Idalia Update
By Paul Homewood
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2023/08/30/hurricane-idalia/
There have been suggestions that the rapid intensification of Idalia was somehow unprecedented.
This is nonsense.
Idalia went from a tropical storm, with winds of 60 kts (69 mph), to a Cat 3 hurricane at landfall, with winds of 125 mph, in the space of about 32 hours.
http://rammb-data.cira.colostate.edu/tc_realtime/storm.asp?storm_identifier=al102023
But that was nothing compared to the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane, by far the strongest to hit the US. This went from a tropical storm to a Cat 5 , with winds of 185 mph, all in the space of less than two days.
We must also remember, of course, that we now have satellite updates every six hours, plus frequent hurricane hunter flights, to give us almost hourly data for these bigger storms.
In 1935, they had little idea what was happening out at sea, and so often had no idea how quickly storms intensified.
http://www.hurricanescience.org/history/storms/1930s/LaborDay/
Trail of Destruction
Even the weakest hurricanes can be devastating to anybody in their path. But as the impacts from Idalia become clear, it seems that it was much less catastrophic than forecast, and certainly not in the same league as Ian last year.
Storm surge, according to Fox, never seems to have got much above 6 ft, much less than the 15 ft forecast before landfall. That however is still enough to inundate places like Cedar Key, a group of low lying islands which took the brunt of Idalia, and which are now more than a few feet above sea level for the most part.
Rainfall was not excessive either by hurricane standards. And as the storm tracked across Georgia, the expected catastrophic rainfall did not materialise – totals of up to in Georgia for example.
Fortunately it also appears that there have been no deaths identified so far, as a direct result of the storm.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Let’s hope that’s true about no deaths. With one death in Mexico, the last two hurricanes speak well for civil safety arrangements particularly as They Are Getting Stronget And More Frequent.
Where are the verified pictures on the BBC of the shredded and broken trees?
Are they beneath the verified disastrous floods?
Were the cameras of the BBC and Sky subsumed by the waters?
Have they embarrassed themselves with their constant verified lies?
Disaster porn.
Yeah, where is it?
I was watching the BBC 24hours news programme yesterday when they switched live to an announcement on the state of the hurricane by the county governor and his Safety Director. Both gave a very clear positive report that no one had died, electricity was rapidly being reconnected and roads cleared, and the highest sea surge was up to 8 feet and not the 16 feet that had been forecast and that the hurricane had been downgraded on hitting the coast from strength 4 to strength 1. Later in the same broadcast the BBC were still broadcasting their earlier devastating news that seas would be surge up to 16 feet, serious damage was anticipated, people were being evacuated from the area and the hurricane was still at force 4, A weather scientist was interviewed and said it was all down to climate change. It was not until their evening broadcast on the same programme that they reported that it had been downgraded.
It really does seem that the BBC revel in announcing terrible news that cannot be supported by the facts.
They are in fact purveyors of verified lies
The Big Bend region of Florida is sparsely populated, so limited damage and limited casualties are to be expected.
I woner why the BBC have not sent the hundreds of reporters and cameramen to Florida they usually send to sporting events overseas. Surely they would not want to rely on local media resources.
To be fair to NHC they did get the hurricane track pretty much spot on from the outset.
https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2023/IDALIA_graphics.php?product=5day_cone_with_line
They also picked up that the hurricane would intensify as it moved across the Gulf. While the first forecast at 4a.m. EDT back on the 26th August only had it reaching a bare Cat 1 at 75mph, 2 days later they were forecasting 115mph Cat 3. They may have over-estimated it as 130mph Cat 4 before landfall, and certainly overestimated wind speeds for after landfall later on. I’ve yet to see actual weather station data confirming landfall windspeeds. The softening was blamed on eyewall replacement ahead of landfall that also reduced the tidal surges. In retrospect overall they did a reasonable forecasting job, with some elements very good indeed (the complaint about lack of warning doesn’t stand up), even if in the event there was a demonstration of just how hard to forecast these events can be.
The most telling point was a comparison with the 423 deaths caused by the hurricane in 1935 compared 2023. The telling sentence in the weather network report is this.
The storm eventually dissipated on Sep. 10, in the North Atlantic Ocean. In total it killed 423 people and caused $100 million (1935 USD) worth of damage.
https://www.theweathernetwork.com/en/news/weather/severe/this-day-in-weather-history-september-2-1935-the-labour-day-levelling-of-south-florida
Also of interest would be comparative costs where better intelligence would not only have saved lives but would lessen costs. That is until some compliant mathematicians got to work on the data.