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Hurricane Omar has been an interesting storm and shows how quickly these storms can change.  It looked pretty good on satellite yesterday with deep convection.  Early this morning its intensity peaked at almost category four.  I really would’ve never expected that.  They plane this morning reported hail and couldn’t get into the entire storm due to extreme turbulence.  The National Hurricane Center estimated the storm peaked at category 4 status.

Things change and now the storm is not down to 85 miles per hour with the convection pretty much gone from the center of the storm. and the center is exposed on visible satellite pictures  It’s amazing how  quickly things can change.  This weakening has pretty much happened in just an eight hour time period.

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After the tropics got fairly quiet we now have Tropical Storm Marco in the Gulf of Mexico.  It’s not that strong but very interesting still.  It’s tiny.  The smallest storm I remember seeing and they’re saying tropical storm force winds only extend out 10 miles from the center.

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Hurricane Ike which was only a category 2 storm made landfall in Texas and moved  north through the Ohio valley yesterday proves that the rating doesn’t tell the whole story.  They’re saying it caused 30 billion dollars n damage and has caused at least 30 fatalities.

From what I’ve read it brought  in a  pretty high storm surge over a large area.  What really made this storm was the size of it I think.  Instead of getting stronger winds it expanded in size after hitting Cuba and looked like at one point it was affecting almost the entire Gulf of Mexico

Even after landfall it’s fast speed and taking a while to wind down brought strong winds all the way into the Great lakes states as it merged with a cold front.  It was an amazing storm to watch.

I think a lesson to learn from this storm is that it’s probably not a good idea to build on barrier islands but we’ll never learn that.  I really would never want to have my permanent house on one of these types of islands.

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Hurricane Ike has maximum sustained winds near 100 miles per hour right now but the real story is it’s size.  It’s a big storm with hurricane force winds extending up to 115 miles from the center.   Tropical storm force winds extend up to 255 miles from the center.

The minimum pressure (945 millibars) is borderline low enough to support a category 4 storm but I imagine the size of the whole storm is keeping the gradient from being tight enough to cause the winds.

Another interesting storm for this year.

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That was a pretty good line of storms for this time in the day and year.  I don’t think it approached severe criteria in my back yard but still we had a nice very heavy wind driven rain.  It got as dark as it would be about 8:30 pm as the storms moved in.  Just before the rain started I noticed low level clouds racing across the sky from west to east.  The line heald together as it crossed the river better than any I remember of this season too.  We even had lots of lightning.

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Today is going to be a good day. 7:40 in the morning and there appears to be some pretty strong thunderstorms moving towards us.  Not bad for September.  The other nice thing about these storms is it seems like a pretty solid area of storms so I don’t expect to be just missed by them like my area was all summer.

Some counties west of here have already had severe thunderstorm warnings due to the storms.  Radar was saying they were capable of producing quarter sized hail.

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Tropical storm Hanna moved into the Carolinas last night and north, then northeast through Virginia and is now off the coast.  It dumped heavy rains in some areas and in my back yard we received heavier rainfall than I had expected.  I figure that was going to happen when I saw the radar this morning and felt the  humidity.  Dew point of 72 or 73 today made it feel like summer and not September.

My Davis vantage pro2 recorded 2.19 inches today.  I noticed that Lancaster county’s stormnet website shows most areas getting 2 to almost 5 inches of rain.  So much for me not having to cut the grass anymore this year.. It’s been so dry it hasn’t grown.

It’s been breezy since about 2 but the wind hasn’t been strong.  State college dropped the wind advisory too.   I haven’t heard of any damage or flooding really either.

This situation could have been worse I think if the moisture from Gustav had combined with the moisture from  Hanna.

In the Atlantic Hurricane Ike is back up to 135 miles per hour making it a category four.  This one will be a fun storm to track.

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Tropical storm Hanna is approaching the East coast of the United states now with maximum sustained winds near 70 mph.  It seems like there is a lot more convection today than there was yesterday but still not around the center.  The minimum pressure is 980 millibars which seems a bit low to not be a hurricane but that depends on other factors too.

It will make landfall in the Carolinas and move up the east coast and turn northeast.  Hopefully some time in my life time I will have the opportunity to experience a tropical storm or hurricane from the coast.

It would be really fun to be on the outer banks this weekend.  I am really hoping we don’t get too much rain here though.  I want to do other things this weekend.  On the plus side we do need the rain and the storm will be moving pretty fast.

Hurricane Ike is still going strong although it has weakened somewhat.  It’s still a category three storm and looks like it may strengthen a bit.  The track appears to want to brush south Florida but that’s still five days from now.

Tropical storm Josephine has really weakened and there doesn’t seem to be much convection left that that storm.  Josephine is forecast to weaken and turn towards the northwest over the next few days.

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The tropics in the Atlantic basin are still active but it is near the peak of the season.  At this point there are two tropical storms and a major hurricane.

Tropical storm Hanna is the closest to affecting land and should move on shore in the Carolinas and move up the coast.  It really doesn’t look that well organized right now as it’s being influenced by sheer.  Hopefully it stays  further east and doesn’t give us much rain.  Although it’s not that impressive it should be fun to watch it make landfall.

Further out in the Atlantic is tropical storm Josephine.  This one also doesn’t look that great either and really isn’t forecast to have much of a change in strength.  It’s so far east I would guess it’ll never reach the east coast.

The really interesting storm is hurricane Ike.  This storm has rapidly deepened. from a tropical storm yesterday morning to a Hurricane this morning with maximum winds of 145 mph and minimum pressure of 935 millibars.  This one will be really interesting when it gets close enough for the recon planes to fly into it.  I can’t wait to see what the really find.  it just looks awesome on satellite images right now.  This storm is a great example of what makes weather so interesting to me.

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Hurricane made landfall today in Louisiana. as a category 3 hurricane.  It doesn’t seem to have been too bad so far.  Nothing like Katrina was but it isn’t over yet and with Katrina the flooding happened after the storm and they thought the levees were good.  It could’ve been a lot worse and looked like it would be for a while.

It’s been fun to watch and track the storm though.  Like always there were unexpected twists.  It was pretty interesting how it rapidly strengthened just before it hit Cuba.  It was also intriguing to watch yesterday as it seemed to be trying to fight off dry air.  Just as it seemed like it had gotten rid of it the east cide of the CDO would open a bit..

As much as I love extreme storms and that sort of thing I’m glad it shouldn’t have been nearly as bad as it could have been for NOLA.

Now Tropical Storm Hanna seems to be strengthening.  It seems Hanna should be come a hurricane but not that strong of one and move through the Bahamas and thee brush Florida.  Hopefully not too close because I don’t think they really need the rain at the point.

Further east  is tropical depression 9.  That’s forecast to become a hurricane en a couple of days and pretty much move west.

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