Saturday, September 06, 2008

Tropical Storm Hanna updates

6:20 AM: Here I'm all ready for a hurricane and we haven't even gotten a teensy little tropical storm yet. All we have so far is TROPICAL - the humidity has gone off the charts overnight and it's very warm and the outside of the windows were covered with condensation when I woke up. No sign of rain yet. They say the maximum sustained winds are 60 mph but here it's only 1 mph with gusts to 9.

There's a big blob on the radar that begins about 50 miles south of here, though. Looks kind of cool on the animation.

I'm up early to head for the pool. I sure hope they didn't do something dumb like close the Y today.

9:54 AM: The rain started about 7:15 AM and stayed very light and there was almost no wind until I finished my swim and my drive home from the Y. I was able to get in a nice leisurely 2150-yard swim and see some triathlete friends at the pool. Just now after I got home I heard our first big clap of thunder. I'm staying home and dry and snug for the rest of the day! Right now it's 76*F and winds are averaging 1 mph with occasional gusts to 15 mph from the northeast.

11:07 AM: Rain has picked up now into a steady downpour. Wind is wheeling between north and east, 17 mph now with gusts to 25. A couple thunderclaps so far but that's all. Temperature is still a nice comfortable 75*F. The next high tide around here isn't until 10:30 tonight, but that one will probably have a significant amount of flooding if this hard rain keeps up all day. Staying in the house for the rest of the day and about to start mixing cupcakes! Just hope we don't have a power failure in the middle of baking them!

12:42 PM: Not much action here now. The rain has stopped completely and the skies have brightened. Total rainfall has only been 0.3 to 0.4 inches by most local reporting stations. Winds have dropped below 10 mph with occasional gusts to 24 mph, coming out of the east to southeast. Maybe I will go run today after all!

4:55 PM: This storm was a bit of a fizzle so far! We're just about in the center of it now - at the airport just northeast of us the winds are coming from the east, while about 10 miles south of us the winds are coming from the northwest. Not much wind yet and some showers off and on. The radar to the south of us looks like there shouldn't be much more rain in the southern part of the rotation.

7:45 PM: At twilight the rain has stopped, the wind has shifted and is now coming from the northwest at 20 mph with gusts to 30. It's still 73*F outside, but I think the show's over, folks! There's some minor flooding near the harbor but nothing more severe than we see every so often at very high tides.

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