Hurricane Hanna Causes A Mess, Hot Atlantic Water Spells More Trouble

Debris scattered in Texas due to Hurricane Hanna 

A quick Vermont update at the bottom of this post, but since it's hurricane season and hurricanes are quite appropriately on everybody's mind....  

HURRICANE HANNA:

Hurricane Hanna showed what unusually warm water can do to a developing hurricane.

It's basically jet fuel for such storms.

Such was the case with Hurricane Hanna, which kept getting stronger all the way until it made landfall on the southern Texas coast.

Peak sustained winds were 90 mph, stronger than pretty much everybody anticipated just a day or two earlier.

The storm caused the type of damage you'd expect from such a storm. High winds damaged some structures, more than 280,000 homes and businesses were without power, widespread flooding damaged many other buildings, and embedded tornadoes caused added trouble. A large pier along the coast collapsed. Storm surges flooded parts of downtown Corpus Christi, Texas.

Hanna videos at bottom of this post.

Hanna, now well inland, is fading fast, but still dumping torrential rains and causing a lot more flooding.

OTHER STORMS:

Hanna was no doubt powered by warmer than normal water temperatures, but that's not the only ingredient you need. It's just one of the more important ones.

Case in point is former Tropical Storm Gonzalo. It fired up awfully quickly amid super warm ocean waters, but the sputtered. That's because dry air aloft got pulled into the tiny system and choked off its thunderstorms.  Former Gonzalo is now just a few scattered showers and storms heading into the Caribbean Sea.

So you see, hot water isn't everything.  It is hurricane jet fuel, but only if everthing works on all cylinders, so to speak.

It's certainly early in the hurricane season and forecasters are already watching the next potential Atlantic troublemaker. A growing disturbance way out in the central Atlantic will probably become Tropical Storm Isaias.

Damn name is impossible to spell and even worse to pronounce, but oh well.

Computer models - at least for now - take Wannabe Isaias to near or just off the southeastern United States coast in about a week or so.  The majority of models  seem to take this system out to sea, just missing the U.S., but these long range models are notoriously unreliable.  Anything could happen, so we'll just have to wait and see.

And let's not forget about Hurricane Douglas out in the Pacific!

Hurricane warnings are up for many of the Hawaiian Island.  Douglas this morning was a little more tha 200 mies east of Honolulu with top sustained winds of 90 mph.

It'll continue to slowly weaken as it approaches the islands, but will probably still be a hurricane as it passes through Hawaii. It's not weakening that fast because, in part, water temperatures heading toward the islands are not as cool as they usually are.

Trees and infrastructure aren't really designed to hold up against strong winds in much of Hawaii, so this could be a real troublemaker

Even if Douglas doesn't go directly over any of the islands, it will be close enough to cause hurricane force gusts through downsloping forces along mountains, or winds funnel through valleys.  The upper floors of Honolulu high rises risk lots of shattered windows, too, because winds near the top floors will be stronger than at street level.

Flash flooding will be a real hazard, too at least for the rest of the day

VERMONT UPDATE

Yeah, it's pretty hot out there, despite some morning clouds in the northern  half of the state that temporarily slowed today's warming. Warmer valleys still  have a shot of getting to 90 degrees today, despite some lingering partial clouds.

We'll need to watch a so-called "ridge runner" late this afternoon and early evening along the International Border. This is a disturbance that is running over the top of a hot dome of air in the middle of the nation through the Great Lakes and into Ontario.

It'll move east to southeastward into southern Quebec and eventually western Maine later today. Some of the thunderstorms with this thing could creep south to just along the border between Quebec and Vermont later today, and a couple storms could be strong, especially in the Northeast Kingsdom.

Other little "ridge runners" might affect us with scattered showers and storms late tonight and again Monday afternoon and evening.  The biggest "threat" from these will probably be locally torrential downpours. Some places won't get any rain and all. It'll be the usual hit and miss type stuff.

It's possible clouds tomorrow will hold temperatures below 90 in the north, but even if that happens, it'll be ridiculously humid, so it will be uncomfortable.

Just like last Tuesday, a weak cold front will come through this Tuesday with a risk of some showers and storms, and gradually lowering humidity starting later on Tuesday. We hope.

Videos:

News video summarizing the storm.  Love the transition from official telling people to stay inside during the storm and then cutting immediately to ABC report in the eye of the storm:



Lots of debris in the water on the Corpus Christi waterfront: