Ike

Hurricane watching in Ohio is typically a "spectator sport" as Noelle says. One watches the incoming fury heading towards distant places with bated breath. Will it intensify? Will it weaken before landfall? Will those crazy people staying put in its path get hurt or will they in fact be OK?

I like the Weather Underground site. I read Jeff Masters' Blog. I read comments on his blog sometimes. There is a weather nut posting a gorgeous satellite picture of Ike in the gulf at night, clouds coiled like beautiful ghostly shell against the darkness. The coastline patched with lights from the cities. Another poster sends a link that allows one to watch four Houston News broadcasts at once.

"Houston, we have a problem..."

One of the features at the WU hurricane site is a projection of the Hurrocane's path. There, Ike was to strike Galveston, move in through Houston, weaken to a category 1, then turns more north, becoming a tropical storm, then a tropical depression as the winds diminished. Then Ike was projected to arc east... and pick up wind speed? Head into the Great Lakes as a Tropical storm then a category 1 as it skids off into Canada?

I was puzzled. Surely not. Some hurricanes do come to die over the great lakes. I remember Katrina sitting on us for days, nothing left of her horrible fury, just fine soaking warm rain.

I asked. Surely the model is in error? No response.

So. Ike tore through Galveston and Houston and Beaumont wrecking havoc, though fortunately with much less loss of life than he could have caused. Then Ike weakened, curled north, then northeast swallowing the rainy warm front that had drenched us... and picked up wind speed, wrapped all that rain into a tighter, heavier block and roared up Ohio tore over Michigan, lake Erie and into Canada.

Here in Youngstown the wind was ferocious and it lasted for hours. It was picking up strongly near sunset on Sunday. It was sunny, hot, humid, and very windy. The trees were bending.



The wind just got worse and worse until midnight, then it howled away for a couple of hours. We are far from the tropics so calling Ike a tropical storm or hurricane up here would be inaccurate. Nonetheless, though the remains of Ike were actually many miles north of my house, the winds here were gusting over 70 mph.

My trees managed to hold on, though branches and leaves were lost.

My neighbors big black Cherry lost hold and crashed into my yard, tearing part of a red maple with it, and crunching my compost fence. The cherry was a lovely healthy tree. The roots were torn right out of the ground.




We got no rain, only the wind of Ike's remnants in the distance. Undoubtably, if we weren't so far north, Ike would have been back to being a category 1. No rain. Only wind.