Quick Thursday Update: Maria, Jose, Heat, Storms, Snow. Kitchen Sink, Too?

These palm trees in Puerto Rico were reduced to
sticks by Hurricane Maria

Hurricane Maria was sideswiping the Dominican Republic this morning, hitting it pretty hard with dangerous winds, flooding rains and storm surges.  

Hey, it trashed a bunch of islands already, I guess the hurricane figures it will keep destroying things.

As expected, Puerto Rico is hurting bad. The entire island has no electricity, and it could take up to six months to get it back. Which sounds daunting, depressing and quite possibly deadly.

Imagine trying to run hospitals, emergency services, entire societies with electricity in the 21st century. Oh sure, there will be generators, and electricity will slowly come back on line, but still. It's almost like going back to the stone age.

Especially since so many houses, businesses and other buildings are destroyed. Here's a glimpse of how horrible it was, as related by one witness, as relayed by the Weather Channel and the Miami Herald:

"'What I'm seeing is incredible,' retiree Rosita Galguerra, 66, who was riding out the storm with her husband in the Rio Piedras neighborhood of San Juan, told the Miami Herald. 'The house is trembling - and my house is made of concrete with a concrete roof. The winds are like out of a horror movie and its gusts, gusts, gusts. The island is going to be completely destroyed.'"

I suppose the only bit of good news right now is that most computer forecasting models are still insisting that Maria will stay offshore of the East Coast of the United States. Maria will still produce high tides, dangerous rip currents and such for the next several days, but that's certainly better than a direct hit.

Meanwhile, weird Tropical Storm Jose is still sitting and spinning and slowly winding down southeast of New England. It's track has had a seemingly endless history of stalls, loops and weird turns. That's continuing. Forecasters expect Jose will basically sit in the same spot out there at least through Sunday.

This is just making the weather miserable on Cape Cod and the Islands. The wind has been gusting past 40 mph continuously since just after noon Wednesday on Martha's Vineyard.

Elsewhere, we're still expecting record heat in northern New England - including Vermont, and southeastern Canada this weekend. Here in Vermont, weekend daytime highs are expected to reach the upper 80s, compared to the normal temperatures in the mid to upper 60s this time of year. Burlington has already had six consecutive days with highs in the 80s.

Further west, a stripe in the middle of the country can expect some flooding rains over the weekend due to a stalled weather front. It's hard to pinpoint exactly where the flooding might happen, but some areas could get a half foot of rain in the northern Plains.

And it's still snowing in the Rockies.

It's going to be one of those weekends when the weather is totally off the rails.

This video from CBS Miami is as good as any to show you the totality of the destruction from Maria in Puerto Rico and other islands:

Irma Devastation. Also, Jose, Katia, Even Northeast Floods

Major damage to a hotel on St. Martin, caused by
Hurricane Irma.

I'll kind of do the same format as yesterday, as the weather picture remains extremely busy, and in some cases devastating.

I'll start with the obvious - Irma - and then move on to all sorts of other weather news - some of which is affecting us here in New England.

IRMA MOWING ISLANDS

Hurricane Irma plowed into the tiny island of Barbuda overnight, still as a Category 5 storm with winds of 185 mph, gusting to 225 mph.

A weather station on Barbuda reported sustained winds of 108 mph gusting to 155, before wind reports abruptly went calm. I don't know if that was the eye of Irma hitting or just the wind measuring equipment failing under the extreme strain of the storm.

A storm surge of over eight feet smashed the south side of Barbuda. I don't have details yet on how people are doing out there.

Barbuda and the neighboring hard-hit island of Antigua have a population of about 100,000, though it's unclear how many people left the islands before Irma hit.

This is just the beginning, of course. Next up today is St. Martin, which got slammed this morning. Early reports from St. Martin indicate severe damage, even to sturdy buildings. The Virgin Islands are getting it, too.

Irma is a terrible threat to Puerto Rico as well. It'll pass over or just to the north of Puerto Rico tonight, with a lot of damage expected there. Already, as of 10 a.m. Eastern Time, outer rainbands from Irma have already toppled trees and cut power in parts of eastern Puerto Rico. It's going to keep getting worse as the day drags on.

The Turks and Caicos Islands, as well as the southeastern Bahamas, could see extreme storm surges of 15 to 20 feet, which would take out huge swaths of coastal communities. I hope they have great evacuation plans there.

Eventually, Irma gets close to Florida, so we have to talk about that in some detail.

Since Irma won't be around Florida until Sunday or so, the future path is uncertain. It could hit any part of the Florida peninsula, and the center of Irma could miss it entirely. Still, Florida is certain to have some effects from Irma, we just don't know to what extent yet.

The forecast future path of Irma as it heads toward the United States later this week reminds me of Hurricane Matthew last year.

Last year, Matthew headed westbound across the central Caribbean, then took a sharp turn north, where it devastated Haiti, then moved northward just off the east coast of Florida, still as a major hurricane, then coming ashore in South Carolina, then offshore again while unleashing a devastating flood in North Carolina.

Major damage and flooding on St. Martin with
Hurricane Irma this mornig. 

Irma is starting from a position further north than Matthew, but is still forecast to abruptly change its basically westward path just above the coast of Cuba and veer sharply north toward Florida over the weekend.

Here's the problem: We still don't know exactly when Irma will turn north. It's a few days away so the so-called cone of uncertainty is wide.

Irma could go up the west coast of Florida, or smack directly into the southern tip of Florida, possibly still as a Category 4 hurricane, or move north just off the east coast of Florida just like Matthew did. Some of the computer models have been trying to push Irma in that more easterly path. We'll just have to wait and see.

Of course, if Irma does this more easterly trick, that would put the Carolinas at a higher risk of getting blasted.

By the way, you'll hear media reports of Irma "weakening" and perhaps talking about a sigh of relief from Florida.

Don't buy it. It's true Irma will likely no longer be a Category 5 storm with 185 mph winds by the time it gets near Florida Sunday or early Monday.  Disruptions in Irma's circulation from nearby islands, and some upper level winds will probably cut back on Irma's strength a little.  But I'm guessing ot that much.

Irma will still be a formidable hurricane near or over Florida.

The state is already kind of a mess and Irma isn't anywhere near Florida yet. Tourists and non-residents have already been order off of the Florida Keys. Miami Beach plans to announce mandatory evacuations later today or tomorrow, says the Miami Herald.

Store shelves across Florida are bereft of supplies like bottled water, plywood and other things people need for storm preparation.

Price gouging is a problem, too.

Bottled water on Amazon is selling for an inflated price, which has brought accusations of price gouging.  According to CBS news, Amazon uses "dynamic pricing," in which as demand for an item increases, so does the price, guided by Amazon's algorithms.

In this case, Amazon, shut your goddamn algorithms off, you selfish bastards.

The Florida Attorney General's office has opened a price gouging hotline to report such activity.

Anyway, I could go on and on with the developing story of Irma, but I'll just keep posting updates as needed.

Let's move on to other weather news that you should hear about today:

OTHER TROPICAL TROUBLE:

Tropical Storm Jose continued to strengthen toward hurricane status well east of Irma. Jose will probably travel on a more northwesterly course than Irma, but still could clip the northern Leeward Islands, already devastated by Irma.

Tropical Storm Katia has formed in the Bay of Campeche, east of Mexico. It's going to meander around for a few days then head southwestward into the central Mexican coast, forecasters believe. It could strengthen to a hurricane before landfall.

Texas still looks safe from Katia, so that piece of news is good. They don't need another Harvey.

NORTHEAST FLOODS:

It's another rainy day in the Northeast, and the flood threat is increasing in parts of the region. Flash flood watches are up in parts of Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine as a stalled front over that region is unleashing heavy rains there.

Two to four inches of rain could fall there by Thursday morning, on top of the locally heavy rain they had yesterday and last night.

Here in Vermont, we're west of the front so the rain isn't so heavy. No major flooding is expected in the Green Mountain State, but as you can tell it's another rainy, gloomy day here.

On Tuesday, some parts of Vermont and the rest of New England had some damage from severe thunderstorms. Most of it was in the form of trees and power lines down. One especially strong storm snapped off nine pine trees in Pittsfield, Vermont.

We'll provide updates as we go along, so stay tuned.

Here's a video showing the destruction in St. Martin: