Last Day of Quest

The mysteries of the Universal Solar Calendar continue to reveal themselves. Today is Last Day of Quest; First Day of Quest was back on August 31. Apparently, we've been "on quest" for the past 25 days.

My quest today allowed me to get most of a five-mile walk in before the rain arrived. I did get rained on for the last ¾ miles but I'm glad I got out at all - the forecast in nothing but rain, rain, and more rain through the rest of the week. Since I got back in, we've had one thunderstorm (with more forecast to come) and it's been as dark as evening outside all day.  

Hurricane Helene frankly has me worried. It's still projected to pass over Atlanta, and forecasts show 6 to 10 inches of rain prior to the arrival of wind impacts. Due to the strength and speed of the storm movement, areas in central Georgia east of the storm center are likely to see multiple hours of 70+ mph gusts. 

As the storm accelerates around the axis of a secondary low pressure situated in Alabama, the forward speed of the storm will be added to the maximum winds experienced on the east side of the storm. Models show gusts approaching 100 mph in the Atlanta area at 5:00 a.m. Friday.

Both the rain and wind maximum could change prior to the event but if the modeled situation occurs it would likely result in one of the most prolonged power and water outages to impact a metro area in recent history. With tree density, preceding soil saturation, and power and internet lines being almost all above ground, it could be weeks until power, water, and internet are fully restored throughout the area.

I'm hoping the models are wrong or will shift the worst impacts elsewhere, but as of now this is what I'm prepared to face.

I could ride the storm out here in this pile of bricks up on a hill and hope that the catastrophic damage that occurred in 2020 during Hurricane Zeta doesn't repeat itself. At least that one tree that fell is now gone, but there are still others around me to worry about.

My daughter lives northeast of town and has a guest room, and she told me Eliot (my cat) and I are welcome to ride the storm out at her place. She has fewer trees in the immediate vicinity of her house, but she's located in a low floodplain and we're looking at truly historic amounts of rainfall. By going out to her place, I'd be substituting danger of a tree fall for danger of flooding. In either case, power outage is a near certainty, but at least I'd have company.

Finally, I could still book a hotel outside of the path of the storm. Eliot would have to stay here alone and ride out the storm and I'd feel guilty because of that, but it's the safest bet for me. The worry here is when to leave. The longer I'm gone, the more stressed Eliot will be, but if I wait too long, rain and flooding might make the roads - even the interstates - unpassable. Stranded in my car on the highway may be the worst possible scenario. 

For the record, Atlanta is 250 miles from the Gulf Coast. Hurricane winds are supposed to be played out by the time a storm gets this far inland. But back in 2020, Zeta came to town as a Cat 1 hurricane, and Helene is expected to still have sustained winds of 39 to 75 mph by the time it gets here. 

Climate science says that global warming doesn't necessarily increase the number of hurricanes, but amplifies the power and strength of the storms that form. That seems to be exactly what we're seeing.

Update: The latest models have reduced the chance for tropical-storm strength winds (>39 mph) in Atlanta to 42%, and each successive forecast shows the storm tracking a little further west than the forecast before. But still, 39 mph sustained winds (as opposed to the peak winds during thunderstorms) can do a lot of damage to power lines, trees, and homes, and the chance for higher winds is certainly not zero.