Dolly wrap up, all else quiet

Dolly is done, and the last advisory was written about her as she was at the Oklahoma/Texas/New Mexico border in Union County, NM. After passing across the border north of Laredo, she ventured south of the Big Bend, and then ventured north, causing flooding in Ruidoso and ending up in NE NM. San Manuel, Hidalgo County, Texas (Valley area) was the big winner with 12" of rain.

All else is quiet on the tropical front, except that there is a storm about to crash into China. I don't think this will affect next week's Olympics yet (I can't believe I can say "next week"!).

This weekend was spent at Lake Hartwell doing a lot of nothing. Although it was a bit overcast it was actually nice because it was not so hot and we still got sun and water time. The lake was LOW though...scary.

Dolly still deep in the heart of Texas

As of 7 PM CDT, Dolly has moved to the northwest corner of Jim Hogg County, where it intersects with Zapata County and Webb County (Laredo). Winds are down to 50 mph, which makes it still a pretty decent Tropical Storm, despite the fact it's been over land for at least 18 hours (very long lived for a tropical system over land!).

Damage is in the form of roofs blown off and structural damage on South Padre, and flooding mainly in Harlingen and points near that area. The system is supposed to keep dropping lots of rain, up to 20" in spots, which is somewhat unfortunate because that area of Texas does not need rain, while spots a 100 or so miles up desparately needs rain!

There is another area to watch in the Atlantic, although it is in no eminent danger of forming.

We are still in a drought even though we got some rain. Speaking of droughts, I'm going to up to Lake Hartwell this weekend, and Asheville next weekend, both places which are in "Exceptional"/D4 droughts. It should still be fun though!

UPDATE: Dolly has traversed from east of Laredo to North of Laredo (north of the Camino Columbia Road and about 1/2 way between Laredo & the Maverick County line), and is still barely a tropical storm. Tornadoes are breaking out in San Antonio and Bexar County however, but it is too early to determine damage extents.

Dolly comes ashore as a Category 2

Dolly came ashore at about 1 PM CDT/2 PM EDT as a Category 2 storm, just north of the town of South Padre Island, Texas. It is heading now between Harlingen and Raymondville, and basically is headed in this direction.

Dolly is now back to a Category 1 storm, but she definitely left damage. Surprisingly the winds picked up to 100 mph and the pressure dropped to about 967 mb just before landfall, which is a bad scenario, especially since yesterday it was only a tropical storm and people weren't taking this too seriously. Damage assessments aren't in yet, however the Bahia Mar hotel in South Padre apparently has extensive damage, and rainfall could be as much as 10" in some areas.

Storms this far south are fairly rare, and only 6 have hit within the vicinity of South Padre. The most notable is Beulah who was a Category 5, but a weakening Category 3 storm when it made landfall in almost the same area as Beulah.

UPDATE: The 4PM CDT update has an 85 mph Cat 1 Dolly on the Kenedy/Willacy County line (which is fortunately a very unpopulated area). The storm is still bad in the Valley, but the eyewall is not hitting a populated area. The Hurricane Warning from the Kenedy/Kleburg county line up to Corpus is discontinued, replaced by a Tropical Storm Warning. The Mexican government has also discontinued the Hurricane Watch/Tropical Storm Warning south of San Fernando.

If you're interested, you can watch live streaming coverage on KGBT online. (And as a personal note, I sent an e-mail saying I was watching from Atlanta and they read my e-mail on the air!

EVENING UPDATE: Dolly has now entered Hidalgo County, just where it meets up with Willacy & Kenedy Counties. It is temporarily still at Cat 1 with 75 mph winds.

Dolly on course to hit south Texas tomorrow

Dolly has gotten a little stronger, and could be a hurricane as soon as the 10 AM CDT/11 AM EDT update. It's likely to hit land as a high Cat 1 or low Cat 2, but almost definitely not a Cat 3. Landfall looks to be somewhere right on the Texas/Mexico border, which is bad for south Texas, as that puts the entire 408,000 folks in the Brownsville/Harlingen metro area of the Valley in the right front quadrant, which is the worst part of the storm.

Hurricane Watches have turned into Hurricane Warnings, and Tropical Storm Watches have turned into Tropical Storm Warnings. The only difference is that the Mexican government has also issued a Hurricane Watch for the areas also covered by the Tropical Storm Warning.

The Hurricane could strike as early as tomorrow morning and could bring tropical storm winds as far inland as Laredo, Texas, which is 150 miles from the coast, due east of Corpus.

The Weather Channel's Jim Cantore is currently in Port Aransas, a beach town connected by ferry to Corpus.

Cristobal is heading out to see and probably won't touch any more land, but may bring some bad weather to Nova Scotia briefly. The next storm is trying to form off the coast of Africa, however it came off the coast a lot farther north than normal so it is having trouble due to the lower water temperatures in the area.

UPDATE: Since we last left off, TS Dolly is now Hurricane Dolly, with winds just above the treshold at 75 mph. It is forecast to make landfall right at the Texas state line, probably as a strong (< 95 mph) hurricane. The Hurricane Warnings from Corpus to Port O'Connor have been dropped, but have been replaced by a Tropical Storm Warning (which goes all the way to the Galveston/Brazoria County line. Reynolds Wolf from CNN is down at South Padre giving updates (not sure if it's in HD, but I'll find out since my gym doesn't have HD yet).

In other news, the blob in the Atlantic still has not formed but looks favorable to do so. The national weather map looks like a kid's crayon drawing, including the Atlanta area, which is under a Thunderstorm Watch until 11 PM this evening. So far no rain yet though, at least north of downtown. There are currently storms however to the north and east of us.

Bertha, Cristobal, Dolly (and Edouard?)

Bertha is finally gone, after surviving nearly 18 days, 7.75 of which of those were as a Hurricane. She broke all kinds of records, but didn't do that much damage except scaring the folks in Bermuda a bit.

Cristobal formed on Saturday, and moved up the Carolina coast, from about Charleston up to where she is now, due east of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Up until 11 PM last night, Tropical Storm Warnings had been posted for eastern Carteret, Hyde, Pamlico, Dare and Currituck County (up to the North Carolina/Virginia line), but those have since been dropped as Cristobal's TS winds are supposed to stay out to sea (and only briefly touched Cape Lookout) in Carteret County). There is a chance the storm could make landfall in southern Nova Scotia near Yarmouth by Tuesday afternoon, and move past Halifax that night as a Tropical Storm, although it's a bit too early to tell. Cristobal would then move past St. John's, Newfoundland, by midnight Wednesday night.

Dolly is more troubling. As of 7 AM CDT (8 AM EDT), Currently the storm is just just off the northern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula. She was supposed to stay over land longer, but just grazed this landmass, and is now in the process of reforming in the warm Gulf waters. Currently estimates have landfall late Wednesday near South Padre Island, Texas, however, anywhere along this line is really in the path and needs to watch out. In fact if it hit near the northern end, near Victoria/Victoria County, it would not be AS bad because they really need the rain, and the area just north of there up through San Antonio and Austin is in a level D4 (or the worst kind) of drought. However, I'm leary about this forecast because these Gulf storms seem always to curve farther to the right than forecast (for instance see here starting around September 20 where they were calling for Rita to come ashore down near Matagorda Bay, and she ended up making landfall near Sabine Pass, Texas/Louisiana, some 200 miles to the east (and consequently aiming towards and then missing Texas altogether. We'll have to wait and see. The official intensity has it coming ashore as a Category 1, however with the new track more north (and less over land), it could range as high as a Category 2 or even 3 (major hurricane). Check out the latest forecasts for South Padre here calling for hurricane conditions on Wednesday and Wednesday night.

Finally, there is not as of yet an Edouard, however there is a vigorous tropical wave just about to emerge off the coast of Africa. It is way to early to have any idea where this could end up, but if I were going to the Caribbean in the next week or so, I would keep an eye out.

More updates as the 11, 2 and 5 updates come in on Dolly.

UPDATE: Cristobal is now east of the VA/NC state line, and has winds of 65 mph, but should not strengthen and should start to lose tropical characteristics tomorrow.

Dolly: A Hurricane watch is now in effect from San Fernando, Mexico, up through the Mexican/US Border, and all the way up to Port O'Connor, including the cities of Brownsville and Corpus Christi. This is until further notice, and includes Cameron, Willacy, Kenedy, Kleburg, Nueces, Aransas, San Patricio, Refugio and Calhoun Counties. Further, a tropical storm watch is in effect from La Pesca, Mexico to San Fernando, and from Port O'Connor, Texas up to San Luis Pass. This includes Matagorda and Brazoria Counties, both being in the greater Houston metro, but does not include (yet) Galveston County/Island/City. No evacuations are planned as of yet, but officials are trying to decide what to do. It's looking like landfall sometime later on Wednesday.

No Cristobal yet

So the Air Force Recon unit did not find a closed circulation in that blob out in the Caribbean. The suspense is killing us...either it needs to get its act together and form a tropical system, or it needs to dissipate! In addition, there is a blob off the coast of Georgia/South Carolina, but it has not formed either. It may have a better chance of getting its act together and then moving north towards Yankeeland.

Similarly, Bertha has once again become a Hurricane. This is getting ridiculous! The thing has been around since July 3, or for over two weeks.

Tonight we're going to Jerry Jeff Walker at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens, and tomorrow I have tickets to watch the Braves play the Nationals. Good times!

Nothing new yet but the tropics is hot right now

Bertha is STILL chugging along as a strong tropical storm, and she's now the longest lived July storm ever. No signs of her weakening yet, but she should be well on her way out to see by the beginning of next week.

The potential "Cristobal" near South America and the Windward Islands is trying to reform again, and hurricane hunters have either just finished investigating or are still investigating. What I don't know is if they've found anything, or if they just haven't decided whether to make it TD-3 yet. There was a special statement on the NHC webpage earlier saying it could be forming, but they've taken that off, at least for now.

The next best chance for a system is by Nicarauga and Panama, but it's got to get its act together quickly or it will hit land.

Finally, there is a system just off the coast of Tampa, Florida, but it's very close to land, so chances are slim it will actually develop.

So, by tomorrow we could either have Bertha, Cristobal, Dolly & Edouard, or possibly just a weakening Bertha. We shall have to wait to find out.

Finally, I voted in the "gulp" Democratic Georgia primaries yesterday...only because our Georgia Assembly seat, #53, was a tight race and there is no republican challenger. Unfortunately, the race is SO close that they haven't yet tabulated the results, and depending on what news outlet you look at, my candidate, Elly Dobbs, is winning by a bit or her challenger is winning by a bit. We'll have to wait and see!

Okay, so maybe Cristobal will have to wait

While last night it looked like the blob in the Atlantic could turn into Cristobal at any moment, today is has degenerated, and the NHC has lowered the likelihood of that happening to "orange" or 20-50% likely. Although that is a little scary because Katrina took a long time to get organized and obviously once she did, all hell broke loose (although I'm not saying this will be the next Katrina). As an aside, it is very interesting to look at the evolution of Katrina if you click on the Weather Underground link to the left and then go to the archives and find August 2005...it started out as a TOTALLY different storm than it ended up.

24 days until the Olympics. According to nbcolympics.com, there will almost literally be programming on 24 hours/day on multiple channels, including 11 Alive/NBC HD, Universal HD and USAHD. I cannot wait, but I can't promise I'll be too productive during that time...haha.

Lastly the rain we got on Sunday was the highest single-day rainfall since 2006! It helped the lakes not drop, although it didn't really help them rise any appreciable amount.

Bertha near Bermuda and almost a Cat 1 Hurricane; Cristobal on the way

Bertha is 65 miles away from Bermuda is is almost a Category 1 hurricane. The track has it strengthening a bit and slowly pulling away from that island. Bermuda may or may not feel the hurricane force winds, and because of that a Tropical Storm Warning and a Hurricane Watch are currently issued.

More pressing is the fact that a tropical low has formed with at least mid-level convection much farther south and west of where Bertha formed. This is most likely going to be Cristobal by tonight or tomorrow (fyi dolly is the next after that). This could be serious, as it most certainly will hit the Carribean, the Gulf Coast or the Atlantic coast. We shall have to wait and see once official updates are issued about this potential storm.

On a positive note, we got 2" of rain yesterday, which is a record for the date, and far surpasses what we've gotten over the last couple months. It would help even more if this storm were to hit in the right part of the coast and give us some rain!

Bertha and rain

Bertha has been going between a major and a minor hurricane the last couple of days, and it has been a hurricane for about 3 days now (for those counting, the record is 7 days of being a hurricane in July, which is Emily I believe). Although no one knows for sure, it is likely now Bermuda will feel SOME impact from the storm, although probably not a direct hit. Also, this storm may hit the Canadian maritime provinces as a tropical storm.

In Atlanta, it has actually rained at our house twice in a week, which is a really great thing. The last couple of days it has rained all around our neighborhood, but not at our house, which is very frustrating. The yard is looking better though. I'm still scared that they will take away our 25 minutes/day of watering however, especially since my exemption for new plantings, which lasted 10 weeks, ends on Sunday.

Bertha Good News/Bad News

Bertha has suddenly become a Category 3, or major, hurricane. That is the bad news. The good news is that because it is now so strong, it is more easily steered by fronts and things. There is such a front pushing off the Atlantic coast which will take Bertha north, then east, and most likely it will even miss Bermuda. There is still a small chance it will not recurve however, so interests in South Carolina north are advised to keep their guards up.

This weekend I did nothing but drink and exercise, sometimes at the same time...playing tennis, running a 10K (Peachtree!), two cookouts and a trip to Bella's Pizzeria in Smyrna make for a tiring weekend! Plus I got to play (finally) Guitar Hero for the very first time.

We actually got about .78" of rain this weekend, which is more than double our total for the month of June. The plants I'm sure are very happy but I'm not sure it helped the lake situation any more (btw, Lanier is at its lowest level since it was originally filled in the 50's). I'm guessing harder water restrictions may again be in our future as early as this month. In any event, it won't help my yard which already looks bad!

Peachtree Eve and potential Bertha?

Well tomorrow is the big day, the Peachtree Road Race. Why else would I get up at 6 AM to go running on a national holiday? Again I'm in group 1A, so I'll have to run fast to keep up (and hopefully not stay too far behind the Kenyans!). I'm excited though and the weather looks to be good.

Also, a potential Bertha is churning out by the Cape Verde Islands. This is very early in the year for a "Cape Verde" storm to form, but it looks like it may miss land, or at the very worst (for the U.S.) hit up around Maine or somewhere, which would weaken it since the water is still so cold there. It's scheduled to become a tropical storm, and get its name, sometime later today.