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Comment by aaron-lebo | Hacker News Reader

They're saying this could be the worst disaster in state history.

It already looks like New Orleans after Katrina:

https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/901818498908905472

What's worse is it's forecast to head back out into the gulf and drop rain on the region until it makes landfall at Houston (possibly as a cat 1) on Thursday. Several of the major dams/reservoirs are already at capacity and we've got another 20-30 inches of rain.

It's like worst case scenario.

It is estimated an additional 24 to 30 inches of rain can fall in Houston metro area, on top of what has already fallen by next Thursday. I cannot overstate enough how much I hope that model is wrong, on that value.

https://www.reddit.com/r/houston/comments/6wbo8t/live_hurric...

Get ready, because the next few decades are gonna look like this.

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> 20-30 inches of rain

500-750mm, for anyone else with my familiarity with inches. Wow!

And that's extra to what already fell. incomprehensible.

> Get ready, because the next few decades are gonna look like this.

Probably not.[1]

And thinking as a lay person, storm intensity is governed by differences in temperature, not absolute rises is it not? In fact one might expect lower intensity, since the poles will warm by more than the equator.

[1] > there is a small nominally positive upward trend in tropical storm occurrence from 1878-2006. But statistical tests reveal that this trend is so small, relative to the variability in the series, that it is not significantly distinguishable from zero

https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/historical-atlantic-hurricane-and-...

While the storm hit with the highest category in a decade, it's not the intensity that's the problem here - it's that the storm is just parked and not moving anywhere, continuing to dump rain.

OK, from that same link, regarding landfalling hurricanes.

   "... U.S. landfalling hurricanes, which even
   show a slight *negative* trend beginning from
   1900 or from the late 1800s ..."

My emphasis on negative.

I've also heard on radio that it is "unprecedented"

Yet every weather/climate nerd has heard of Galveston 1900.

Yes, and by death toll it (hopefully) will never be matched. It changed Galveston forever. My wife's dad would say she probably would have been a Galveston baby if it wasn't for that storm (if it wasn't obvious, she was born and raised in Houston). In 1915, a similar strength hurricane hit Galveston with only 53 casualties.

But by damage and cost, this will very likely be higher.

Worst disaster in state history would probably be when Texas City blew itself up in the 40s.

Nope, when STP will blew up, not being able to cool its reactors. The whole area will be flooded, dirting their cooling water. https://www.reddit.com/r/houston/comments/6wepsx/please_keep...

> Get ready, because the next few decades are gonna look like this.

And this https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/90179790604643942...

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