Joe B and Emily

[Portastorm]

For the record, NHC issued hurricane warnings from Tampico to Port O'Connor. The post-Gilbert report from NHC indicated in retrospect it was probably "excessive."

Here is an excerpt of the report:

"Over the Gulf of Mexico hurricane warnings were issued from Tampico, Mexico to Port O'Connor, Texas. In retrospect, this warning area is probably excessive. However, the size and strength of the hurricane, plus the uncertainty of the forecast track, made this size warning necessary. North of Port O'Connor a hurricane watch was issued for the remainder of the Texas coast. This was reasonable since many of the guidance products from NHC and NMC forecast a turn north as the hurricane approached the Texas coast."

[djtil]

are you serious about the new orleans thing? is he really even mentioning new orleans? that would be utter insanity (if by utter insanity you mean keeping lots of people interested by mentioning their big city in hope for more cash register receipts)

[Agua]

He put it a good bit south of the TX border which could impact Brownsville. He said the western gulf should keep an eye on it. Nothing outrageous about that.

[Agua]

re: NOLA - he said east of 90 W was probalby out of the woods. Everything west of there should keep an eye on it. Read my immediately preceding post for his present landfall prediction.

[jasons2k]

He is still talking about TX/to New Orleans being at greatest risk. I feel like she will not get as far east as even the Louisiana coastline. He predicted Dennis would go up the mouth of the river, and it didn't. And I was 12 years old when Gilbert hit, and I remember my teachers being all worried that he was going to come here. That was the talk of the school that week. And back then, I did not pay attention to the weather much and everyone got nervous.

I have not once seen JB target NO as a threat from Emily. Some posters erroneously stated "JB projects Emily to hit NO" yesterday but JB NEVER said this....

[CaptinCrunch]

REPEATING THE 11 AM AST POSITION...12.7 N... 64.0 W. MOVEMENT
TOWARD...WEST-NORTHWEST NEAR 18 MPH. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED
WINDS...100 MPH. MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE... 976 MB.

[mitchell]

Well, Galveston to Brownsville pretty much takes in 90% of Texas, so he's not really narrowing it down.

With the storm near the windwards, I'd call Galveston to Brownsville a pretty narrow zone for predicting landfall this far out.

[cajungal]

He is still talking about TX/to New Orleans being at greatest risk. I feel like she will not get as far east as even the Louisiana coastline. He predicted Dennis would go up the mouth of the river, and it didn't. And I was 12 years old when Gilbert hit, and I remember my teachers being all worried that he was going to come here. That was the talk of the school that week. And back then, I did not pay attention to the weather much and everyone got nervous.

I have not once seen JB target NO as a threat from Emily. Some posters erroneously stated "JB projects Emily to hit NO" yesterday but JB NEVER said this....

Well, I don't pay to get his forecasts and I won't. So, I don't know exactly what he said. But, somebody posted it that way on one of the boards.

[canegrl04]

I don't think its out of the question that Brownsville could take a direct hit from Emily

[Stormcenter]

He is still talking about TX/to New Orleans being at greatest risk. I feel like she will not get as far east as even the Louisiana coastline. He predicted Dennis would go up the mouth of the river, and it didn't. And I was 12 years old when Gilbert hit, and I remember my teachers being all worried that he was going to come here. That was the talk of the school that week. And back then, I did not pay attention to the weather much and everyone got nervous.

I would agree with the TX to N.O. risk area though maybe not as far east N.O. but more likely central LA. There is so much that can change between now and when Emily enters the GOM
that really anything is possible. IMO

[Galvestongirl]

oh jeez...not another JB thread again!

[Stormcenter]

oh jeez...not another JB thread again!

The man is popular on this board.

[x-y-no]

oh jeez...not another JB thread again!

The man is popular on this board.

Or at least controversial.

Hey ... I've been nice to him three days running now ...

Jan

[cajungal]

I know. Sometimes I get so tired of hearing about him. But, if you want a funny picture of him, go to my hottest meterologist poll. Somebody posted a funny picture of him with muscles and everything. Another pic he got those fuzzy 70's style Elvis sideburns.

[Comanche]

He is still talking about TX/to New Orleans being at greatest risk. I feel like she will not get as far east as even the Louisiana coastline. He predicted Dennis would go up the mouth of the river, and it didn't. And I was 12 years old when Gilbert hit, and I remember my teachers being all worried that he was going to come here. That was the talk of the school that week. And back then, I did not pay attention to the weather much and everyone got nervous.

his gut at the moment is not tx/la but just south of browsville. he said that the areas from corpus to houston need to pay very close attention and from houston to new orleans need to watch. i watched the video this am

[GalvestonDuck]

I know. Sometimes I get so tired of hearing about him. But, if you want a funny picture of him, go to my hottest meterologist poll. Somebody posted a funny picture of him with muscles and everything. Another pic he got those fuzzy 70's style Elvis sideburns.

What's really scary is that the muscle pic of him is apparently real. I've seen a lot of pics of him like that (thanks, in part, to Rainstorm). It's freaky.

[JenBayles]

As for JB’s long-term forecasting powers…well before I write this didn’t I hear talk of Emily getting up the east coast over last weekend (1933 all over again or something)? If that’s true…and I think it is…then he’s basically covered the entire coast of the US on this storm. Hard to miss when you do that.

Oh yes…and North Carolina is still waiting for Frances.
MW

[wayoutfront]

hen he’s basically covered the entire coast of the US on this storm. Hard to miss when you do that.

[x-y-no]

I know. Sometimes I get so tired of hearing about him. But, if you want a funny picture of him, go to my hottest meterologist poll. Somebody posted a funny picture of him with muscles and everything. Another pic he got those fuzzy 70's style Elvis sideburns.

What's really scary is that the muscle pic of him is apparently real. I've seen a lot of pics of him like that (thanks, in part, to Rainstorm). It's freaky.

He's a competetive bodybuilder.

[MWatkins]

The NHC…back in 1988…did not post warnings for south Texas during Gilbert. Accuweather, however, made a huge deal about Gilbert getting up there and caused all sorts of problems.

As for JB’s long-term forecasting powers…well before I write this didn’t I hear talk of Emily getting up the east coast over last weekend (1933 all over again or something)? If that’s true…and I think it is…then he’s basically covered the entire coast of the US on this storm. Hard to miss when you do that.

Oh yes…and North Carolina is still waiting for Frances.

MW

I don't doubt your knowledge good sir... however, I covered Gilbert for the Austin newspaper and wrote articles on it for 5 consecutive days.

I very clearly remember NHC forecasting Gilbert to "eventually turn to the northwest." I seem to recall that forecast being issued while Gilbert was wreaking havoc on the Yucatan. It was a 3-day out kind of thing. Once the storm crossed the peninsula and it was clear it was not moving NW, they kept with the steady state track.

However, the whole Galveston thing was compounded when city officials decided to evacuate the island and did so, I think, based more on Accuweather's forecast than NHC's.

Yes, I 100% agree there was no question that the Galveston area was in the long term cone of concern (although at the time there was no such monster). By the way, I would be very interested to hear your thoughts on how that all went down from there.

Starting late on Sept 12, 1988 the general Galveston area was just starting to fall within the 72 hour forecast track point.

Then, on the 13th, things looked ominous for the greater area, no question about it. Here are the 72 hour forecast positions for the 4 packages generated on the 13th (GMT) (Galveston, rounding, sits about at 29N 95W.):

1988091300 OFCL 72 24 93
1988091306 OFCL 72 25.5 94.5
1988091312 OFCL 72 28.5 95.5
1988091318 OFCL 72 27.5 93.5

This continued for half of the day on the 14th, but by the second half of the day the NHC had shifted away from a track close to Galveston, taking Gilbert significantly westward.

Finally, the watch/warning summary from the NHC’s report on Gilbert shows watches/warnings extended up to Port Arthur, TX which while close…left Galveston outside of the watches/warnings.

ftp://ftp.nhc.noaa.gov/pub/storm_archiv ... elim12.gif

So while I agree, Galveston was under the long-range threat cone (and in the middle for a day)…they never actually got a watch out of the deal. My bigger concern was Accuweather and the mayor clearing out the city when there wasn’t even a watch.

MW