As must be painfully obvious, there will be no "Nightmare in Strathmere" Boat Parade this Saturday.
Mother Nature has decided to have one of her own!
We wanted to let you know sooner, but the sponsoring Strathmere Fishing & Environmental Club has not yet made up their mind regarding another date (probably one of the next two Saturdays). They will decide tomorrow.
Virtually everyone who would have had a boat in the parade is pulling their boat out of the water, and as the forecast track for Irene wobbles east and west, we would not be surprised to see a mandatory evacuation called by Saturday.
We (the Weavers) plan to leave Saturday around low tide (1:00 pm) for daughter Holly's home in Wilmington, Delaware. We hope the house will be fine, but we want to get the cars off our low-lying island...
The storm looks like it will hit us even harder than previously forecast. The 11:00 am advisory this morning from Upper Township for Strathmere and Sea Isle (see attached) said,
"Sea Isle City, NJ is expected to receive a major impact from Hurricane IRENE. Easterly gale force winds should start affecting the area on Saturday, August 27th at 7 PM EDT with storm force winds arriving around 7 AM Sunday and Easterly hurricane force winds arriving near 9 AM. The highest wind speeds from Hurricane IRENE should occur near 11 AM when top sustained winds, from the East, could reach 98 MPH with gusts near 122 MPH. Winds should decrease below hurricane force 3 hours later.
"Sustained winds will fall below gale force after 7 PM and generally be from the North during this period of decreasing winds. Expect gusts above gale force level for several more hours thereafter. Wind damage from Hurricane IRENE could be significant with a few homes being shifted off of their foundation and large section of roof removed. It will also likely include collapse of chimneys, garage doors and loss of porches and/or carports.
"The total rainfall for the area over the next 3 days is forecast to be 8.5 inches. This can vary significantly as tropical storm and hurricane rainfall is very difficult to predict."
Note that the peak for us is later on Sunday than previously forecast (more toward low tide than the morning high tide), but the winds are projected to be much higher because of a somewhat more westerly track. The New Moon is Sunday, and the forecast high tide at Corson's Inlet (under normal conditions) is at 8:05 pm (5.5 feet). If the winds (above) don't let the water out on Sunday, that could be a very, very high tide Sunday evening!
The latest track forecast is shown below.
This storm looks eerily like the September, 1944 Great Northeast Hurricane that did so much damage to Strathmere...
We'll continue to keep you posted...
Once again, stay tuned and prepare for the worst!
The Strathmere Improvement Association -
Butch Vandegrift - President
Linda Bateman -Vice-President
Donna Diefenderfer - Treasurer
Dorothy Addario - Recording Secretary
Ken Weaver - Corresponding Secretary
No comments:
Post a Comment