Non-political 2017 Atlantic Hurricane Megathread

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Hurricane watches for Irma are now posted for the northern Leeward Islands.  It's still too early to tell whether the U.S. will be affected,

I don't know about you, but I consider Puerto Rico and the USVI part of the U.S.  While it's still too early to be sure that the impact will be significant, at the very least they'll be getting rain out of Irma.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Looking at it from a purely parochial POV, the current models look great.  Even if Irma hits South Carolina, it'll have been weakened from going up the Florida coast first, with how much depending upon how close to land it gets.  Even so, given where I am, what I have to worry about is a major hurricane that his Charleston going to the Northwest, not one that's heading North.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

We've got stores out of water here which is freaking ridiculous as it'll be over a week before Irma might reach here and since we're not on the coast, Irma's extremely unlikely to have an impact on water systems here. (To be fair, I suspect the shortage is mainly due to supplies of bottled water being diverted to areas that will need it more than we will.)

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

It looks like it could be as bad as the 1935 Labor Day hurricane and follow a similar path.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Thankfully it looks like Jose won't actually landfall on Leewards.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

It's way too early to be certain of anything other than Jose doing a loop-de-loop. Various models have it going anywhere from Key West to St. John's, Newfoundland after completing the loop.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

To illustrate how powerful and widespread the impact of Irma was, here in Atlanta -- which received a MUCH much lighter impact than Florida did -- there are still tens of thousands of people without power, and several of the area school systems are still closed (although the majority have reopened).

Lighter impact, but I doubt Atlanta has put much thought into preventing or recovering from hurricane damage.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Looks like Maria (currently TD 15) is going to make life even more miserable for the folks trying to recover from Irma in the Leeward Islands.  At least it's only supposed to be a Cat 1 by the time it gets there.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

'For first time in 300 years, there’s not a single living person on the island of Barbuda'

Perhaps there was a good reason the island was uninhabited? Barbuda never fully recovered from Luis in 1995. It was already too small in size and population to support much of a tourist trade, and that's the only marginally viable economic use of the island these days. It would be cheaper to relocate everyone and give them $100,000 each in seed money than to try and rebuild. I also think it would be kinder than sending them back to face another major hurricane in a decade or three.