible with old systems. You'd think they'd be converted now, but there's only so much money, and these links have proven to be very solid. Replacing them for just the sake of lower case letters would be silly, and the NWS's biggest capital expense in the last 20 years has been in other hardware -- namely, simulation computing and the network of WSR-88D radars that now mostly cover the US (there are still some gaps in the Mountain West that, because of terrain and sparse population, will probably never be covered.)
posted by eriko at 5:44 AM on October 17, 2005


Wilma!
posted by ColdChef at 5:47 AM on October 17, 2005


FWIW, it appears much of the destruction of the recent storms was imagined by the liberally imaginative media.

Look, I hate the fear-mongering attitude of the for-profit media as much as anyone (particularly as it applies to White House imaginary/PR terror alerts), but I'm not sure what the solution should be. They already update stories with new figures as better information becomes avilable. Should all major news reports be postponed until the final statements are issued by the government?

"Good evening. There's a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico tonight. However, until FEMA issues a statement, that's all we're going to say about it. We will not send reporters into the area, we will not interview experts, nor will we show you footage of the scene. When it's all over, we'll read you the FEMA press release. That's all you need to know.

"Now, let's show that footage again of the President playing guitar! Isn't he just folksy and charming?"
posted by mkhall at 5:47 AM on October 17, 2005


NO WONDER THEY CAUSE SUCH A PANIC, WHAT WITH SHOUTING ABOUT HURRINCANES ALL OF THE TIME
posted by swinginjohn at 5:56 AM on October 17, 2005


FWIW, it appears much of the destruction of the recent storms was imagined by the liberally imaginative media. Like, say 90% of the supposed deaths.
posted by ParisParamus at 5:29 AM PST on October 17 [!]


Yea, if it wasn't for the imagination and the liberal application of that imagination to the idea that Iraq had WMD by the media, how would have the American people supported all the very real body mutilation in Iraq?
posted by rough ashlar at 5:57 AM on October 17, 2005



Can we say god is upset with us yet?
posted by fluffycreature at 6:21 AM on October 17, 2005


WILMA!
posted by mkultra at 6:22 AM on October 17, 2005


oh, good, a potential chance for Bush to show resolve in the face of another hurricane. "Look I care about the black folks"
/sarcasm
posted by edgeways at 6:43 AM on October 17, 2005


I blame that friggin Corioli guy , I say !
posted by elpapacito at 6:44 AM on October 17, 2005


alumshubby writes "Not that there's global warming or anything, though"

This hurricane cycle, a weather event, is not proof either way of global warming, a climate theory.
posted by Mitheral at 7:32 AM on October 17, 2005


Not only did nobody die due to Hurricane Katrina, let us also not forget that Federal response to Katrina Fastest of all Hurricaines Ever.
posted by StrasbourgSecaucus at 8:07 AM on October 17, 2005


Looks like less than 300, and possibly 200 people died in NOLA due to the flood. Hmmmm.
posted by ParisParamus at 8:21 PM PST on September 10 [!]


"I do not trust any "official" death toll numbers coming from the government, or anything else they say, for that matter.
posted by wsg at 2:33 PM EST on September 12 [!]"


jperkinsm, I don't really have an educated view on the subject, so I can't comment.
posted by ParisParamus at 8:56 PM PST on September 10 [!]





Not trolling....just trying be provacative.
posted by ParisParamus at 8:36 PM PST on September 10 [!]


/Not a sockpuppet account.... just trying to be an anonymous version of parisparamus
posted by StrasbourgSecaucus at 8:15 AM on October 17, 2005


it appears much of the destruction of the recent storms was imagined

I have friends who work in the Beaumont area, which got devastated by Rita. They pointed me at some links to pictures:

Entergy Corporate
Beaumont Enterprise

I was told that for a few days after the hurricane, there weren't any working traffic lights within 50 miles of beaumont. Also, was told that nearly all structures sustained significant damage.
posted by I Love Tacos at 8:16 AM on October 17, 2005


Nice pictures. Did they use the Nikon MakesUpFakeImaginedPix 3500 for those? LOL.
posted by StrasbourgSecaucus at 8:19 AM on October 17, 2005


FWIW, it appears much of the destruction of the recent storms was imagined by the liberally imaginative media. Like, say 90% of the supposed deaths.

Fuckin dems and their goddam MSM making the prez look bad! That Hurricane was just a strong breeze and the flooding in NOLA is actually just a couple of puddles. Have you seen the footage of the canoe in 6 inches of water? The people that did drown deserve it because they couldn't be bothered to pull themselves up by their own breaststroke. I bet there wasn't even a hurricane and it was all just cooked up by scientists and hollywood trying to push their anti-global warming godless eco-communicst agenda.

I say we call the next hurricane Rapture. I'm ready. I packed my overnight bag. Lord come and get me.
posted by srboisvert at 9:18 AM on October 17, 2005


"FWIW, it appears much of the destruction of the recent storms was imagined by the liberally imaginative media. Like, say 90% of the supposed deaths."

Of course, you do realise that not everyone who died has even been identified, and that number of dead may never be fully known, as many were washed into the river, lake, swamps, or straight out into the Gulf of Mexico, and that many people are still reported as missing... right PeePee?

And WTF is a "liberally imaginitive media"? I noticed that Fox News was also reporting the potential for many. many thousands of deaths. Were they part of the "conservatively imaginative media"?
posted by insomnia_lj at 9:24 AM on October 17, 2005


favorable for it to develop into a large, slow moving hurricane

Could we get it to meander down the 405, tailed by cops?

I suspect we'll be at $3.00+ gas before Friday

At some stations in the vicinity, $3.00 / gal would be a drop.
posted by namespan at 9:41 AM on October 17, 2005


Hurricane!!! Thanks for the link the the national hurricane center LJ. That's a find.

Next hurricane will be alpha, plenty of time to start your post.
posted by justgary at 9:54 AM on October 17, 2005


And WTF is a "liberally imaginitive media"? I noticed that Fox News was also reporting the potential for many. many thousands of deaths. Were they part of the "conservatively imaginative media"?

In this case, they turned liberal for a day just so Paris could post this unimaginitive bullshit.
posted by wakko at 10:10 AM on October 17, 2005


You know, on one hand, I know that the media loves to stir people up (OMG! ANOTHER HURRICANE! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!), but...you know...maybe some hyperbole is necessary in these kinds of situations.
posted by ColdChef at 10:17 AM on October 17, 2005


I think about 900 or so people died due to Katrina. That's quite a bit, but less then the 10k people were expecting.

As far as damage goes, however, well, New Orleans is still pretty much fucked. Have they even drained the water yet?
posted by delmoi at 10:49 AM on October 17, 2005


1033. Those are the ones they found, anyway.
posted by wakko at 11:19 AM on October 17, 2005


1033

1035, actually, and that's just Louisiana's official count. Add 224 in Mississippi, "14 in Florida, two in Georgia and two in Alabama," and you have a fairly current official count of 1277.

That's certainly much lower than at first feared, but also certainly lower than the actual number of Katrina-related deaths, for the reasons insomnia_lj mentioned.

That said, this did seem like a kind of pre-news news post.
posted by mediareport at 11:37 AM on October 17, 2005


Is body count the main judgment factor in whether something is a "disaster" or not?

I was in the "OMG! TEN THOUSAND PEOPLE MAY HAVE DIED!" camp when Katrina hit because...well...it looked like ten thousand bodies were floating all over New Orleans when I went there. Taking into account the bodies who may still be buried in the rubble and the ones who were swept out into the river or the gulf, it still may never get past 3 thousand or so, but...I don't know if it's possible to just shrug this off as "Ah, it wasn't THAT bad."

It may be a little early to start proclaiming that the sky is falling, but I think a LITTLE hysteria may not be asking too much.
posted by ColdChef at 3:28 PM on October 17, 2005


That bitch sure looks like she's coming right at me, though.
posted by ColdChef at 3:29 PM on October 17, 2005


The official count can not possibly be accurate. There were undoubtedly bodies washed out to ocean, bodies eaten by alligators, and bodies still to be discovered in attics and such.

I think it's very likely the official count is off by an order of 3x or so.
posted by five fresh fish at 5:12 PM on October 17, 2005


Plus, you know, the cannibalism that was reported on FoxNews.com and then quickly disappeared, never to be seen again. (God, I wish I would have taken that screenshot!)
posted by ColdChef at 6:10 PM on October 17, 2005


Is there an official count of the Katrina missing? Only thing I could find with potential numbers was this TPM Cafe thread.
posted by pandaharma at 9:09 PM on October 17, 2005


It's official. Wilma is now a hurricane.

Any bets on whether there will be a Hurricane Alpha this year?!
posted by insomnia_lj at 8:24 AM on October 18, 2005


I'm preparing for Gamma.
posted by ColdChef at 8:27 AM on October 18, 2005


Strongest Hurricane ever
posted by edgeways at 8:14 AM on October 19, 2005


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