Arthur up the East Coast

[w00dy]

Been keeping an eye on the NHC website and it looks like yall are going to get the first storm of the year. Batten down the hatches and double the docklines. Here's hoping Arthur heads back out to sea.

[Captain Smollett]

As of this morning, we are in the 10-20% chance band for hurricane force winds.  If past experience is any guide, that means that the local weather guys are probably dramatizing to beat the band and scaring people into believing that we WILL get hit by a MAJOR storm and that the world is likely to end in the next 2-3 days.

We are in the 50-60% chance band for TS winds, so that looks likely. 

Read the forecast discussion this morning, and NHC has moved the forecast track to the east (which is good) and my read on the data and what they are saying about it is that that eastward trend in both forecast and actual storm track will continue.

While never dismissing such a thing completely, right now I'm thinking we are in for a little rain and some gusts. But my guess is that it will pass tomorrow night and most folks won't even notice.

Now, the NE->SW moving t-storm the other day...THAT was very weird.   :D  It was creepy watching a storm move "backwards" on the radar.

Weather is what weather does...the explanations and models of man will always be playing catch-up.

[s/v Faith]

Well I agree it will hopefully be a nonevent, I am in an unfortunate position right now.

I am in my van driving west on highway 70 and I have about 50 miles from Kansas City Kansas.  That puts me almost exactly 1000 miles away from Newbern where s/v Emerald Tide is.

I left here with her normal (extensive) dock lines, extra fore and after springs...  But I am still feeling that terrible feeling of not being there.

It is so strong, I am considering doing a u-turn.  I am supposed to be in California in 2 days, very unlikely.....  Plus adding another 2,000 miles to the trip is hard to imagine.  I actually checked plane tickets out of Kansas City this afternoon.... 

As I think about how she lays, I suppose all I might add would be to double up her bow and stern lines, maybe layout a couple fenders....

Amazing the pull these ships have on our hearts, no?

[Captain Smollett]

As I think about how she lays, I suppose all I might add would be to double up her bow and stern lines, maybe layout a couple fenders....

You want me to call Tim and find out the scoop..what's going on there?  I may be able to run down and put some lines on if you need me to.

Wife told me just a few minutes ago that Bridge Pointe is shuffling boats around...asking boats to move (change docks).  I personally think that might be premature in this case - forecast for tomorrow night at the worst of the 'event' is mid-30's sustained.

Unless that storm cuts pretty hard to the west, I really think we are far enough west to avoid all but the outer bands.  POP is only 80% tomorrow night.

We'll see.  We are keeping an eye on it, of course, but right now, it looks mostly like Arthur is going to dump most of his fury on the ocean.

Anyone heard from Kurt?

[CharlieJ]

Kurt's been posting on Facebook pretty often- I think he's out playing, or has been.

Here's his last post ( that I've seen) on Facebook- last night-

Went upriver to the confluence of the Great Pee Dee and Schooner Creek, rafted up with my brother, his son / my nephew &godson, and Andy "The Cleat" C., watched the sun and moon set and swam in dark refreshing tannic water as satellites and shooting stars soared overhead.

Tomorrow brings the first tropical storm of the season, and long after dark fell you could see lightning backlight the storms yet to come, so far away. Now - far too late or early depending on how you see it - the cicadas chirp a lullaby through the thick night air, and it begins to lull me to sleep here in this porch chair.

Another perfect summer night in the Lowcountry...

[Captain Smollett]

Nice.  I was wondering if he was "out" and Katie was on her own. 

They've upped the ante here on the forecast a bit, but we are still looking at forecast 37-ish kt sustained, right at 50 gusts.

Also, according to the forecast, duration of the 'worst' of it should only be about 4 or so hours.  Contrast this to Irene which gave us 36 hours of fun.

Big news I'm waiting on is to see if New Bern cancels fireworks tomorrow (actually, postpones to Saturday).  My daughter said she does not want to go on Saturday as that somehow does not "feel right."

New Bern Grand Marina was a flurry of activity this morning.  Everyone is taking things seriously enough without that level of "panic" we sometimes see with these forecasts.  Saw a boat with tripled bow lines, multiple sets of spring lines and tripled stern lines.  Use 'em if you got 'em, I guess...no harm in that.

As I sit here now looking out and comparing what I see to the satellite picture, we are getting cover from the northern most outer bands.  Supposed to wind up in earnest around 2000 or so, max right at midnight and be mostly done by 0200.  That's the forecast, anyway. 

Severity here all hinges on how much and when it turns east.

[Captain Smollett]

Post Mortem:

Max sustained wind speed recorded here, 25 kt.  Max gust 40 (and we only had a few of those...most gusts were in low 30's).  Note that we are right at the 35 nm hurricane force radius, so we "should have had" hurricane force winds, or at least TS force.

MCAS Cherry Point recorded sustained winds in the 40's.  Note that data was recorded about 15 miles CLOSER to the eye than we are.  They did have higher winds, but still squarely in the TS range and quite a bit below hurricane strength.

Max recorded sustained winds at Cape Lookout data buoy for eyewall passage was 62 kt.  This data buoy was pretty much AT the landfall location.

I'm not really sure where all the claims of Cat 2 were coming from...extrapolated data from flight level winds, perhaps.

But, neither recorded data nor ground level damage reports this morning along the coast support the notion that this was Cat-2.  Sorry to be a fly in the ointment.

[w00dy]

Broad weather coverage can be useful, helpful, and interesting, but everyone who has ever sailed out to find conditions other than what was predicted knows that what happens locally can be vastly different than the broad spectrum forecast. Which is why the firsthand, local report is great to get in conjunction with the big picture. Thanks for the playXplay.

[Kettlewell]

For the record, we saw winds mostly in the 30-knot range with maybe a few gusts to 40 in Cuttyhunk Pond, Massachusetts. Picked up a town mooring, which is a rare thing for us to do, as it was in the northern part of the pond and would mean that all the other boats would be behind us during the worst of it. That worked out well. Nobody broke loose though.