I am going to take the president’s advice seriously and start preparing for a nasty aftermath to this hurricane. If you are in the path of Hurricane Irene, please read the Red Cross’ recommendations. You can track the storm at the National Hurricane Center. Here is their latest public advisory. You can use that last link to get a precise forecast for your area (just type in your Zip Code in the search engine). Here’s mine:
Saturday: A chance of showers and thunderstorms, then showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm after 2pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 80. East wind between 7 and 15 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New rainfall amounts between a half and three quarters of an inch possible.
Saturday Night: Tropical storm conditions expected. Periods of rain and possibly a thunderstorm. Some of the storms could produce heavy rainfall. Low around 66. East wind 29 to 34 mph increasing to between 30 and 40 mph. Winds could gust as high as 49 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New rainfall amounts between 2 and 3 inches possible.
Sunday: Tropical storm conditions possible. Periods of rain and possibly a thunderstorm, mainly before 5pm, then scattered rain and thunderstorms after 5pm. Some of the storms could produce heavy rainfall. High near 76. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New rainfall amounts between 2 and 3 inches possible.
Sunday Night: Scattered showers before 8pm. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 59. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New rainfall amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible.
Monday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 80.
Sustained 40 mph winds with gusts up to 49 mph should be survivable, although we could see some trees coming down and our power will almost certainly be lost, probably for several days. Our basement will be badly flooded, but we’re on high ground so we don’t need to worry about flash floods. Many of you are not so fortunate. If you live near the coast or along any major tributaries, familiarize yourself with your storm-surge risk. If you select a Category 2 from that chart and then blow up Philadelphia really big, you’ll see that it shows Center City and the Art Museum area being inundated from the Schuylkill River to a depth of fourteen feet. The airport could be under four-to-six feet of water. Interstate 95 will be washed out. Most of West Philly could be under more than ten-feet of water, too. Even a Category 1 storm looks grim, with the Schuylkill still spilling over its banks.
We need this storm to weaken substantially or we’re going to be having our own Katrina.
