Thought's about Isidore (Comments Very Welcomed)....

[Anonymous]

This was going to be my reply to Stormfury's post, but it was so long and in-depth that I thought it deserved it's own post.

Isidore was a canidate for "The Big One" for New Orleans. It was expected to do a loop over water and head north as a category 5 storm. Instead, the area of high pressure dipped just far enough south to cause Hurricane Isidore to do the loop over land and turn north as a large weakened system. Either way, I think New Orleans was Isidore's target all along. He was just a weakened flooding storm when he hit, instead of being a catastrophe worse than Andrew. By the way, Isidore almost was a hurricane with 984 Mb, 65 mph and a new core (the old core collapsed over the Yucatan). As the NHC said: "Floyd was a good practice for the East Coast big one", I think Isidore was a good practice for the New Orleans big one. Comments welcomed!

[ncweatherwizard]

I don't remember Isidore being forecasted to loop and turn north as a 5. I do remember at a time when we were trying to figure out how strong it would get; I remember grappling with that myself, but I don't remember anything about a five, but maybe I'm wrong.

[Anonymous]

This may help:
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2002/di ... s.023.html

[Hurricanehink]

Wow, Louisiana was sooooooo lucky. While the Yucutan is a different story, I can't believe how strong it could have been. I think that if it would have stayed over water, and no landfall over the Yucutan, it could have easily been a Catagory 5 hurricane. I can't even think of how bad that would be. I did find it really strange that it didn't redevelop. When it was over the Yucutan they still thought it would get up to a Catagory 3, so that would be the big one. I guess they are awaiting the next big one.

[Anonymous]

The inner core around the eye of Isidore collapsed over the Yucatan, and by the time Isidore reformed the core it was just making landfall in New Orleans.

[Stormsfury]

The inner core around the eye of Isidore collapsed over the Yucatan, and by the time Isidore reformed the core it was just making landfall in New Orleans.

Bingo, it stalled over the Yucatan for such a long period that it never had a chance to consolidate itself around the LLC itself ... but since there were no mountainous terrain and still relatively close to the GOM, it still had a heat source to at least continue to generate convection all around itself ...

SF

[Anonymous]

Before the core collasped:
http://www.wildweather.com/gallery/Isiredbig.GIF

As the core collasped:
http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2002/WEATHER/09/22 ... n.11pm.jpg

After the core collasped:
http://www.redcross.org/news/ds/hurrica ... e_gulf.jpg

At landfall as he just began to try to be a hurricane again:
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories/im ... 02pmi2.jpg

[PTrackerLA]

That was a busy time for all of us in Louisiana...I sweated over Isidore hitting somewhere in Louisiana as a major cane but thankfully it stalled over the Yucatan. Then I thought we were out of the woods but only about a week later we have Lili forecasted to make a direct hit on Lafayette as a strong cat 4! I witnessed the damage that a weak cat 2 could do (Lili) and can't even imagine what things would have been like here if she hadn't weakened. Louisiana got EXTREMELY lucky that year, but next time our luck may run out.