Hurricane Irma Fake News?

6 September 2017

I've been trying to figure out where the "OMG 185MPH!!WINDS!!!11!"  all started.

At about 10:00 PM Pacific Daylight Time on 5 September 2017, the Mirror newspaper website in the United Kingdom published a story that seems to include the 185MPH figure reported from one (1) reporting station (anemometer?) on the island of St. Martin.  I include the link strictly for archival interest; the site itself is slow loading chum bait. Since then it's been all Biggest Hurricane EVAH!!! from every mainstream legacy news source.  From -- as far as I can tell -- one report.

I am skeptical.

For one thing, "sustained" wind speed, in the hurricane business, is defined as "measured for one minute or more."  That filters out instrument static.  But somehow "sustained" reported wind speed has turned into reports that basically the wind speed everywhere within Hurricane Irma has been 185 Miles Per Hour for more than sixteen hours as of this writing.  

For another thing, One. Reporting. Station.  Even if a St. Martin anemometer read 185 MPH for one minute or more, and even if it was an accurate instrument, it might have been based on location -- a canyon, a rise in ground, or urban architecture can funnel air to cause an increase in velocity.

Another thing.  I've been looking at the beautiful and mesmerizing wind earth at  https://earth.nullschool.net/  and I have only been able to see wind speeds up to around 160 KILOMETERS per hour -- or a hundred miles an hour.  That's still strong wind.  But not historic, breaking all the records strong.  Irma is probably a normal hurricane.  You would expect a hundred miles an hour out of a cyclonic weather system of that size and pressure gradient.

I am not a meteorologist, and do not play one on television.  No, don't click that link.  Let's just say that I could never compete in today's broadcast media.  Leave it at that.

But still.  One Report.  One Instrument reporting.  Possibly for One Minute.  And MPH vs. KPH.  And it looks like that's how fake news turns into something everybody knows (but that just ain't so).

That cold north wind

Where I live in the San Francisco Bay area, the wind blows in from the Pacific Ocean.  Either the wind blows straight in through the Golden Gate and heads east, or it comes up from Monterey bringing rain from the southwest, and heads north-east. 

On rare occasions like tonight, the wind blows down out of the north. 

Tonight is colder, dryer. 

The wind beats against the house making unaccustomed noises. 

Since the wind almost always blows from within about 30 degrees of the compass, all the local trees take a landward set to the limbs.  Strong winds from the Pacific merely bow the trees the usual way.  When these cold north winds come through, they open up the trees and spread the limbs in wild and angry ways.  The trees seem to be shaking and threatening with every gesture. 

Casa Crowndot has not actually been uprooted yet.  But the sound of the angry trees makes me think they and the wind have a plan. 

Rain!

Tropical moisture from down Mexico way is giving us the first gully washer since... when was it?  Back in May? 

The truth about The Golden State is that the nickname refers to the color of the dried grass on the hills. 

We have a dry spell every year.  It's called Summer. 

Right now, the air smells deliciously like Real Autumn. 

Rainstorm Morning

The picture is shot of the Weather Underground (I wish they wouldn't use that name) "Wundermap" at 7am 2 December 2012.  The orange streak is the heaviest rain.  We have had just about an inch of rain in the last 24 hours, and it's coming down hard right now. 

Geologist Clarence King, writing in ca. 1880, is quoted in Oaks of California (Pavlik, Muick, Johnson, and Popper, Cachuma Press 1991):

Riding thus in the late summer along the Sierra foothills, one is constantly impressed with the climatic peculiarities of the region.  With us in the East, plant life seems to continue till the first frost; but in the Sierra foot-hills growth and active life culminate in June and early July, and then follow long months of warm stormless autumn wherein the hills grow slowly browner, and the whole air seems to ripen into a fascinating repose -- a rich, dreamy quiet, with distance lost behind pearly hazes, with warm tranquil nights, dewless and silent.  This period is wealthy in yellows and browns, in great overhanging masses of oak, whose olive hue is warmed into umber depth -- those are the conditions of the vegetation.

The same is true of the coastal hills at the same latitude, with the exception of the micro-climates so near the Pacific Ocean that the morning fog cools the day and waters the ground. For the most part there simply is no precipitation from May to October.  The grass looks dead -- this is the real reason, I think (and not the excitement in the second half of the nineteenth century over metal mining), for the enduring nickname of "The Golden State". 

The weather, rainfall and its absence, and water politics are always topics of conversation in California.  For now, talk of raising my water rates due to drought is silent.  Much more of this, and talk of raising my water rates due to damage to our hydrological infrastructure will begin.  Flood watch is in effect for many areas.