This morning, as best I can determine after watching CNN reports and looking at maps, videos, and articles on several weather sites on the internet, what's left of Hurricane Matthew is sitting very close to, or even right on top of, Morehead City, my home town in North Carolina. But it has weakened, and the major winds and rains seem to be north of the eye of the storm, up the coast near or even in the state of Virginia.
It's funny to see the names they put on these maps. Emerald Isle is resort town on the barrier island across from Morehead City, with a small year-round population but a lot of rental properties and what in French are called résidences secondaires ("cottages" and "condos"). The only road and bridge to the place now called Emerald Isle have been built in my lifetime. It's especially curious to see the name Portsmouth on the map. It's a ghost town — the last people who lived there passed away many years ago. There's a big town called Portsmouth up in Virginia. Maybe that's what confused whoever put the place names on the map.
Most of the heavy weather is in Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey,
even though the eye of the storm is over coastal North Carolina.
even though the eye of the storm is over coastal North Carolina.
Oh well. Still now, sustained winds in Matthew are at 75 mph (120 kph), with gusts up to 90 mph (150 kph). That's nothing to sneeze at. I won't know until later today how my family, friends, and home town have fared. I do know that there is major flooding in N.C. inland, with roads washed out and trees down. There apparently have been numerous rescues of residents and drivers by emergency services over a wide area. I hope the people that I know have been smart enough just to stay at home over the past 24 hours.
Here, in Arlington, VA, we've had some rain for the last couple of days, probably related to Matthew. Hope your family and friends are safe. Let me know how MA's doing. Is her location prone to flooding?
ReplyDeleteMerci, CHM. Maman va bien. Elle est souvent passée par là, depuis qu'elle est venue vivre à Morehead City en 1936. Ma soeur va bien aussi.
DeleteAs for the flooding, MA lives on the edge of a salt marsh. She said it was unusually full of water this morning, but not enough to overflow the retaining wall behind her apartment.
Happily, Wilmington NC just has Tropical Storm Warnings which will be better as far as winds I think.
ReplyDeleteI woke up to a sparkling sunny day with not a cloud in sight.
I slept like a baby, with no fear of having the house blown away and flying off with the cats in my arms... screaming Toto.
Good luck to all who are waiting for the weather to hit ... I think it is going to be weak and just annoying now, rather than threatening.
I found the semi hysteria before the storm more frightening than the actual storm.
One tiny pine tree fell over where I live ... there is a forest behind my home .. one of the reasons I worried.
So good luck to your loved ones !
I agree with you about the pre-storm hysteria, but with the threat of flooding and tornadoes.... I hope I didn't contribute to the worry.
DeleteNo you didn't contribute to my worry :)
DeleteMy daughter has lived here for a long time now and she was blasé but wanted me to be with her .. so the cats and I drove up the road ( 5-6 blocks ?) and stayed with her. I am sure the hurricane was much milder at her house than mine LOL
It is gorgeous here today .. I wish the weather was this nice all year long.
hope your Mom is in a safe place Ken
ReplyDeleteShe is.
DeletePlease do keep us posted on how your Mom is ..
ReplyDeletehttp://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=34.2257&lon=-77.9447#.V_o8dpMrKV4
DeleteThis is the best site I use for keeping up with hour by hour weather issues. It is looking ok for Wilmington I think ..I think ..
Thanks for that link. I'll be looking at that site.
DeleteKen, I am live about 5 miles from Swansboro. it is breezy and chilly this morning. I would need a sweater if I went outside this morning. I have hardly any debris in the yard this morning. I usually have a lot of flotsam in the back yard when the tide comes in during a storm and I have none of that this morning. I am a mile from the ICW and the creek behind my house is a tributary off Queens Creek. I was expecting a very high tide from all the weather reports. My electricity did go off sometime during the night. It appears to have been off around an hour. I've seen worse nor'easters come through where I'm at. I had to do a lot of storm prep because we didn't know what to expect. It was sounding very bad. Flooding inland is very bad and comparable to Floyd. I don't know if you ever listened to Skip Water, the meteorologist that was with the TV station in New Bern, but he has been sorely missed during this event. He could pinpoint a hurricane, storm, or tornado and tell you when it was right over your roof. He passed away suddenly a couple of years ago. Attaching a link with some info. http://abcnews.go.com/US/hurricane-matthew-batters-florida-coast-dead-million-lose/story?id=42608853 I hope your family came through OK. We are all blessed here on the coast. When they were talking Cat 4, I was wondering where I would go!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the news. I was thinking about you. I do remember Skip Waters, but I wasn't there often enough to really know who he was. My sister was worried about the tall pines on her property in Newport, but they all made it through the storm. So did she. Same at my mother's retirement complex in Morehead. You can help but worry about these storms because the media hypes them so much, but the fact is, as my mother told me today, in her 80 years of her living in Morehead, including the 20 years I lived there, we never had any damage from hurricanes. Even though we had a lot of hurricanes in the 1950s when I was growing up -- maybe you remember? Ione, Connie, Hazel, Donna...
DeleteI do remember them especially Hazel. Hazel washed out Queens Creek bridge. My Grandfather had a store at the foot of the bridge. The water came in half way the building. I was 4 years old, but I remember it well. Actually, Matthew was worse than I thought. My neighbor said around 2:00 am it was rocking and rolling around here. Fortunately, I slept through it. Everyone around me had a lot of debris. I still haven't figured out how I escaped all the cleanup work after a storm goes through. I'm not complaining! I'm glad your family made out ok. ...My cable went out the day after the storm. I've been without TV, phone, and internet until this afternoon. I sure do miss it when I don't have it!
DeleteYes, please keep us posted. We are following your news anxiously.
ReplyDeleteI have a relative in Wilmington. When I would watch CNN, they would scare me to death, so she sent me a link to local weather that has been helpful to me. According to google maps Morehead is 200 miles north, but once in awhile they mention Morehead.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.wwaytv3.com/daily-forecast/
I talked to my mother a couple of hours ago. Everything is fine chez elle, and around her as far as she knew at that point. She said it had been breezy, even windy, but not frightening. There was a lot of rain. "Upstate" in Fayetteville and Goldsboro, there was flooding. There were hundreds of rescues, according to an article I read in the Raleigh newspaper. All that water will be flowing down the rivers to the coast, but I don't think there will be flooding at Morehead City, which is 90 miles north of Wilmington and about the same distance from Cape Hatteras.
ReplyDeleteSo glad to hear all as well with MA and family. Strange that the map didn't show Morehead City.
ReplyDeleteWe went with DD and SIL went to Mentone, AL for a wedding this weekend. It was held on a bluff with a view of the Little River. It was quite windy and it's windy here in Anniston today. We could use some rain because we have drought conditions now.