Thought I'd start with this quote today...this is from Howard Kurtz who is a media critic on CNN...he did a post today called Hurricane Hype. I didn't really watch any of the cable coverage of this...so I don't know whether to agree or not...perhaps you want to add your thoughts as well...here is a money quote though...

Someone has to say it: Cable news was utterly swept away by the notion that Irene would turn out to be Armageddon. National news organizations morphed into local eyewitness-news operations, going wall-to-wall for days with dire warnings about what would turn out to be a Category 1 hurricane, the lowest possible ranking. "Cable news is scaring the crap out of me, and I WORK in cable news," Bloomberg correspondent Lizzie O'Leary tweeted.
Millions were/are without power, at least 14+ have lost their lives, and flooding is raging through the NE and New England this afternoon. Good afternoon and welcome to the FOX 4 Weather Blog. We'll start with Irene as this will be the last time I write about here. it's been fascinating to watch her for the last couple of days. The former hurricane, now a Tropical Storm will fall apart over the next 1-2 days across eastern Canada. It put on quite the show apparently in the NYC area this AM as it was moving N at close to 25 MPH. NYC hasn't been hit by an eye passage in more than 100 years. I'm not sure if today Irene will qualify. Even though the center passed over the city, the NHC downgraded the storm from hurricane to tropical storm criteria as it did so. I'll try and do more research in the course of my afternoon. Here is a look at the hurricane from space when it was minutes from making landfall again in NY...it did so previously in NC and NJ...the final landfall was NYC...

The storm however wasn't, from an outside looking in view as bad as the potential. It appears the NYC area had 40-60+ MPH winds at their peak. I did see some 70+ wind gusts. The flooding/surge were the expected bigger issues and there are reports of water rescues from the AM...there are also lots of trees down and that has caused significant power issues. It does seem like the flooding scenario is all it was cracked up to be. NYC has had their wettest month in record history with 19.02" of rainfall(!). Our record for the most rainfall in any month is 15.47"  set back in July of 1992. Pretty impressive.

The storm did produce a wind gust to 91 MPH in Sayville, NY, which is out on Long Island. Rainffall totals were in the neighborhood of 4-10" which was about the amounts expected. Here are some of the higher wind speeds that I could find for you from the NE part of the country...

NY: Sayville...91 MPH
CT: Bridgeport...63 MPH
NJ: Robins Reef Lighthouse...70 MPH

Farther south the folks from Weatherbug have put this together for you...

Meanwhile over the course of the past couple of days...the rainfall has been in excess of 20" in spots...here is a recap up the eastern seasboard...

Philadelphia has also set a record for the most amount of rainfall in any month with 18.16" of rainfall...not including if they got any today or not.


So was it a hyped up storm...was it not? Was the coverage overdone? Was it what they expected? The only thing I can add to this is that I feel that this thing may not have been a hurricane for quite some time. Technically you need to have 74+ MPH winds (sustained not in gusts) and really from yesterday onwards it was tough to find anything like that. Again this doesn't pertain to wind gusts...A tropical storm can have wind gusts to 75 MPH...or even 85 MPH...I wonder if by downgrading it to a tropical storm, there might have been concern that folks would ease off their preparation. Perhaps not...but aside from a very low central pressure, it was really tough to verify this as a hurricane after it go to the VA/NC border. Again the wind gusts were there, and were there even this AM...but the "sustained" winds were rather tough to verify.

Onto our weather...we're int he low-mid 80s as I type this...there is a disturbance that will create rain and storms across parts of our viewing area this afternoon. Showers/storms are moving from the NW to the SE associated with an MCV near Atlantic, IA. Here is a radar snapshot from Omaha...

The MO side has the better chance of seeing some rainfall...perhaps skirting the NE side of the metro depending on how the activity NW of St Joe holds up. It was developing as I typed this blog up. We'll have better chances later MON into TUE early AM...then it gets hot around these parts again with highs soaring into the 92-96 range I think.

Have a great week and I'll see you again after Labor Day.

Joe
,,,,