The National Hurricane Center just released their most recent update on Tropical Storm Dorian.
Here are the 11 AM AST/EDT August 28 Key Messages for Tropical Storm #Dorian: https://t.co/3MJMucK0nP pic.twitter.com/QtRsvXgc2E
— National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) August 28, 2019
The short term story is that the storm is strengthening and will hit the Virgin Islands and other nearby islands as a weak hurricane today and brush against Puerto Rico as a strong tropical storm in the near future.
The big story is that the intensity forecast for the weekend has gone up significantly. Right now, Dorian is projected to be a Category 3 storm by the middle of the weekend with a landfall projected on Monday morning somewhere in Florida.
This is a significant intensification of the forecast over the past twenty four hours and the storm has slowed down as Dorian was expected to be hitting Florida as a borderline hurricane on Sunday morning.
For the eastern Florida jackals, time to start your hurricane plans.
Open thread.
Cheryl Rofer
NUKE IT!
schrodingers_cat
FEMA funds are being diverted to detain more children at the border. Winning.
Spanky
Is Mar a Lago in its path? Sad!
Spanky
I know hurricanes are pretty difficult to predict once they make landfall, but that NHC map makes it look like it’ll cross the peninsula into the Gulf of Mexico.
Not. Good.
mrmoshpotato
@Cheryl Rofer: Nuke Trash a Grifto? Sounds good to me!
dmsilev
@Spanky: What about Trump’s bedbug-infested golf resort? Isn’t that also on the path?
And I see I’m not the first to note that pulling funds away from FEMA in order to run border concentration camps is kind of a bad idea. For sane and moral people, that is.
mrmoshpotato
@Spanky: It looks like the panhandle and southern Bama need to prepare.
gvg
Need to buy beds this weekend. As an inland Floridian, my family is where coastal friends evacuate too. I have recently moved since last time, and am short of furniture like beds. I have been shopping casually the last 2 weeks but this means I need to prioritize it. I was thinking Labor day sales, but must do it now.
When I was a kid, hurricanes were rare to legendary. Now, we have a routine. Must also check battery supply again. First time I have had a gas stove, which is different.
dmsilev
@Spanky: A lot will depend on how organized the storm stays once it makes landfall on eastern Florida. It could mostly fall to pieces crossing the state, or it could remain largely intact and then restrengthen over the Gulf. That’s not going to be easy to predict; we’re a lot better at predicting course tracks than strengths etc.
delk
Bedbugnado
satby
@dmsilev: Trump’s greatest ability seems to be in fucking over his deplorables, it’s just unfortunate that so many not-deplorables are collateral damage.
Trump also tweeted his approval of Boris Johnson’s power grab in Britain, so that may end up being the kiss of death for Boris. If the Brits are smart.
Skepticat
If it follows the predicted path (never a sure thing), it’ll head right over my house in the Bahamas, so I hope I have a home to return to in a few weeks. And the season’s barely underway …
cope
We central Floridians as well as western Floridians like BC are starting to pay attention now as well. We’re driving up to Mayo in Jacksonville on Friday for consultation about a major surgery for mrs. cope but we will be back by late Friday afternoon. I’ve got a fantasy football draft Saturday but that should finish up just around the time the outer fringes begin to impact our area (according to current predictions).
I don’t watch TV news, local or otherwise, certainly not for weather info. The National Hurricane Center is my major source for keeping on top of these things I haven’t been able to break our daughter of that habit so she started freaking out a couple of days ago.
I won’t freak out, we are too far inland and above any flood threat but trees do blow over and fall on things so there’s that to worry about. Most likely, too, we will probably lose power at some point.
Hope it doesn’t pick up any killer sharks.
mrmoshpotato
@cope:
Is your chainsaw gassed up?
Yarrow
If it just hit Mar-a-Lago and nothing else, that would be fine.
Baud
Stay safe, Florida Dems.
A question for our UK Juicers. When is the last time the Royal Family “interfered” in politics? With all the speculation that the Queen could say no to BoJo (she won’t), I’m seeing comments saying that would be the first interference in about 100 years, but I can’t find information explaining when the last interference event occurred. Just curious.
Mary G
Twitler is off the charts on Twitter this a.m. Fox News has gone over to the Democrats and conservatives need a new network. That is what he planned to do when he expected to lose to Hillary.
I wonder if he’s getting ready to rage-quit after pardoning everyone who works with him. Then we have Pence. Ugh.
raven
Let’s get this shit cleared out so I have no issues on my epic tuna trip in three weeks!
JPL
@Mary G: Now that Real Press Secretary is down, I haven’t seen his tweets. Thanks for the info.
JPL
@Yarrow: Take out Doral now. Actually if it damaged a limb he’d commit insurance fraud for a little extra cash.
dmsilev
@Mary G:
Has he ever been on the charts, so to speak? Anytime in the last decade or so?
Also, can we expect the crew on Fox and Friends to, I dunno, ceremoniously light themselves on fire as proof of their devotion to him?
bbleh
@Spanky: @dmsilev: Report from USVI says temporary downgrade to Depression, intermittent rain only, so they would seem to be catching a small break. NHC says to expect strengthening over water tho, because of low shear and warm surface temps. The time to prepare, as they say, is now!
bbleh
@Baud: Queen approved request.
Snarki, child of Loki
Someone should convince God-Emperor Trump that he should halt Dorian just by the force of his personality, but he’ll have to be secured to a pier on the Florida coast right in Dorian’s path.
Who needs nukes to stop hurricanes when you have derp, amirite?
Baud
@bbleh:
No surprise here. As bad as a no-deal Brexit would be, it’s not something that the Queen was going to throw away their constitution over.
Jeffery
@Cheryl Rofer: The storm or Florida?
ThresherK
I’m hoping that Puerto Rico will get less of this storm than was thought a day ago. Those Americans are still way too behind on being put whole after the (aftermath of Trump’s neglect following the) last hurricane.
And it is reminding me of how Katrina was bad enough for New Orleans but the White House’s response to it made it exponentially worse. Except GWB at least could be expected to mouth the words after Katrina; Trump’s not bothering.
mrmoshpotato
@raven: Well now we’re all expecting some epic tuna. Good luck. We’re counting on you. (No pressure.)
mrmoshpotato
@Snarki, child of Loki: And since the gays cause hurricanes, Dense can be right next to Dump praying for the hurricane to go away.
Gelfling 545
@mrmoshpotato: More useful to pray for Trump tp go away.
catclub
@Mary G:
he only rage quits if he KNOWS he will lose 2020 election. I don’t think losing enters his mind.
Jeffery
@Baud: The shorter version is she can say no.
To refuse to dissolve Parliament when requested by the Prime Minister. This was last reputedly considered in 1910, but George V later changed his mind. Harold Wilson, leading a minority government in 1974, was advised Elizabeth II might refuse to dissolve Parliament if she could identify an alternative Prime Minister able to command a cross-party majority.[21] See Lascelles Principles.
To appoint a Prime Minister of her [his] own choosing. This was last done in Britain in 1963 when Elizabeth II appointed Sir Alec Douglas-Home as Prime Minister, on the advice of outgoing Harold Macmillan.
To dismiss a Prime Minister and his or her Government on the Monarch’s own authority. This was last done in Britain in 1834 by King William IV.
To summon and prorogue parliament
sdhays
“I hereby order all hurricanes approaching Florida to avoid Mar-a-lago and the very luxurious, no longer bedbug-infested and not at all Motel 6-like, Doral Resort near the Miami international airport (with ample parking)”.
mrmoshpotato
@catclub: “I’m taking the Presidency and going home to New York where they hate me!”
catclub
@mrmoshpotato: With talk of Buttigieg for VP I was wondering why Indiana is the birthplace of VP’s
Quayle, Pence , Buttiegieg?
Citizen Alan
@Baud:
It couldn’t happen in a billion years, but the most dramatic and awesome thing I could imagine happening would be QE2 giving a televised speech in which she explains that as monarch, she is bound by British law to do as the PM requests.
“And that is why I am abdicating, effective immediately,” she says before standing up and walking off camera.
It would, of course, be utterly unprecedented, but based on what happened when Edward abdicated (per Wiki), such abdication requires acceptance by the parliaments of the UK member states, and Scotland and Wales could tie things up for weeks.
Again, not in a million years, but if I were writing Brexit fanfic or something, that would be the coolest plot twist ever.
Baud
@Jeffery: Thanks!
Mary G
@JPL: @UnfollowTrump and @UnfollowVP are what I use.
patrick II
Donald J. Trump
There is not a moment in his life, no matter how serious the occasion, that he does not let his petty, vindictive ass show.
RedDirtGirl
@dmsilev: A girl can dream, can’t she?
mrmoshpotato
@patrick II: Sixty-two million voters picked someone whose behavior they wouldn’t tolerate from their own kids.
Cervantes
@Citizen Alan: She’s determined to keep her idiot son off the throne for as long as possible.
PaulWartenberg
Sitting in Central Florida bringing up all the paperwork on hurricane preparations for my library. Right now we won’t get the eye but we’re getting the edge of it. Gods help us. Polk County and where I live haven’t fully recovered from Irma of two years ago.
chris
In other (good) news:
Cheryl Rofer
@Jeffery: NUKE THE WHALES!
Oh wait – we’re not there yet
Betty Cracker
This is lousy timing for us because the river we live on is unusually high. We’ve had tons of rain, and it’s just below flood stage at present. If the storm maintains this track, it may dump enough rain to trip over into a serious flood. We should be okay since we live in a stilt house, but a hurricane could inundate and wash out the already shitty dirt road we live on.
We were talking about that earlier and may move our vehicles to a parking lot at a boat ramp that’s less than a mile downriver. The lot is high enough to stay dry and off a major highway. That way, we could take our little jon boat back and forth to the vehicles until our road dries out.
I expect this Cat 3 projection has triggered a run on supplies in town. I’ve always got enough canned goods to last a week, and luckily, I made a booze run recently, so we’re all set there…
David Evans
@Citizen Alan: I keep hoping for something like that. I think no-deal Brexit is going to be so bad that people will be thinking “If the monarchy couldn’t stop that, what use is it?” Also there’s a chance that it will trigger a move to Scottish independence which (a) would make her very unhappy and (b) she would not want on her historical record..
Roger Moore
@Cheryl Rofer:
Isn’t that supposed to be “Nuke the Unborn Gay Whales for Jesus!”?
The Moar You Know
@Cervantes: yeah, this. I think she believes that Charles would be the end of the monarchy in Britain.
I don’t think that’s wrong. He is, on good days, a fucking moron with a tendency to say stupid shit that pisses off a lot of people.
cope
@Betty Cracker: All the best to you and yours. I need to bring in the big Tupperware box with the stylized hurricane cut-out on it in from the garage. It has oil lamps, lamp oil, a hand-crank radio and small battery operated fans. Our back-up fridge has a freezer full of frozen water in old juice bottles and if the power goes, we can at least keep the frozen stuff good for a couple of days.
Other than power loss, we are in pretty good shape. Unfortunately, the only two pine trees with the potential to fall on our living room are in the neighbor’s yard so we can’t do anything pre-emotive about them.
Good luck to you, Betty.
trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
Only missing “feminist.”
trollhattan
@Citizen Alan:
Helen Mirren is available for a cameo, if needed.
We knew Boris would “go weird” but just how was impossible to guess. This seems pretty frickin’ weird.
Ruviana
@satby: Well, the Brits voted for Brexit, so…
SiubhanDuinne
@patrick II:
A little earlier, he twitted:
Robert Sneddon
@David Evans: The British Monarchy these days is a pivot that governments change around. That’s its basic purpose, to exist and to stand separately from the democratically elected Parliament. It selects the leader of the Government by virtue of them commanding enough votes for confidence and supply i.e. able to get essential bills through the Commons and the ability to pass Finance bills aka the Budget.
The reigning Monarch also doubles as a Head of State meaning the Prime Minister can get on with the business of running the country while she glad-hands visiting dignitaries and does the spectacle thing of formal dinners and State visits.
Very unlikely speculation — it would be possible for Jeremy Corbyn to go to the Queen (he is, as Leader of the Opposition, a member of the Privy Council) and state that he has the votes in Parliament to become PM without calling for a vote of no confidence etc. If he could prove the numbers for confidence and supply then she would be well within her Constitutional rights and indeed it would be her duty to appoint him PM and displace Boris Johnson from that position. Veeeery unlikely though.
SiubhanDuinne
@patrick II:
@SiubhanDuinne:
And yesterday, it was:
“Will it ever end?” JFC.
Roger Moore
@SiubhanDuinne:
The only reason this is upsetting to Trump is that he’s not in on the action.
trollhattan
@SiubhanDuinne:
That’s possibly the Trumpiest thing Trump has ever said, and he says a lot of things.
“Y’all finished with those paper towels, yet?”
SiubhanDuinne
@Roger Moore:
The version I learned was “Nuke the Godless Commie Pinko Gay Baby Seals for Christ!”
SiubhanDuinne
@Roger Moore:
I know! How dare those Messican-speaking browns get there first!?
RedDirtGirl
@Betty Cracker: Betty, how does having stilts protect you and your house? Can’t the water still rise enough to do damage?
SiubhanDuinne
@trollhattan:
Couple packages of SHAM-WOW would’ve been better.
JPL
@Mary G: Thank you!,
trollhattan
@RedDirtGirl:
Obv. not Betty but presumably the chosen design height is above maximum possible water elevation, based on the surrounding land contours. At some level the water will go elsewhere and no longer rise.
Being on the coast with the possibility of storm surge, there’s no such thing as maximum possible elevation. That’s the scary aspect of hurricanes. Okay, that and wind and rain and Trump’s FEMA.
Michael Cain
@Spanky: Latest ECMWF 10-day run has the storm crossing to the Gulf, then making a sharp right turn and hitting the Panhandle, southern Georgia, and running up along the coast as far as North Carolina.
My son’s girlfriend does model evaluation for NOAA and NCAR and thinks the ECMWF is still the best model around.
Brachiator
@SiubhanDuinne:
What a pathetic sack of petty resentment. So much for the idea that a president might bring the country together.
David Evans
@Ruviana: The Brits voted for what they were told would be an easy operation, with the EU offering a deal on excellent terms, and no problem with the Irish border. Anyone who foresaw problems was labeled as “Project Fear”. Boris Johnson has lied to the British people throughout.
Bill Arnold
C. Stross’s take (his blog) on Boris Johnson’s move is well-written:
CASE NIGHTMARE BLONDE (2019/08/28)
The comments are helpful too.
mrmoshpotato
@David Evans: Don’t forget the NHS lie on the side of a bus.
Nigel Farage pretty much admitted that was a lie days after the vote.
RedDirtGirl
@trollhattan: Thanks!
Betty Cracker
@RedDirtGirl & @trollhattan: Trollhattan is correct — if the river gets high enough to inundate our stilt house, the whole damned state would be underwater. Our downstairs is enclosed, and we have a game room, fridge, storage, etc., down there, so it would suck for us if that floods, but our house proper should be okay.
Our neighbors down the road (also in a stilt house — almost everyone on the river is either on stilts or in a camper they can theoretically move) said the last time the river was high enough to flood the ground floor was in ’04 when there were four hurricanes in a row. I was living near Tampa Bay on the Gulf of Mexico back then. That location was a lot more risky in a hurricane because of storm surge.
karensky
@Betty Cracker: good to know you will be up on stilts when the gators float through, The vehicle plan seems sound though.
Take care and stay dry.
mrmoshpotato
@Betty Cracker: How’s Badger with the hurricanes?
Betty Cracker
@mrmoshpotato: If it comes, this’ll be his first! I suspect he’ll be fine, though. He’s not generally afraid of storms the way some dogs are. My old Daisy dog is calm during storms too.
JoeyJoeJoe
@karensky: there was just a movie out about a hurricane bringing in gators. Can’t remember the name, but the guy who played Jackson in Saving Private Ryan was in it.
Aleta
@SiubhanDuinne: wt fuckd up fuck
Translation from Stingon:
My WH is one of the most corrupt places on earth. The GOP is broken and their politicians are either Incompetent or Corrupt. Congress approved 1.6 Billion for my wall, and SC just gave me 2.5 billion from Pentagon that Congress did not approve! More than anyone else has ever sent my Crooked Pals. I’m No good!…. And by the way, I want to be the worst thing that’s ever happened to Puerto Rico!
mrmoshpotato
@JoeyJoeJoe: Crawl
A young woman, while attempting to save her father during a category 5 hurricane, finds herself trapped in a flooding house and must fight for her life against alligators.
mrmoshpotato
@Betty Cracker: Good to hear.
Aleta
@Betty Cracker:
That’s fortunate … Sounds like a plan !
“our house proper should be okay” — Also very good news
I wonder if basements below flood level ever have dumbwaiters installed on a rope pully so residents could hoist up loads from the basement in a hurry. Come to think of it I could use one myself, save wear on my back.
mrmoshpotato
OT – Season 3 of The Good Place is now on Netflix, you bunch of dinguses.
A Ghost To Most
@Betty Cracker: Best of luck with the storm. Having grown up in a swamp, I do not understand this need to surround yourself with one.
Steve in the ATL
@Aleta: basements in Florida? As rare as an ethical Republican.
Steve at Lake Oconee who’s still wondering 50 years later why our house in Sarasota had a fireplace
Just One More Canuck
@Betty Cracker: stay safe
chopper
@Michael Cain:
the euro is solid. the new GFS is quite good as well. intensity is really the hard thing to nail.
mapaghimagsik
@Betty Cracker: let us know if you need an emergency airdrop of limes, orgeat, or Curacao
Emma
I installed hurricane windows two years ago. Best money I ever spent. We have water, batteries, and no-need-to-cook food. I will charge both kindles and the tablet as backups. Other than that, all we need to do is sit and wait.
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker: Stay safe.
Aleta
@mapaghimagsik:
Type of Emergency: Other
Distance from FL: Approx 1500 miles
Uncle Cosmo
@gvg: Awfully decent of you to spring for bedding as well as floor space to put it on. In your shoes I might genially suggest that frenz&fambly in areas likely to find themselves on the bullseye of storms should stash an adequate supply of air mattresses & transfer them to the trunk of their getaway vehicle(s) before fleeing your way. YMMV.
mapaghimagsik
@Aleta: “Supply lines are getting longer and harder to maintain”
Betty
Sending positive thoughts to all those in Dorian’s path. We in Dominica are tremendously relieved to have missed this one. Nature will have its way whether we “believe” in climate change or not. Looking out for what may come next.
mrmoshpotato
@Uncle Cosmo: gvg will have beds, but no potatoes.
brian w
@Spanky: hopefully it destroys trumps resort. I do hope nobody, other than trump himself, get hurt during the hurricane.
kindness
Poor Betty though. Her dock is going to become a home for wayward & storm weary gators. How do you feed a pack o’ them? The AirB&B reviews won’t be good.
btw – Please forgive my poor choice of humor.