There already is an Irma thread, but nobody seemed to have interest in it
Irma
As for the initial post:
It's worth noting that the GFS 06z ensemble has shifted significantly to the east. We'll need to see whether the ECMWF follows suit, but expect the NHC track to move somewhat east. Right now GFS thinks it's more likely than not that Florida won't get hit at all. That said, it's just one run of one ensemble.
The supercharger network has proven to be amazingly resilient. There were only brief outages, if anything, in Texas and western Louisiana from Harvey. Superchargers survived where the buildings that they were attached to were heavily damaged.
Part of the issue is that they're pretty much by definition connected to high power feeds, which rarely go out. If the sort of power supply to a supercharger is out,
everybody's power is out in the whole area. They're not little branch feeds that supply gas stations and homes.
Furthermore: Irma will not hit the US as a Cat 5. She's extremely powerful now, but she is not expected to maintain this strength indefinitely; a Cat 3-4 landfall is much more likely. That said, her wind field will significantly grow, so she'll be spreading her strongest winds over a much larger area. Likewise, the surge will not diminish as the center weakens but the wind field grows (and surge is usually the biggest killer).
No, it is not, and it's comments like this that lead people to making stupid decisions. The ensembles still have plenty of tracks that hit Florida. Until these go away, hits *are* very much realistic probabilities.
*Always* trust the NHC. That said, the NHC tends to lag behind the models, so if you want to get a leg up on what the NHC is going to say next, follow the ensembles. You can see them here:
Weathernerds TC Guidance
ECMWF is somewhat more reliable than GFS, but only updated half as frequently.
Also, when it comes to the NHC, I have to fault them for their cone, because most people misunderstand it, so they really should eliminate it and replace it with a "pseudo-ensemble" graph that people will understand better. When people see a circle, their mind inherently sees the center as "The eye will hit here unless the NHC is wrong", and areas just outside the circle as "The eye will not hit here unless the NHC is wrong". That's not what the graph means at all. The circles define areas where there's a 2 in 3 chance that the center of the storm will be "somewhere within the circle" at that point in time. There's a 1 in 3 chance that it won't; it may pass through sooner or later, or not at all. The graphs go against peoples' instincts when they see such a graph, and hence IMHO NHC should discontinue them and replace them with something better.
That said: trust the NHC's analysis. They take into account
everything. Don't trust random people on the internet over what they have to say. That includes me. If I say something that happens to contradict the NHC, ignore me and listen to them.
On the topic of evacuation: There's absolutely nothing wrong with leaving. People who leave should *never be made fun for doing so*, unless they're needlessly contributing to evacuation problems for others who are at more risk than they are. It doesn't matter if the eyewall doesn't hit them; living in the aftermath of a hurricane, even a non-direct hit, isn't fun. My sister stuck around for Ike, thinking it'd be fun. First off, the experience of the storm itself is sitting around for hours wondering if a tree or a piece of a neighbor's house is going to crash into yours. Afterwards, there's debris all over the roads that doesn't clear quickly, flooded roads, etc, so you're generally stuck in your house. Wherein, if the power's off, is a miserable sweltering environment in the aftermath of a hurricane.
There is currently little traffic on Florida's interstates:
Google kort
To anyone leaving now: kudos to you. Yes, the hurricane might not even hit Florida. But it might and it might be bad. No, the odds of, say, you getting the eyewall are not high. They're actually quite low. But they're real, and the consequences of high winds, rains, and particularly surge are very real. Don't second guess your decision; sometimes humans have to make decisions based on incomplete information, that's part of being an adult. Enjoy your unplanned vacation. Make it fun. Then come back, and if there's a mess left behind, clean it up and get on with life. If not... at least you got a vacation out of it.
Now, to anyone who waits until the very last minute, and clogs the roads when people are fleeing from high-risk areas when they're only in a moderate or low risk area.... don't. Stay home. The time to decide to leave is
before the highways clog, not after. Yes, that means leaving before there's any certainty as to where the storm is actually going. It means making a decision based on incomplete information. But again: welcome to adulthood. If you waited too long, accept your decision.
