As I was looking at the download of this page the other day I noticed that it had grown to about 250k. That was a result of the photos I had been adding. However I find that unacceptably large. I made the photos the size I did so some detail could be seen without having a meaningless thumbnail that required a link to a bigger image. I am going to have to explore some alternatives now. The first shot will playing with the more page. So today I am going to add some stuff there on the Tropical Storms/Hurricanes that may be headed our way.
The remains of Tropical Storm Henri have finally decided to move inland over NC, VA, MD, and DE. So far we only have about and inch and a quarter of rain from the storm. That is no big deal.
Now go down and click on the "more" link for my comments on Isabel.
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It must be time to start paying attention to Hurricane Isabel. The 5 AM forecast today brings the eye or what is left of it with 100+ mph winds directly over the area somewhere around midnight Thursday. Of course there is plenty of time for the forecast to change. The weather service only admits to being accurate within a couple hundred mile five days in advance.
The forecast has not improved since this morning. The 5 AM forecast had the eye going right over the area. The 11 AM moved it about 18 miles west of here. The 5 PM forecast moved it right back. The worst scenario for the Maryland area is for the storm to head up the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay and that is what the current forecast is. It brings the storm ashore on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, through Norfolk and up the Bay between Baltimore and Washington. The eastern side of Washington and the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Virginia are relatively flat. So I would not expect major weakening of the Hurricane until it passes Baltimore.
The forecast for the storm has not changed a lot. They do have it moving past here with the center about 40 miles to the west in the 5 PM forecast. That is better than yesterdays, but still a bit too close. With three days to go there is still time for the track to change. So it is get prepared, wait and see. The forcasters are beginning to hint that the storm will pass by so fast that rain should not be a major issue. Instead the wind will be the issue. Seems that the faster the storm goes by the higher the winds should be and the less rain we should get.
The latest forecast, 5 PM Tuesday, has the storm coming by late Thursday/early Friday. The forecast has moved it further west so that now the remains of the center should miss by about 100 miles. But with the size of the storm we will still get quite a bit of wind. Suggestions are several hours at 50 mph with gusts to hurricane force. Seems we are on the wrong side of the storm. Much of the heavy wind should be from the East with is the worst direction for the fate of the tree. Rainfall is only supposed to be around 3-6 inches here. So for now flooding should not be a problem unless we end up in a particularly heavy rain band, or the storm slows down.
I have done a fair amount of work on setting up a grid in the flood plain and getting accurate measurements of the position of the stream bank. If I can get a half an hour in tomorrow evening I should have the job done. So if there is erosion along the bank from Isabel I'll get some indication of how bad it is.
I have been watching the track of the storm all day and it seems to be heading directly towards us. The National Hurricane Center keeps saying it will make a turn to the North West, But I have not seen any evidence of that turn. The current 5 PM forecast still has it passing 90 miles to the west, but without that turn it will get a lot closer. It should hit the coast of North Carolina around noon tomorrow and we should start feeling the winds not too long after that. The worst of the storm here should be tomorrow evening and tomorrow night. Winds are still the main concern. They are supposed to get up to 50 mph with gust to hurricane force possible. Rainfall should be only 3-6 inches. Not much by Hurricane standards. But it should certainly fill the stream to bank full. It may not get much higher than that. I have seen that much rain in a day before and the stream did not get much above bank full. The combination of the wind and the rain may be enough to topple the tree.
After four days without power due to numerous trees down in the area I finally have a chance to give an update on the effects of Isabel. The bottom line is despite the best efforts of the storm it only managed to due minimal damage along the stream. The storm did not live up to it's billing. Nevertheless it was one the biggest hurricane the area has seen in many a year. Peak gust at the local airport was only 58 mph. Peak gust at the house was 47 mph. Total rain here was only 1.78 inches. That was not even enough to fill the stream to bank full. It came in about a foot short of bank full.
The net effect was to nudge the tree a bit. The lean was about 7 degree. Now the lean is up to about 11 degrees. Erosion along the stream bank was minimal. There is a fair amount a debris in the stream piled around some of the tree stumps sitting in the stream bank. But that was about it.
I'll have to get up a new photo for the left sidebar with a comparison to the current photo. The tree has clearly moved.
One of my many interest is weather watching. I have a Davis weather monitor II set up at my home. The station is set up to record data every 15 minutes. That means I get a rainfall measurement every 15 minutes. I also get an average and peak gust for the winds every 15 minutes. The station stores up to about eight days of data and has a battery backup. So power failures, like I had as a result of Isabel do not prevent me from collecting the data.
The graph on the right shows both the peak gust and the average wind speed for a three day period covering when Isabel passed through the area. The red line is the peak gust and the blue line is a average wind speed. The clock is set to Eastern Standard Time. So for those using Daylight Savings Time everything will be off by an hour.
Notice the steady increase in wind speed as the storm approached. At about 3 PM the peak gusts leveled off, then about 9 PM a major rain band came through with a wind gust of 47 miles per hour. After that the winds gradually diminished over the next 18 hours.
The anemometer is mounted on the roof at about 30 feet. It is protected by trees in all directions that are taller. But they are from 100 to 200 feet away for the most part. The location is in a valley of sorts. What that means is that in the relatively flat area of Southern Maryland it sits about 150 feet lower than the highest hills nearby. So the wind speeds measured underestimate those at hill top levels, and underestimate those at tree top level.
The two photos here show the tree before and after Hurricane Isabel passed through the area. The target tree is the one in the left in both photos. Notice in the second photo how much more the tree is leaning to the left. This is best seen by observing the amount of open space that the top of the tree canopy between the tree on the left and the two trees on the right.
Also worth noticing is how much more of an open view there is through the forest in general. This is due to all of the leave that were blown from the trees by the winds.
I still need to learn a bit more about digital cameras. I have not been able to get the kind of color in the after photos that I got in the before photos. Part of it is getting the photo merge in Adobe Photo Elements 2.0 to give me satisfactory merges. A lot of it has to do to the large lighting difference as I move up the tree with the camera.
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