Slashdot Mirror
Kennedy Space Center Braces For Hurricane Matthew (cbsnews.com)
Hurricane Matthew, one of the most powerful storms to hit Florida's Space Coast in the last 50 years, is expected to pummel the Kennedy Space Center and the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Thursday night and into Friday. "Kennedy Space Center is now in HurrCon 1 status, meaning a hurricane is imminent. Hurricane preparations at Kennedy were completed early last night, and remaining employees were then sent home," NASA spokesman George Diller said in a blog post today. CBS News reports: The National Hurricane Center is predicting heavy rain, dangerous storm surges and winds gusting up to 140 mph along Florida's east coast with the eye passing just off shore or directly over Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center. Satellite observations of Matthew show the hurricane features "a distinct eye surrounded by very deep convection," the National Hurricane Center reported in its 11 a.m. EDT update. "Data from an Air Force reconnaissance plane traversing the eye of the hurricane also indicate that Matthew has strengthened. Members of a 139-member "rideout" team will be stationed at various facilities across the space center to monitor critical systems "and report any significant events" to emergency operations personnel in the Complex 39 Launch Control Center where space shuttle launchings were once managed. "After the hurricane has passed, and winds have dropped below 50 knots, areas around KSC will be assessed and the damage assessment and recovery team will report for duty," said Diller. You can view satellite images of the storm here.
hi the latest image is at http://www.goes.noaa.gov/brows...
Though I believe the evidence of for global warming, this hurricane is not a part of it. Claims such as yours belong with those which claim that people not flying off into space is proof that the world is flat.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
On a related note, 300 people died in Haiti.
That's because the eye and eyewalls of Matthew has stayed offshore. The outer eyewall will probably touch Cape Canaveral and it may actually make landfall in northern Florida, which will result in far worse conditions for those areas. The concentric eyewalls and the large outer eyewall help to keep the winds down a bit. The pressure isn't that low for a major hurricane, so any broadening of the low pressure will bring down the winds. I suspect that 120 mph may be a bit generous for the winds based on the data from the KMLB radar. Nonetheless, if the eyewall replacement completes and if the core can tighten up a bit, that could increase the winds. Also, if landfall occurs, that would bring the stronger winds onshore, though weakening the storm fairly quickly afterwards. Just because it didn't hit south Florida that hard doesn't mean it won't be quite a bit worse for northern Florida.
I've really been enjoying this. It's like the news is all abuzz about me being such a badass that people flee as I approach.
noting the bits "Tied for third most active season on record" and " Tied for second most hurricanes in a season on record", for example. Sandy's in there.
Or "Tied (with 1982) for fewest hurricanes since 1930".
Though I believe the evidence of for global warming, this hurricane is not a part of it. Claims such as yours belong with those which claim that people not flying off into space is proof that the world is flat.
It's pretty difficult to claim that any one day's weather is the result of the 800 terawatts of radiative forcing that humans have pumped into the air. You simply have to look at trends.
As well, a lot of people forget the "global" part of AGW. It's the sort of thing that causes deniers to bray "So much for global warming!" As well, there are some folks who declare every hot day or weather related disaster on AGW.
Both are irrelevant to the truth of the matter.
Given that hurricanes and tornadoes and other storms are nature's way of dumping excess or imbalanced energy, and its obvious that we've always had these events, no one event can conclusively be laid at the feet of AGW. The nature of nature is that imbalances happen and need taken care of.
The problem for the denialists is that they have to come up with a proveable hypothesis of how the greenhouse effect fails on a global scale. To date, they've done nothing of the sort. This puts them squarely in bed with creationists. Otherwise all they have is looking out the window when its cold.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.