NHC Hurricane Maria

and they call the wind ... Maria

That didn't take long. It's now a tropical storm, but expected to become a Hurricane. And another storm (Lee) right behind.

It doesn't look like the British Virgin Islands, and the French Islands in the Caribbean, are going to get any breaks. It will be a very rough time for those folks.

It's far too early to guess how Florida will handle this, but the path for Maria seems similar to Irma as it will cross north of Puerto Rico. if I was living in the Florida Keys, I'd be thinking about getting my valuable stuff to a safe place on the mainland.

USVI is in the crosshairs again for this one too if this path verifies. My wife's cousin lives on St. John, and that place is pretty thoroughly destroyed. A second storm, even if "only" a Cat 3 when it hits, will not help matters at all.

_If_ Maria comes to Florida it will be interesting to see if there are evacuations out of state like there were for Irma. I think many of the people that did that are willing to take their chances for the next one, considering how miserable an experience the evacuation became.

It would seem that when there is massive destruction to the infrastructure and disruption of supply chains, there is no easy option, provided your shelter-in-place withstands the event...

How do you solve a problem named Maria?

Though God spared us, bugging in was nevertheless a scary experience. I don't want to do that again.

Jeanette Isabelle

Jeanette - no need to panic just yet. No two hurricanes ever follow the same path. We don't yet know what size Hurricane Maria will be, let alone where it will go.

Your experience "bugging in" did give you a real taste for how that goes. You have a few days to make plans, just in case you don't want to stay at home again. But no need to activate anything at this stage.

I think a lot of Floridians on the mainland will probably choose to shelter-in-place for the next hurricane. But a lot depends on how much water was in each neighborhood. OR ELSE - the folks who decide to leave will get out early. Which is good.

Maria is predicted to go right over Puerto Rico ... in the latest ground tracks. That could suck quite a lot of energy out of the storm. We'll see ...

The big question again ... the Florida Keys. We now know what a "Conch" is, and why they won't leave. But I think that Irma taught the Conch's the wrong lesson. Time will tell.

The Governor of Florida is probably just shaking his head ... right about now.

What would you change next time, Jeanette Isabelle? Would you bug-out or make changes to your Bug-in plan?

looking at that storm track - very bad news for the Virgin Islands, the French islands, and the coast of Puerto Rico. Maria is a little bit more to the south (compared to Irma), which puts the islands on the east (or north-east) side of the storm - exactly where the winds are the worst.

We will have to wait to see how big this hurricane grows. right now it looks like they are saying it will only be a Cat 1 or Cat 2 hurricane as it goes through the Caribbean.

Is there a link to the "European Model" regarding Maria. It would be interesting to see how they are calling Maria considering the damage to Saint Martin and the British Virgin Islands.

There's a good read at: Weather Underground on Hurricane Forecast Computer Models ...