76 F. high yesterday in the Twin Cities.
76 F. average high on September 4.
79 F. maximum temperature on September 4, 2016.
September 5, 1990: Nine inches of rain falls in Duluth by the end of the following day, washing out $1,000,000 worth of roads.
September 5, 1982: 77 mph winds are reported in Anoka County.
Cool and Comfortable Back to School Weather
The
biggest difference between Harvey and Irma? The tropical remains of
Hurricane Harvey stalled over Texas for the better part of 5 days,
unleashing a year's worth of rain on Houston.
High
level steering winds were light with Harvey, but that may not be the
case with Hurricane Irma, which will brush Cuba before turning north.
The $100 billion question is WHEN will the storm turn north? Tampa and
Miami are both threatened by damaging winds and storm surge by Sunday.
Both metro areas are among the most vulnerable cities to coastal
flooding in the nation. With rising seas Miami now floods on a clear day
with a full moon.
My
hunch is wind and storm surge will be the biggest threats with Irma;
latest models suggest Miami may take a direct hit from a major
hurricane. I hope I'm wrong.
Canada leaks free A/C south of the border, with 60s for highs today and Wednesday. According to Mark Seeley August was the
11th wettest on record, statewide. I'm happy to report a dry week with a shot at 80 by Sunday.
This is shaping up as the worst hurricane season since 2015. Irma is big trouble.
*
NOAA HWRF model solution above valid Saturday evening, showing peak
winds of 160 knots with the eye of Irma just north of Cuba. Map credit:
WeatherBell.
Symmetry.
Non-operational GOES-16 images (visible and enhanced) taken midday
Monday show a powerful hurricane with a double eye-wall and little sign
of dry air or Saharan dust disrupting the feeder band circulation into
the core of the storm. With Caribbean water temperatures unusually warm
conditions favor additional strengthening in the coming days. Image:
AerisWeather.
Perspective.
This 3-D visible image perspective from midday Monday shows Puerto Rico
on the far left side of the screen. Irma may come close enough to
trigger significant storm surge and wind damage in San Juan. Image:
AerisWeather.
NHC Track.
The official track continues to shift south and west with time; a major
hurricane predicted off the north shore of Cuba by Saturday afternoon.
Along the way the U.S. and British Virgin Islands may see damaging winds
and a 4-6 foot storm surge as Irma's eye tracks just to the north.
Puerto Rico may also see significant damage (especially north shore) and
power outages. Track: NOAA NHC.
Tropical Storm-Force Winds.
The map above is an experimental product from NHC, setting expectations
for when sustained winds are predicted to top 39 mph - tropical storm
force.
Predicted Wind Field.
NOAA's GFS model shows Irma as a strong Category 3-4 hurricane as is
tracks precariously close to the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, the
Dominican Republic and Cuba. Animation: Aeris AMP.
Tropical Cyclone Tracks from Experimental Forecast and Ensemble Models.
NOAA ESRL has a page that updates frequently. Welcome to our world - so many models, only one (correct) forecast track.
Fifty-One Inches. Terror, Heartbreak and Heroism as Five Houstonians Brave America's Worst Storm.
And here is another reason why we need newspapers to get the real
story, the full story - with perspective and context you won't find
anywhere else. Check out this ambitious multimedia story at
The Houston Chronicle: "
They
couldn’t have known that a low pressure system in the Atlantic would,
over the next week, grow into the fiercest hurricane to hit Texas in
four decades. That it would stall over Houston and dump 51.88 inches of
rain at Cedar Bayou in East Harris County, more than any storm in U.S.
history..."
Development and Disasters - A Deadly Combination Well Beyond Houston.
Demographic shifts and urbanization near the coast are huge factors -
urban sprawl has made the disaster bulls-eye much bigger, and we
continue to build in areas that are increasingly vulnerable to rising
seas and extreme rains, argues a story at
ProPublica: "...
Indeed,
the economic costs — which will include everything from thousands of
ruined and uninsured homes to higher national gasoline prices to lost
business activity in the country’s fourth-largest city — will take
months to calculate, and years to overcome, said Kevin Simmons, an
economist at Austin College focused on storm impacts. “In the Houston
metro area alone, there is more than $325 billion in residential value
at risk,” Simmons said in an interview. “Most damage to residential
property will be flooding and if people don't have flood insurance they
are on their own.” (Most don’t, in part because the floodwaters reached
so far beyond established danger zones.) Add in damaged cars, commercial
property, lost business and the damage outside of Houston, “The bottom
line will likely exceed Katrina,” he said..."
Photo credit: "
Residential neighborhoods in Houston, Texas near Interstate 10 sit in floodwater in the wake of Hurricane Harvey."
(Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times).
Harvey Wrecks Up to a Million Cars in Driving-Dependent Houston. And be extra-careful if you're buying a used vehicle in the months ahead, argues a story at WIRED.com: "...And
that’s where another specter raises its head: title washing, or taking a
damaged vehicle, fixing it up a bit, and fudging the record (either by
forgery or taking advantage of legal loopholes by moving states) to hide
the fact that it was once the victim of serious problems. A 2014 study by Carfax
found there were nearly 800,000 cars on US roads that had been through
this sort of fraud; 650,000 of those were flood damaged or salvage
vehicles.Because these cars tend to be sold cheap, their sellers are
likely to target the many people now in desperate need of a new chariot.
“Flooded vehicles will be showing up on the market,” says Fred Britton,
owner of Public Auto Auctions in Niederwald, Texas, near Austin..."
Photo credit: Julia Andrews,
Houston Chronicle.
Today: Coolest Day in Sight.
Temperatures may not climb out of the low to mid 60s this afternoon
with a stiff northwest wind behind yesterday's sharp cold front. But
readings mellow into the 70s later this week; 80F a possibility early
next week, based on ECMWF numbers for the Twin Cities. Graphic:
WeatherBell.
14 Famous Business Pivots.
Your business model isn't working out the way you hoped? You can try a
new way forward; fail until you succeed. Here's an excerpt from
Forbes: "
The
most critical decision for an entrepreneur is to know when to stay the
course vs. change direction. I’ve spoke at length about how to deal
with “The Entrepreneur’s Dilemma.” Today we launched the new version of Docstoc
that completes our 6 year evolution from a professional document
sharing website to the go-to resource to start and grow small
businesses. In part we were inspired by some of the most famous
business pivots of some of the most famous brands. Here are fourteen
extraordinary examples..."
Here's When Machines Will Take Your Job, As Predicted by AI Gurus.
I don't worry about immigrants (I'm the son of an immigrant). I worry
about really, really smart machines that don't take vacations and never
ask for raises. Here's an excerpt from
Big Think: "...
In the next 10 years, we should have AI do better than humans in translating languages (by 2024), writing high-school-level essays (by 2026), writing top 40 songs (by 2028) and driving trucks. And while the consensus may be that driving trucks may come by 2027,
it's easy to predict that this could happen even sooner, with top tech
entrepreneurs like Elon Musk constantly pushing the envelope and promising these innovations earlier. A chore that would take less time - folding laundry should be a breeze for AI by 2022. Other tasks might take longer, but still within the foreseeable future..."
Get Ready for Technological Upheaval by Expecting the Unimagined. Following up the story above, here's a clip from a
New York Times article: "...
Self-driving
vehicles could upend the transportation sector and eliminate a million
or more jobs. Algorithms that decode M.R.I.s put a whole medical
subfield at risk. And the list of professions and sectors soon to be
obsolete grows steadily by the day. New technologies are rattlinng the
economy on all fronts. While the predictions are specific and dire,
bigger changes are surely coming. Clearly, we need to adjust for the
turbulence ahead. But we may be preparing in the wrong way..."
Photo credit: "
The best way to prepare for the future may be to prepare for change." Tim Cook.
As Robots Edge Into Workplace, Free Money Idea Takes Hold. But who is going to pay for it, the companies that displace (human) workers? Here's an excerpt from AP and
Star Tribune: "
Driverless
trucks. Factory robots. Delivery drones. Virtual personal assistants.
As technological innovations increasingly edge into the workplace, many
people fear that robots and machines are destined to take jobs that
human beings have held for decades. For many affected workers,
retraining might be out of reach —unavailable, unaffordable or
inadequate. What then? Enter the idea of a universal basic income, the
notion that everyone should be able to receive a stream of income to
live on, regardless of their employment or economic status. It isn't an
idea that seems likely to gain traction nationally in the current
political environment. But in some politically liberal corners of the
country, including Hawaii and the San Francisco Bay area, the idea of
distributing a guaranteed income has begun to gain support..."
You Can't Kill Bigfoot in Washington and More Odd Animal Laws. Who knew?
National Geographic has a story with jaw-dropping details: "...
The U.S. laws show all the many ways we relate to animals, as pets, property, food, co-workers, friends, and more, says David Rosengard, the fund's staff attorney. For instance, in Juneau, Alaska, you can't take a dog with you into a beauty salon or barbershop; if you're going hunting in West Virginia, don't be tempted to take along your ferret for help. Some of these laws are indeed kooky, but others have got horse sense. According to an Ohio law, “no horse owner is allowed to let their stallion mate with a mare anywhere near a public street or alley...”
Photo credit: "Mexican
free-tailed bats sail through the night sky in Texas. People in that
state can kill the animals if they're inside the house or on the roof." Photograph by Joel Sartore, National Geographic Creative.
TODAY: Mostly cloudy, windy & cool. Winds: NW 10-20. High: 64
TUESDAY NIGHT: Clearing and cool. Low: 49
WEDNESDAY: Partly sunny, comfortably cool. Winds: NW 8-13. High: 65
THURSDAY: Sunny and milder. Looking good. Winds: W 7-12. Wake-up: 50. High: 74
FRIDAY: Sunny, still spectacular. Wake-up: 54. High: 77
SATURDAY: Plenty of mild sunshine, no complaints. Winds: SE 10-15. Wake-up: 57. High: 78
SUNDAY: Blue sky holding pattern. Balmy. Wake-up: 61. High: near 80
MONDAY: Another fine September day. Winds: S 7-12. Wake-up: 62. High: 81
Climate Stories...
Four Radical Plans to Save Civilization from Climate Change. I'm
still not there yet with geoengineering. Maybe we'll all have to wrap
our heads around stuff that sounds an awful lot like science fiction to
avoid worst case scenarios, argues a story at
WIRED: "
Smug eco-warriors may think
they’re curbing global warming with their vegan diets, charged-up
Teslas, and rooftop solar panels. But according to Peter Wadhams, head
of the Polar Ocean Physics Group at the University of Cambridge, we’re
barely staving off disaster. He should know: The pessimistic professor
has been studying sea ice for nearly 50 years. “Reducing our emissions is not going to be enough to prevent catastrophic consequences,” he says. In his scorching new book, A Farewell to Ice, he presents a slew of radical—and sometimes theoretical—ways to save civilization..."
Illustration credit: Paul Lacolley.
Ancient Global Warming Event Linked to Volcanic CO2. Planetary
volcanic eruptions spewing out CO2, methane and other greenhouse gases
was responsible for the last (spike) in warming. Now we are the volcano.
Here's an excerpt from
New Atlas: "
We're currently breaking climate record after climate record, and it appears that we might be on track to topple a record that's held strong for about 56 million years. The Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum
(PETM) was the most rapid and extreme example of global warming since
the dinosaurs were wiped out, and a new study has found evidence that
intense volcanic eruptions were to blame, pumping mind-boggling amounts
of carbon into the oceans and atmosphere..."
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