Hurricane Rita Will Hit Texas, Her Remnants Will Hit Austin
...and she'll screw up my plans for the weekend. I had wanted to apply the finish to my newly stained computer desk on Saturday and Sunday, but given the current projections from the National Hurricane Center, I doubt that will be the time to be out on my front porch.
I predict this will significantly affect the Austin City Limits Festival. It's supposed to go from the 23rd through the 25th and Hurricane Rita is projected to be already over the state early Saturday. I didn't buy a ticket because they cost more than the bands I wanted to see. Some people recently bought tickets at hefty prices; what do they think now?
Hotels are fully booked from the influx of ACL Festers, Katrina evacuees, and Rita evacuees. Austin school districts are preparing shelters. Texas National Guardsmen are being called up. Jane Greig has some preparedness tips. The extended forcast is for rain on Saturday. The National Weather Service is saying:
SATELLITE IMAGES INDICATE THAT THE CLOUD
PATTERN IS TYPICAL OF AN INTENSE HURRICANE WITH A CLEAR EYE
SURROUNDED BY VERY DEEP CONVECTION......THE ENVIRONMENT IS CONDUCIVE FOR STRENGTHENING AND RITA...AS KATRINA DID...WILL BE CROSSING THE LOOPCURRENT OR AN AREA OF HIGH HEAT CONTENT WITHIN THE NEXT 12 HOURS OR SO. THIS WOULD AID THE INTENSIFICATION PROCESS. THEREAFTER...THEINTENSITY WILL BE CONTROLLED BY CHANGES IN THE EYEWALL WHICH ARE DIFFICULT TO PREDICT. THE HEAT CONTENT IN THE WESTERN GULF OF MEXICO IS NOT AS FAVORABLE AS IN THE AREA OF THE LOOP CURRENT SO SLIGHT WEAKENING IS ANTICIPATED....BUT RITA IS EXPECTED TO MAKE LANDFALL AS A MAJOR HURRICANE...AT LEAST CATEGORY THREE...
...THE OFFICIAL FORECAST IS VERY CLOSE TO THE MODEL CONSENSUS AND HAS NOT CHANGED FROM THE PREVIOUS FORECAST...
...A HURRICANE WATCH WILL LIKELY BE ISSUED LATER THIS AFTERNOON OR
TONIGHT.
More:
IT WOULD NOT BE A SURPRISE IF RITA BECAME A CATEGORY FIVE HURRICANE IN THE NEXT 24 HR BEFORE WEAKENING SOMEWHAT DUE TO A CONCENTRIC EYEWALL CYCLE OR THE
LOWER OCEAN HEAT CONTENT WEST OF THE LOOP CURRENT. RITA SHOULD
MAINTAIN MAJOR HURRICANE STATUS UNTIL LANDFALL...THEN WEAKEN AFTER
LANDFALL.
From Jeff Masters:
Texas's luck is about to change. Rita, looking more and more like a nightmare copy of Katrina somehow displaced in time, will make sure of that. The forecast models we so heavily rely on did not anticipate another Katrina-like storm when Rita first formed and plowed through the Florida Straits. But now, the forecasts mirror the reality unfolding today in the Gulf of Mexico. Rita will be another huge destructive hurricane for the Gulf Coast. This time, it is Texas's turn.[...]
Rita's presentation on satellite imagery is classic; she has a well-formed eye, large Central Dense Overcast (CDO) of cirrus clouds surrounding the eye, and well developed outflow on all sides, particularly to the north. This is the look of a solid, intensifying Category 4 hurricane. Intensification will continue until the eye shrinks to 10 miles or so in diameter and grows unstable, when the eyewall will collapse and an eyewall replacement cycle will begin. This may take another 24 hours or so, at which point Rita could be a Category 5 hurricane. Rita is currently smaller than Katrina, though. Katrina at her peak had hurricane force winds that extended outward 120 miles from the center; Rita's hurricane force winds only extend out 45 miles from the center. This will change as Rita continues to intensify and expand in size over the next day or two. There is little shear over Rita at present, nor is there expected to be the next three days. Water temperatures are 1 - 2C cooler over the central Gulf than they were for Katrina, which may keep Rita from attaining quite the intensity Katrina did. However, once Rita crosses the Gulf and arrives in the western Gulf on Friday, water temperatures warm back up to 30 - 31C, about the same temperatures as the waters Katrina had to work with. I doubt Rita will match Katrina's size or ferocity, but she might come to within 90% of the storm that Katrina was.
[...]
Rita's future intensity will largely be controlled by impossible-to-predict eyewall replacement cycles. Rita is growing large enough that she is creating her own upper level environment that will be relatively impervious to any external shearing winds that try to weaken her. I expect Rita to be a Category 4 hurricane at landfall.
After work, I'm driving to HEB to get some supplies.
UPDATED 9:20pm
Well, the Hancock HEB near Airport Blvd and 38th St was certainly busy. All the gallon water jugs were sold and just about everyone had at least one 24-pack of half liter Nestle water bottles in their carts. I picked up two along with batteries, candles, toilet paper, sandwich fixin's, breakfast and granola bars, etc.
Hurricane Rita has now hit Category 5 status:
HURRICANE RITA TROPICAL CYCLONE UPDATE
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
650 PM CDT WED SEP 21 2005...RITA BECOMES THE THIRD MOST INTENSE HURRICANE ON RECORD...
DROPSONDE DATA FROM AN AIR FORCE RESERVE UNIT RECONNAISSANCE
AIRCRAFT AT 623 PM CDT...2323Z...INDICATED THE CENTRAL PRESSURE HAS
FALLEN TO BELOW 899 MB...OR 26.55 INCHES. THE DROPSONDE INSTRUMENT
MEASURED 32 KT/35 MPH WINDS AT THE SURFACE...WHICH MEANS IT LIKELY
DID NOT RECORD THE LOWEST PRESSURE IN THE EYE OF RITA. THE CENTRAL
PRESSURE IS PROBABLY AT LEAST AS LOW AS 898 MB...AND PERHAPS EVEN
LOWER. FOR OFFICIAL PURPOSES... A PRESSURE OF 898 MB IS ASSUMED...
WHICH NOW MAKES RITA THE THIRD MOST INTENSE HURRICANE IN TERMS OF
PRESSURE IN THE ATLANTIC BASIN. SOME ADDITIONAL DEEPENING AND
INTENSIFICATION IS POSSIBLE FOR THE NEXT 12 HOURS OR SO.RITA CURRENTLY RANKS BEHIND HURRICANE GILBERT IN 1988 WITH 888 MB
AND THE 1935 LABOR DAY HURRICANE WITH 892 MB.
It is being widely reported that the winds are hitting at 165 MPH. Looking at the imagery, this system as as far across as Texas has Gulf coastline. It is roughly 160 miles from Corpus Christi to Galveston and roughly 120 miles from the coast to Austin.
Rita has hurricane force winds out to 70 miles and tropical storm force winds out to 175 miles.
The latest runs of two key computer models, the GFS and GFDL, now indicate that the trough of low pressure that was expected to pick up Rita and pull her rapidly northward through Texas will not be strong enough to do so. Instead, these models forecast that Rita will make landfall near Galveston, penetrate inland between 50 and 200 miles, then slowly drift southwestward for nearly two days, as a high pressure ridge will build in to her north. Finally, a second trough is forecast to lift Rita out of Texas on Tuesday. If this scenario develops, not only will the coast receive catastrophic damage from the storm surge, but interior Texas, including the Dallas/Fort Worth area, might see a deluge of 15 - 30 inches of rain. A huge portion of Texas would be a disaster area. The models are not suggesting this at all, but is also possible that Rita may not make landfall on Saturday as expected, but pull up just short of the Texas coast and pound it for days as it waits for the next trough to pick her up. We'll have to wait for the next set of model runs due out by tomorrow morning to know better.
Like I said, Austin will get hit.
UPDATED 9/22/2005 11:21am
New Masters forecast:
She is on the decline now, as the 11am hurricane hunter mission found a pressure of 913 mb, and increase of 5 mb in just 3 hours. The hurricane hunters also found concentric eyewalls of 17 and 55 nautical miles in diameter. All these signs indicate that Rita will continue to weaken today as her inner eyewall collapses and an eyewall replacement cycle begins. Rita is about to leave the vicinity of a warm eddy of Gulf water called the Loop Current that has been aiding her intensification. In addition, 10 knots of shear has developed on her south side, thanks to the fact that the upper-level high pressure system that was providing such excellent outflow for Rita has now shifted to the southeast of the storm. All these signs point to a substantial weakening trend for Rita that will continue through Friday and probably reduce her to a Category 4 hurricane. The GFDL forecast model and NHC predict that this weakening trend will continue until landfall Saturday, when Rita will be a Category 3 hurricane. Lower heat content water and continued shear are expected to cause this weakening.[...]
Most of the models now indicate that steering currents will weaken and Rita will stall and sit in place for several days once it moves inland. This will result in severe flooding problems for wherever Rita stalls, as 10 - 30 inches of rain could fall in the affected region. As is usually the case when steering current get weak, the model forecasts of Rita's motion are highly unreliable. Rita may stall over the Dallas area, or central Louisiana, or Oklahoma or Arkansas. It's too early to tell.
Most current plots have the vast bulk of the storm passing east of Travis County.
UPDATED 1:45pm
For the moment, the ACL Fest is on. A lot of other things have been cancelled or postponed. 9,000+ are in Austin evacuation shelters.
Rita is now a Category 3 hurricane, expected to make landfall early tomorrow near the Texas-Louisiana border. Hopfully, my friends and family will go unscathed.
UPDATED 9/24/2005 2:07pm
And this will be the last time I attempt to predict where a storm system will go. The weather in Austin is some of the best we've had all year.