Here is a screenshot of what Hurricane Harvey looked like on August 24th, when we were told it was developing into a category 4 storm, the largest in 12 years:
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| Note the date and time on the left hand side. |
And here is what Harvey looked like, 36 hours before, at midnight on August 23rd:
Harvey formed in the southeast corner of the Gulf of Mexico, which happens ~ but category 4 storms do not come from here. The Gulf of Mexico tends to form tropical storms, not all out hurricanes. Big hurricanes usually form like Irma, right now in the mid-Atlantic. But this is not the only confusing thing about Harvey. Have a look at the Gulf of Mexico, just 12 hours before the picture above, at noon on August 22nd:
No hurricane. There's a Low sitting over the Yucatan peninsula, which in the afternoon of the 22nd moves over the west coast of the peninsula. By evening, it's evident that the Low is strengthening into a hurricane and by midnight on the 23rd, there's Harvey. Just 66 hours later, at 6pm on the 25th, it hits the coast of East Texas for the first time.
And it has played hell with the region, as it didn't just make landfall and break up, because there was a tremendous weather system inland that kept Harvey trapped on the coast.
As I write this, on August 31, here's a view of Harvey as it pours rain on the states of Arkansas and Mississippi:
Interesting stuff. I had seen that there was a report of another hurricane forming the same way by the 4th of September. This morning, as I was looking at these maps, that was the forecast.
However, as I look now, that hurricane is no longer expected to happen. Good news. But from what I see and hear, it could take three weeks for the water to drain off East Texas. I also hear this is in great part from the failing of East Texan communities to spend a proper budget on drains, not to mention an irrational attitude towards zoning, that prohibits the sort of urban planning that would make it possible to shake off a storm like this when it happens.
I don't know what people are thinking where it comes to this sort of thing.
