Isaias

The storm (at 11 am) is currently about 100 nautical miles to the southeast of us passing the Georgia-Florida border. It is moving to the north at about 11 knots (call it 13 mph). It is expected to pass due east of us this afternoon at least 75 nautical miles from our location. So far there has been cloudiness here and a few drops of rain. I expect we will get some showers and gusty wind in the next few hours.  We have just passed high tide here in the Ford Plantation marina. It was not above the normal high tide line but it will likely stay up and perhaps go slightly higher as winds push water up the river. We seem to have been very fortunate once again.

I did bring Division Belle back to Ford Saturday in preparation for the storm, but also because the boatyard is awaiting parts and not much was happening there with the boat. She still needs a thorough bath from her four-month quarantine in the Bahamas, and I have that scheduled for tomorrow. Single-handed, I had to await slack tide at about 1:30 pm to get away easily from the Hinckley Yard, and then idle all day to time my entrance into our marina close to high tide at about 8:30 in the evening. So I turned a four-hour trip into a seven-hour trip, but it was a beautiful day and an enjoyable ride.

I'm glad to get this storm past us. Here's hoping our good luck with the weather holds.

80 Degrees

Throughout our long wait for Dorian, we have counted for several days on its forecast turn from northwest to north, keeping it at, or east of, the 80 degree west longitude line (and more than 75 miles east of us) as it passes. (We are located at 31.9N 81.3W.) In a remarkable display of forecasting accuracy, the National Hurricane Center first said last Saturday night that the storm would arrive tonight at 8 pm at a position of 31.1 degrees north, 80 degrees west, where it would turn north and then later to northeast. So it is now 8 pm, and the storm's position is 30.9N 79.8W, two tenths of a degree south and two tenths of a degree east of the position forecast 96 hours ago. It has turned from a northwesterly course to due north. No doubt the NHC is aided by advances in technology and computer modeling, but if you have ever looked at the range of models and spaghetti lines produced by them, you will understand that a lot of ability and professionalism goes into producing these forecasts. And lives depend upon them.

Showing Division Belle and 80 degree west line 75 miles to the east

Until now, Dorian was being forced to travel northwest by an upper level ridge of high pressure near latitude 32 north, which has been gradually eroding. Complete erosion of the ridge has now caused Dorian to respond by turning north. Overnight, upper level steering should turn Dorian to the northeast. The only question is whether it will turn northeast soon enough or sharply enough to avoid a landfall along the South Carolina coast. It is predicted that it will make a landfall at least briefly near the Cape Lookout or Cape Hatteras areas, unless it is changed by coming ashore in South Carolina. After that it will be at sea heading toward Nova Scotia or Newfoundland.

We believe we have been extraordinarily fortunate with the timing of the storm and the tides where we live. Our high tide was around 4 pm this afternoon. Dorian was well south of us and barely influenced the tide. The next high tide is at around 4:15 am tomorrow, when we are hopeful that the storm will have moved north of us causing our winds to be from the north rather than the east, and perhaps eliminating any tidal surge. Importantly, the high tide tomorrow morning, without any surge, is to be a full foot lower than this afternoon's high tide.

Currently here the winds are from the southeast at 22 mph gusting to 24. It is not even raining.

Evacuation

Apparently mandatory evacuation will be ordered for our area beginning at noon tomorrow, and "contraflow" will begin at 8 am Tuesday when I-16 will open all four lanes westbound. We are fully prepared to leave, but will want to wait until Tuesday morning to make the final decision. It is now a 50-50 chance that the storm will be far enough offshore to keep us safe, or too close for comfort.

We were in Watkinsville, Georgia at Laura Lee's family farm this morning, but needed to come back for a day or so to pack up some of her work and some treasured possessions. We're ready to leave at a moment's notice, and will just be watching the storm's turn northward to see how far it goes north and east. Our decision will be made Tuesday morning.

Good luck to everyone.

Dorian Update

Every year at the Lovely Laura Lee's family farm, where her mother and brother and his family live, there is a huge pig roast on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend. LL and I were to go there today, and she is on her way now. I stayed behind until early tomorrow to get the boat and house in as good a shape as I can to prepare for Hurricane Dorian, now a Category 4 Hurricane bearing down on the northern Bahamas.

The storm's path is gradually becoming more clear. See https://www.nbcnews.com/video/watch-live-tracking-hurricane-dorian-67486277822. It is now expected to make landfall, or nearly so, Tuesday in south Florida, and turn northward running up the state of Florida very slowly. What is unclear is whether it will be over land or water as it moves north. Over land, the storm would be weakened while over the ocean it could continue to maintain its strength. Officially it is expected to be near Jacksonville, Florida, Wednesday afternoon with 105 mph winds. Jacksonville is roughly 120 miles south of our location near Savannah, Georgia.

It is impossible to overstate the seriousness of this situation. Should a category 4 or 5 hurricane travel up the east coast of Florida just offshore, the devastation could be unimaginable. Should the storm travel north over land, it will be weakened somewhat, but storm surge and wind damage would still be catastrophic.

We are not taking this lightly. We are hopeful the our house and boat will be safe, but we fully expect that we might not be able to get back home for maybe a week. I've battened down the hatches as well as I can. We will just be following the storm to see what happens here and when we can return.

Good luck to everyone in the path of this mess. Worry about your personal safety first and property second.

Saturday 5 AM Update -- The NHS discussion released early this morning shows a remarkable change stating: "The global models the NHC normally uses, along with the regional HWRF and HMON models, have made another shift to the east to the point where none of them forecast Dorian to make landfall in Florida."

Let's hope this eastward trend continues.

Dorian

I had little idea when I wrote in my last post about hurricanes that my decision-making would be tested so soon. And yet here we are, as always, closely following every bit of news we can get on Hurricane Dorian. The National Hurricane Center advisories come out every six hours, at 5 and 11 AM and PM, EDT. This particular hurricane has been a surprise that no one was concerned about five days ago, and it has been very difficult for forecasters to narrow down its future path. The 11 PM advisory has just been released, and here is where we are according to the NHC:

At 1100 PM AST (0300 UTC), the center of Hurricane Dorian was
located near latitude 23.3 North, longitude 68.4 West. Dorian is
moving toward the northwest near 12 mph (19 km/h), and this general motion is expected to continue through Friday.  A west-northwestward to westward motion is forecast to begin by Friday night and continue into the weekend.  On this track, Dorian should move over the Atlantic well east of the southeastern and central Bahamas tonight and on Friday, approach the northwestern Bahamas Saturday, and move near or over portions of the northwest Bahamas on Sunday.

Maximum sustained winds have increased to near 105 mph (165 km/h) with higher gusts.  Dorian is expected to become a major hurricane
on Friday and remain an extremely dangerous hurricane through the weekend.

Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 25 miles (35 km) from the center, and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 105
miles (165 km).

The latest minimum central pressure estimated from Hurricane Hunter data is 977 mb (28.85 inches).

What is making this hurricane so difficult to forecast is that its course will be affected by its speed. The storm is expected to turn westerly because of a high pressure ridge north of it that will keep it from going north. However, the ridge is expected to fall apart and stop influencing the storm by Tuesday, allowing it to turn north. If the storm moves quickly, it would likely cross south Florida into the Gulf of Mexico before turning north. However, if the storm moves more slowly, the high ridge could dissipate, allowing it to turn north while over land in Florida or even before reaching the coast of Florida. 

All of this makes planning extremely difficult, and people along the coast all the way from Louisiana to North Carolina could be in the line of fire. The NHC does, however, need to draw a cone. The latest one shows that The Ford Plantation is in an area with less than a 20% chance of having tropical storm force winds.

The more detailed cone showing estimated times has tropical storm force winds reaching our area, if at all, some time around 8 PM Monday. This time has changed from the 11 AM forecast, which had us at an 8 AM arrival time Monday:

As you can see, while we are not on the forecast track, we are just barely outside the cone. Statistics show that in 2/3 of cases, hurricanes make landfall somewhere within the cone. So we are not at all out of the woods yet. However, it's even possible for the storm to really slow down over the weekend and then make a sharp turn north, missing land altogether. Let's hope that's the case. This will come ashore as a Category 3 or 4 hurricane, that can be totally devastating.

A final note on surge. We learned here painfully two years ago that even a tropical storm that travelled up near us from the Gulf coast can cause serious tidal surge when strong offshore winds coincide with high tides. Here, the river rose over its banks, flooding parts of our Club property. Unfortunately, with no surge at all, we are having very high tides right now on the Ogeechee River. Our normal tidal range is from a low of around sea level (0) to a high of six to seven feet. Based on Ft. Mcallister tides that occur about two hours before ours, the Monday tides here are:

1:28 AM High 8.6'

8:23 AM Low -0.8'

2:03 PM High 8.2'

8:52 PM Low -0.5'

So we enter Labor Day weekend on edge. Here's hoping this storm takes a more favorable turn, and that our winds and tides don't conspire against us as they did in 2017.