Hurricane Rita ( Bad News For Gulf )

Anyone know the price of gasoline in Houston, TX? Nobody is talking about it on TV and the cameras NEVER pan over to show how much a gallon is. If gas price jumps up even 3-4 dollars, I'm buying myself a bike.

I think the price is infinity since there's none left to sell

With substained wind speeds of around 170mph Rita was definetly one of the strongest Cat 5 storms ever recored. Most people dont seem to notice that there were other stronger storms on record though. These being Gilbert (1988), Camille (1969) and hurricane Allen of 1980. These three storms should have been catagorized as Catagory 6. The reasons being that these storms had substained speeds of 185mph(Gilbert) and 190mph(Camille and Allen). Here is the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale to get a good idea why I think this.

Cat 1: Substained wind speeds: 74 - 95 mph / Peak minimum pressure:

The Saffir-Simpson Scale was set up mainly to describe the damage that hurricanes can create (Saffir was an engineer). Once you get to 5 the damage is total and catastrophic, there's really no need to go higher.

NHC would argue category 5 means total destruction,
so there's little need for another classification level.


On the other hand:

On September 9th, 1997, Hurricane Linda formed about 700 miles south-southwest of the Baja peninsula. As the storm slowly moved north-northwestward, running along the Mexican coastline, El Niño's warm waters caused Linda to grow explosively into a large howling hurricane, with sustained winds on September 12th of 185 miles per hour, and gusts over 200 miles per hour! Linda had become the most powerful East Pacific hurricane in the history of weather records, big enough to cause many scientists to propose creating a new Category Six, for super hurricanes.

[edit on 23-9-2005 by Regenmacher]

Originally posted by djohnsto77
Once you get to 5 the damage is total and catastrophic, there's really no need to go higher.

Although the damage of a Cat 5 maybe be catastrophic, its far from total. Well designed concrete and steel reinforced buildings would survive even the thoughest CAT 5, although there arn't many of those around. So I still think there is a need for a CAT 6 listing. BUt then again wtf do I know...

The Fujita Scale used to measure tornados is based more on a calculation and theoretically goes up to the speed of sound (F-12)...I guess they could do the same thing with the Saffir-Simpson Scale, but I doubt it's really necessary.

It will probably change if we get more of these super canes, till then it's still old school at the NOAA.

Come on think about it for a second... If we were to name 186+ mph hurricanes for what they really are, Cat 6 storms, it would actaully be more helpful. All thing being equal a Cat 6 would be bigger, more destructive and affecting a large area of land or water. If we would name them Cats 6 then more people would be inclined to evacuate from its predicted path. There by saving more lives. Its you ask me, its stupid to call a 190mph substained wind speed a Cat 5 when it clearly falls in the Cat 6 catagory. After all its just a name, but this name would give people a better idea whats heading for them, thereby being much more useful.

[edit on 23-9-2005 by beyondSciFi]

Originally posted by PizzaCrust
Anyone know the price of gasoline in Houston, TX? Nobody is talking about it on TV and the cameras NEVER pan over to show how much a gallon is. If gas price jumps up even 3-4 dollars, I'm buying myself a bike.

There is still some fuel available in places, I just paid $3.08/gal

You know Rita means ones rear end in our language.

Killer winds got a completely new meaning.

[edit on 23-9-2005 by yanchek]

Not sure if it has been mentioned here yet (couldn't read all of the posts, been too busy preparing my house for the hurricane), but this has the potential to become an Allison type situation. It looks like the storm will slow down once it hits land and stall over northeastern TX. By then it will be a tropical storm or depression, but should drop huge amounts of rain. TS Allison actually went north, then came back to Houston and hovered long enough to drop 38 inches of rain in some areas.

We are located about 30 miles North of Freeport, TX not too far from the mandatory evacuation zone. As of right now Rita is heading East of Galveston. This will put us on the "clean" side of the storm with hopefully only 75-100 mph winds. Our neighborhood won't flood, but I'm still worried about the winds. We planned on leaving Thursday morning, but I felt my family would be safer in our house during a hurricane than being stranded on a highway 20 miles from our house in 98 degree heat. Looks like we got lucky with the storm making an early turn to the northwest.

I was able to get an extra piece of plywood from my neighbor. I guess one window protected is better than none. On Wednesday, people were standing in line from 3am until 6pm waiting for plywood only to find out the shipment would not be in until Thursday morning.

People really are in a panic mode around here. I don't think the evacuation would have been nearly as large if it wasn't for Katrina.

Good luck to all in the path of this storm.

Tupelo

Originally posted by yanchek
You know Rita means a$$ in our language.

Killer winds got a completely new meaning.

And she follows right after Hurricane Latrina as well...



The letter "L" is right next to the letter "K" on my keyboard.

Originally posted by Hellmutt

And she follows right after Hurricane Latrina as well...

The letter "L" is right next to the letter "K" on my keyboard.

Good one. I havent noticed it till you mentioned it.

Cheers

[edit on 23-9-2005 by yanchek]

I got this off of my Yahoo news this morning. I never even thought of the chemical plants. I really pray that nothing bad will happen.

The Texas and Louisiana coast is home to the nation's biggest concentration of oil refineries. Environmentalists warned of the possibility of a toxic spill from the 87 chemical plants and petroleum installations that represent more than one-fourth of U.S. refining capacity.

Yikes, scary stuff.

Surely it wont be another N.O. though. I mean, what are the chances of it happening twice like that. If it does though, I am so blaming Pres. Bush for this hurricane! Seriously though, we just happen to have two nasty hurricanes in a row right after Isreal went through with his brilliant idea of moving the Jews out of Gaza. Not to mention the fireball over Florida. jk....I think.

[edit on 23-9-2005 by mrsdudara]

I'm bit worried about the inland effects of Hurricane Rita. I hope people well inland all the way to Arkansas and Oklahoma are prepared for the possibility of flooding and power outages.

I think urban flooding with this storm might be as bad as the surge flooding.

btw Texas members don't forget to post here
Texas Members - Rita Preparations

I wish you guys all the best through this.

[edit on 9-23-2005 by worldwatcher]

MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 140 MPH...WITH HIGHER GUSTS. RITA
IS AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS CATEGORY FOUR HURRICANE ON THE
SAFFIR-SIMPSON SCALE. SOME FLUCTUATIONS IN STRENGTH ARE EXPECTED
DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS.

HURRICANE FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 85 MILES FROM THE
CENTER...AND TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 205
MILES.

THE MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE JUST ESTIMATED FROM AIR FORCE RESERVE
HURRICANE HUNTER AIRCRAFT DATA WAS 930 MB...27.46 INCHES.

COASTAL STORM SURGE FLOODING OF 15 TO 20 FEET ABOVE NORMAL TIDE
LEVELS...ALONG WITH LARGE AND DANGEROUS BATTERING WAVES...CAN BE
EXPECTED NEAR AND TO THE EAST OF WHERE THE CENTER MAKES LANDFALL.
TIDES ARE CURRENTLY RUNNING ABOUT 2 FEET ABOVE NORMAL ALONG THE
LOUISIANA...MISSISSIPPI AND ALABAMA COASTS IN THE AREAS AFFECTED BY
KATRINA. TIDES IN THOSE AREAS WILL INCREASE TO 3 TO 5 FEET AND BE
ACCOMPANIED BY LARGE WAVES...AND RESIDENTS THERE COULD EXPERIENCE
COASTAL FLOODING. LARGE SWELLS GENERATED BY RITA WILL LIKELY AFFECT
MOST PORTIONS OF THE GULF COAST.

RITA IS EXPECTED TO PRODUCE RAINFALL ACCUMULATIONS OF 8 TO 12
INCHES...WITH ISOLATED MAXIMUM AMOUNTS OF 15 INCHES OVER
SOUTHEASTERN TEXAS AND SOUTHWESTERN LOUISIANA AS IT MOVES INLAND.
SINCE RITA IS FORECAST TO SLOW DOWN SIGNIFICANTLY AFTER MAKING
LANDFALL...TOTAL ACCUMULATIONS IN EXCESS OF 25 INCHES ARE POSSIBLE
OVER THE NEXT SEVERAL DAYS ACROSS EASTERN TEXAS AND WESTERN
LOUISIANA. IN ADDITION...RAINFALL AMOUNTS OF 3 TO 5 INCHES ARE
POSSIBLE OVER SOUTHEASTERN LOUISIANA INCLUDING METROPOLITAN NEW
ORLEANS.

ISOLATED TORNADOES ARE POSSIBLE TODAY OVER PORTIONS OF SOUTHEASTERN
TEXAS AND SOUTHERN LOUISIANA.

REPEATING THE 7 AM CDT POSITION...27.1 N... 91.5 W. MOVEMENT
TOWARD...NORTHWEST NEAR 10 MPH. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...140 MPH.
MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE... 930 MB.


Oddly enough, the forecast track hasn't changed, even though I've seen news channels, and newspapers talking of a shift to a hit more on the TX/LA border area...

What is really bad about the after affects Rita is she is suppose to stall and meander of the Texas, Texarkana, Lousiana area for a few days perhaps a week and dump and unimaginable amount of rain. Major flooding is inevitable.

Originally posted by worldwatcher
I'm bit worried about the inland effects of Hurricane Rita. I hope people well inland all the way to Arkansas and Oklahoma are prepared for the possibility of flooding and power outages.

I'm in Arkansas, about Western Center......I'm watching this...I have had a bad feeling ALL week and made sure we were all ready....I told my parents they should just in case and told my mom wouldn't hurt any since winter was coming and you just never know when a big ice storm can hit (about 5 yrs ago we had a HUGE one no power almost a week)

[edit on 23-9-2005 by Harry55]