Do we have anyone here that lives in the greater Houston area that will be affected by Ike? If so, good luck! My thoughts, prayers, and general good-will to you. I hope you,your family, and your Axioms pull through safely.

Seems to be a monster of a storm. As a weather-nut, I'm in awe of the projected path of wind & rain from that bad boy. Absolutely wild that serious tropical-storm force winds could extend all the way to Oklahoma. And it may dump as much as 4 or 5 inches of rain on *me*, in Illinois, by the time it's all said-and-done.

Wow.


I don't know how those of you who live in hurricane-prone areas deal with it!

Not to draw attention away from sympathy, prayers and thoughts, for those in Ike's path, but whew! -- it looks like it'll miss Virginia entirely.

Keep in mind that the map is just rainfall totals through Monday.

All of that moisture will drift to the east. I'm sure that most of the east cost will get some sort of rain rain early next week as the remains of Ike, combined with the front stalled out here now, move over you.

Just rain though. Not like what Texas has to deal with...

Awesome graphic. I share your enthusiasm for that kind of data. Really fascinating.

The swath of this storm is huge, they say. If I ever move to the beach, I'm thinking SC or NC, where they don't get as many hurricanes.

Or northern CA, southern OR seem like good options for me. Tom, what say - should I relocate to the west coast? Maybe I'll let a coin flip decide it. Javier Bardem can toss it.

My thoughts and prayers for anyone in Ike's path.

i'm in kansas and IKE has caused such a pressure change that its starting to rain like crazy here. Roads are floodded, schools are closed. As long as the power stays on and I can watch movies we will be fine.

We're actually supposed to get rain all weekend, though I'm not sure this is related to Ike. It's been overcast for the last two days.

Sometimes not too well. That's what drugs are for. Legal, of course. Katrina put lots of folks on a variety of things and after almost 3 years of feeling safe(er), Gustov comes along and rattles our cages. Close on it's heals now is Ike and there are lots of us that have said we can't keep going thru this. It's not so much the thought of losing our stuff again - it's just stuff. It's the hassle and BS of dealing with the aftermath. Insurance, mortgage companies, contractors, etc. For us the absolute worst part was our morgage company as they held the insurance proceeds and doled them out a dime at a time. What a pain.

Speaking of which, I've got to evacuate work of I won't get home. The water level is so high the roads are being shut down left and right. I'm just outside of Pearlington, MS. More later...

To be completely accurate, Ike didn't cause the rain that you and I are experiencing today. The rain is from a somewhat stalled front that's been working across the US. You're on the backside or in the front, and I'm on the other side.

But over the next 12-24 hours, the extremely humid & warm tropical moisture that is Ike will slam into that front. As Ike looses energy over land, the moisture and energy of Ike will be drawn into and pushed north-east up and along the front. That's where the heavy rainfall map comes from.

It's going to be torrential for you in Kansas and pretty messy for me. Saturday/Sunday for you & Sunday for me.

Good luck to all and God bless.

... glad I left when I did. No problem getting out of the industrial park where I work, but home was a different story

This is the entry to my subdivision


This is the driveway next to mine


And the water is still rising!! All from wind driven ocean water backing up in the bayous. If I had waited til 5 or so to leave work I'd probably had to wade thru waist deep water.


Scott

Good thing you did leave early!
The water does not seem to be aware that there is a stop sign.

Like Wid said, Good Luck and God Bless.

Oh, and JP, I think we could peacefully coexist on the left coast.

If I ever live down there, I'm buying a house boat. Seeing all that water in between me and my home would not be something I could handle. Yikes!

I'll stay in Calif. and deal with the occasional earthquake, I'm not sure how you folks continually deal with that type of weather.
Stay safe.

I'll stay in Calgary and deal with, well, hmmm, the mountains?, no that isn't it, I got nothing to really compare, just some occassional poor weather. Stay safe guys.

Wait, Calgary doesn't have any major natural disasters?

Well, there's Jason.

Addendum I should have posted before: all y'all take care of yourselves...

Yes, take care everyone!

Good luck and be safe down there. If it’s any consolation the preparations for this are already a week ahead of Katrina on this end, maybe a lesson was learned.

... -45F nights. Trust me, that temperature gets painful.

I do hope everyone is OK.

I suppose you guys must have the occasional blizzard and the like. That qualifies.

It did a California rolling stop.

Scott

Those pics were taken at 3PM. I started marking water level every hour starting at 4 and ending at 7. There was a 4.5" vertical rise in those 3 h with the crest expected by 9. At 7, the entire driveway at 137 was under water and half of my driveway as well. As odd as it sounds we didn't even break a sweat. These water levels are higher than Gustov which went THRU Louisiana. Ike is one big storm and news in the AM from Texas will probably not be pretty.
TD Allison back in 2001(?) brought us more water than this and we had kayaks going down the street. Katrina was a whole different beast. Water levels for her were over the STOP sign in the first pic and at the top of the front porch handrail in the house on the top left of the second pic.

Scott

Yeah, Scott; this does seem like deja vu all over again. So again, our prayers are with you and the other fine folks down there.

My in-laws live in Houston (in a part that doesn't typically flood, so that is why they didn't evacuate -- though we begged them to come up to see us in Austin). They said it was a pretty wild night. They lost power a little after midnight, but all is well.

If you want to see decent coverage check out KHOU where they have a live feed. Pretty amazing storm.

Here in Austin it looks like we're not even going to get a drop of rain out of this thing. It's a little breezy, but that's about it.

Rich

Yeah, amazing how the forecast has shifted. I've had my sprinklers off for a week expecting the deluge... even this morning, the forecast said "100% chance of heavy thunderstorms." By 9 AM, it was down to a 10% chance.

Tough stuff this hurricane forecasting...

No doubt ... just think, a week ago folks in my south Florida neighborhood were pre-preparing for a direct hit from Ike and now you fellas 1,100 miles away are feeling the effects.

Wishing the best for you folks along the Gulf coast of Texas and especially in the Galveston area, take care.

We haven't seen -45 in a long time. -35 sure and only for a few weeks a year. I 'll take the cold over what they are going through any day and that is saying alot as I love it when it is +30 C or more.

Ken, I do have the ocassional blizzard when we stop in at the local DQ, beyond that for an official blizzard, according to Environment Canada, a winter storm must have winds of 40 km/h (25 mph) or more, have snow or blowing snow, visibility less than 1 km (about 5⁄8 mile), a wind chill of less than −25 °C (−13 °F), and that all of these conditions must last for 4 hours or more before the storm can be properly called a blizzard.

We haven't had an official blizzard around here in a very long time(IIRC), although we have come very close many, many times. I most likely just jinxed us. It is the duration of the winds and lack of visibilty that usually drops the storm from an official blizzard classification.

I agree, I would take -45 over a hurricane any day.

My family and my Axioms are present and accounted for. I live about 7 miles from Galveston Bay in Pasadena and it was wild last Friday night/Saturday morning. I boarded up all of our windows and we rode out the storm in the house. The house is only 5 years old and has hurricane clips on the roof so it is a pretty safe structure. The wind really picked up about 11:30 p.m. on Friday and blew at hurricane strength for about 8 hours (except for the 40 minutes or so when the eye passed over us). Thankfully this all happened when the kids were asleep. We lost power for 3 days but it is a small price to pay for us to pay, as my family, house, roof and fence are all intact. The Houston area has about 50% of its residents without electricity at the moment. I feel for those that had houses in Galveston and Bolivar as many in those areas fared much worse. My prayers go out to those in the area who lost family members. Thanks for asking about the Texas contingent.

Wow! I'm sure you were white-knuckled the whole time. And props to those kids for snoozing through it. Was the rest of your neighborhood as lucky as you?

It helped that I live in a smaller one story house surrounded by larger two story houses. The wind was not getting any direct shots on my house and fence. There was a lot of roof and fence damage in my neighborhood. A gasoline station about 3 miles from my house was completely flattened. I have not taken any pictures yet. The wait for gasoline on Monday was about 45 minutes, but I heard of two hour waits at some locations.