Tropical Storms Could Impact Massachusetts

We told you to watch those tropics!

Several tropical systems are spinning around in yonder ocean out there. We'll be getting touched by them very soon, perhaps even today on some coasts.

Don't get me wrong. The storm that gets closest to us may miss us by 500 miles, and we may not even get windy. However, even 1000 miles is close enough to have a dangerous effect on our waters.

Here's the tropical line-up, with links to the National Hurricane Center page on each storm:

Hurricane Gaston

Tropical Depression 8

Tropical Depression 9

Area Of Low Pressure Presently Moving Off Of Africa

That's a lot of tropical storming, folks.

That picture below (Tropical Depression 9, with Hurricane Gaston sort of photo-bombing in from the right) looks scarier than it should. The green area touching New England shows a 5% chance of tropical storm force winds reaching us, not the forecast chance of a tropical storm making landfall. Tropical storm winds are 35 mph minimum. We can do that standing on our head.

Gaston is way out in the ocean, aimed at the Azores, and won't get any closer to us than he already is. However, he's a whale of a storm, with winds of 85-100 mph. In a vacuum, he would maybe kinda increase waves on SE facing Massachusetts beaches.

TD 8 is off of North Carolina, while TD 9 is forming in the Gulf of Mexico.

They are more worrisome than Gaston. "Worrisome" exists in a zone where the range runs from "pay it no mind at all" through "panic, stomp on small children and elderly who get in your way as you flee." This would be much closer to the former than the latter, score it "keep an eye on the forecasts."

The best case scenario gives us sunny skies and maybe some good tummy-surfing waves as none of the storms come near us. The next level- which I think it most likely- is that one or two storms brush by us closely enough (500 miles) to give us rougher-than-usual surf and rip currents. Mind you, I'm not even expecting any/much rain out of this scenario.

A scenario beyond that involves a tropical storm offshore, but close enough (100-200 miles) to give us a good soaking to go along with rougher surf and rip currents. Depending on how things shake out, this may or may not be how we kick off Labor Day weekend.

The closer the storms get to us, the more the chances of action go up. As near as I can tell, Depression 8, 100 or so miles off of North Carolina as I write this, looks to be the better bet to get involved in a New Englander's life.

The worst case scenario at the moment seems to be two tropical storms flying by us in succession, maybe one rolling over Nantucket and bringing tropical storm conditions to Cape Cod. The South Shore might be out of the loop, or they may get some September surf out of it. The South Coast would get the rough surf for sure, but maybe not the 35 mph winds. The Cape would get it worse.

The whammy in that scenario would be surf. We'd get a week of pounding waves and beach erosion. This is a month and change before Nor'easter season, too.

The storm leaving Africa will barrel-ass across the Atlantic, and we'll worry about her later.

We'll keep you updated, and we're just giving you a heads up for now.

A Reminder To Watch The Tropics

from Accuweather

Please note that there are about 30 or so projected paths for Tropical Storm Fiona showing there. One of them has it striking Cape Cod. That's about a 2-3% chance. It's most likely not going to happen.

In fact, if it did happen, it would happen with a storm that might not be too intense. Most present models have her as a Tropical Depression as she nears Bermuda. She has most likely reached peak intensity.

Still, even a 2% chance of a tropical storm making a landfall in Chatham is enough to make me mention it to the readers. I'm not sounding an alarm, just reminding you that it's time to watch the tropics.

My money has Fiona weakening, then curving out to sea without ever getting near us.

The two storms behind Fiona look like they may be more intense. One is a few days away from the Lesser Antilles, but they're not sure if it will even be organized by then. Another more powerful wave coming off of Africa already looks like a hurricane, but it is just a tropical wave. The latter wave is rolling through an area that is favorable for development.

We have no idea where they'll end up, and we'll worry about them later.

Check the radar and graphs here.

from the National Hurricane Center

1991 Duxbury Beach Storm Damage From The Halloween Gale

Living on the shore of the sea does have some benefits, but there is what actuaries and lawyers call Inherent Risk.

We're going to explore some of the consequences of that risk in today's article, which heavily leans on pictures given to us by the Bedford Family, formerly of Ocean Road North on Duxbury Beach.

They show damage from the 1991 Halloween Gale, which people from Inland might call The Perfect Storm or the No-Name Storm.

No one who lived through it calls it "the Perfect Storm," as it is sort of cruel to use positive superlatives when talking to victims. "Hey, Jackie O.... sorry about the dead husband and everything, but you gotta admit, that was some splendid shooting."

The only non-Bedford, non-1991 picture is the one above. It is from the Federicci family, and shows an incoming high tide during a nor'easter last year.

Everything else was post-Gale carnage.

The gale arrived around Halloween Eve, Devil's Night. The local forecasters blew it (the better forecasts spoke of a storm at sea), and we had practically no warning.

A hurricane offshore (Grace) met a nor'easter, got absorbed, re-formed into a hurricane, and spun around in a crazy course off of the Massachusetts coast. Mammoth waves with hurricane winds behind them pounded the Massachusetts coastline. Damage was in the hundreds of millions in 1991 dollars.

The storm was never named, even though it was a hurricane. This was officially to avoid confusion, but also most likely because there was a bit of shame involved among the weatherheads. To be fair, the hurricane never made landfall, and the nor'easter (which later became the hurricane) did most of the damage.

This storm gentrified Duxbury Beach faster than a BMW parade of yuppies.

Some people could take no more, and sold out. The people who bought the old propertuies built them up. Other people cashed in insurance checks and built much larger houses. Throw in the stilts under the houses, and this storm changed the whole skyline of the neighborhood.

The houses you remember from the 1960s and 70s were gradually and emphatically phased out by the Halloween Gale, and the Blizzard of '78. Cottages in front of the dunes were gone by 1978. Little cottages on the seawall were leveled in 1991.

Every house you see here was rebuilt into a much more valuable property. This drives up property values, leading other families to sell. A cycle ensues, and the Irish Riviera fades into history.

The storm was a monster, every bit the equal of 1978. You'd rank them 1 and 1A. The Gale far surpassed damage done to Duxbury by Hurricane Bob, who had visited about a month and change before. Bob was a cakewalk in Duxbury, but the Gale was taking no sh*t.

This house washed back into the street. It was not the worst destruction of a house on that street, as a cottage at the other end of Ocean Road North pretty much disintegrated.

Even the houses on Cable Hill lost decks, which is very unusual.

The Gale was a slow mover, and it hit the beach with 8 storm tides. This article is being published on the 24th anniversary of the day when you could finally get back into the neighborhood and stay for a high tide.

Everyone with a brain had fled on the morning of the 30th, when waves were smashing the seawall 4 hours before high tide. Smart people run to get away from stuff like that.

Unless you're me, of course... then you run to Get To the besieged house so you can watch the storm.

A friend of mine and I watched this storm from the 2nd story of 65 ORN. I had to swim to get to my house. I had to wade through my house to get to an upper floor. We had ostensibly gone there to rescue a schnauzer, and decided that we wouldn't survive an escape attempt.

The episode of Beavis & Butthead where they go to the trailer park to watch a tornado hit is a good allegory. It even rivaled the damage ("A tornado can smash a poodle's face with a brick!" "Yeah, it can rip out your heart and show it to you!") the boys were seeking to witness.

The storm was as nasty as they tell you it was. The neighborhood was under about 6-10 feet of water, depending on the wave wash.. The ocean was level with the seawall, meaning that waves could just roll right into your house and smash it. My yard was level with the seawall, so waves would actually break on my house. I watched a few hours of it from inside my house, a few hours more from Cable Hill.

The waves were 8-10 feet high, which is funny because I have read a storm damage potential assessment for Duxbury Beach which said that waves can't get beyond 6 feet.

If they had YouTube back then and if I had a video camera, I'd be as YouTube famous as Jenna Marbles or the Epic Meal Time guys. We were right in the belly of the beast.

Seawall Repair In Marshfield

Marshfield fights back against Poseidon this week, as they scramble to repair ruined seawalls before nor'easter season kicks in.

They dodged a bullet last week, as a powerful storm battered the coast for several tides. It never really got biblical however, and things appear to be sailing along well enough this week.

The town is fixing 1000 feet of seawall, mostly along Foster Avenue. It is replacing a wall that has been up since 1931. Recent storms have smacked it around, with the dark spectre of Attrition also having a loud say in matters.

There's no need to fear... FEMA (or the US Army Corps of Engineers, or the DPW) is here. Your tax dollars at work, as they say.

Left without maintenance, these walls would crumble into the sea. When that happens, it opens up the houses of that part of town to direct wave impacts. It also brings about great inundation. Relocation would involve re-settling 10000 souls or so.

That also means losing valuable property tax revenue, business money, jobs, tourist loot and any other of the zillion permutations that would come with telling the Coasties to eff themselves.

It's a lot like gun control.... ideally, there would be no development in vulnerable coastal areas. However, once you have it, it's easier to try to regulate it than it is to go door-to-door seizing property.

"Easier" in this case involves millions of dollars in seawall repairs, but that's cheap when compared to worst-case scenarios.

Joe Deady took the non-blurry, useful pictures.

This wall will be two feet higher than the present wall, and 84 years younger. They'll be using that, uhm, like, modern concrete or whatever they put in that wall. Vauban, I am not.

This maritime Maginot Line is Marshfield's magic against Mean Momma Mer.

Marsh Vegas, depending on how the storm winds blow, sort of alternates the title of First Town That Atlantic Storm Waves Hit Without Breaking On Cape Cod First between themselves, Scituate and Duxbury. This means that she takes heavy shots from the storm waves, and they kinda need the 2015 version of the seawall.

The town (through a loan from a state seawall fund) will split the costs of the project with the state, which will provide half of the necessary cheddar via a grant.

Total cost? $3.94 Million.

If this wall were built by the Donald, it would be taller, thicker, and deeper in the ground... and Mexico would be paying for it.

However, Vegas was happy to pay their half of the loot. Seawalls are like divorce... they cost so much because they're friggin' worth it.

The locals allowed the town some eminent domain mojo, so they can do future repair and maintenance work. From what I saw of this in Duxbury, it may cost you a foot of the lawn if they have to dig down for some maintenance.

That's a small price to pay for a wall that I'm pretty sure is thicker and tougher than the wall in Berlin that the Soviets used to keep the eastern Nazis penned up.

The whole wall is there to protect the Port-a-Potty, which is actually a cleverly-disguised Stargate.

Hawk-eyed readers will notice the 2015 date carved into the top of the stairs. I was gonna park and get a better picture, but the locals are sort of touchy about stuff like that.

Vegas had a tough week, with murder and nor'easters dominating the local news. The people of this particular neighborhood also have had a lot of heavy equipment erecting a Soviet-style cement project just outside their windows. These are the very last beach days, and they've had a few weeks ruined by both storm prevention maintenance and the storms themselves. I didn't want to throw "some moron journalist parked in my road" onto that list.

I never went to school for Journalism, and for most of that time where real reporters were learning Ethics from some professor, I was out learning how to break into cars and stuff like that.

However, I try to be a seamless and respectful addition to any neighborhood I may be visiting.

They still have a lot of work to do for a project that is supposed to be done by December.

Today's entertainment was on 13th St, and they have to get down to 9th for this phase of the project They eventually will go down to 3rd, but I don't have an ETA for that one.

Even if you aren't from Vegas, you should pay close attention to how things go down here. Massachusetts is lined with seawalls, and they cost a lot of money to repair.

Feel free to check our very-much-relative article on seawall repairs that we posted up on the world last summer.

Marshfield is laying the blueprint that a lot of towns may be following as their ancient seawalls fail. This could be happening in your Duxbury or Falmouth beach neighborhoods soon enough.

Otherwise, this could be happening...

Surf Check, Round 2

For the second straight day, we set out to give you some surf reports. This is from Duxbury Beach.

Media Savvy Sky Rat

You just knew we were gonna hit 'Murica's Hometown, folks.

If I lived there, I'd have the Lobster Pound just zip-line me my supper every day.

Rough-but-ultimately-unimpressive surf, Duxbury Beach

Lobster Pound, Manomet Point, Plymouth MA

White Horse Beach, Flag Rock

Care to venture a guess which pictures in this article were shot on Jessica's phone, and which were shot on my $27 Wal-Mart cheapo camera?

Under the boardwalk, there's lots of water..... Sandwich, MA

Rotten camera ruins a nice shot from Scusset Beach, MA

The author, cavorting...

Plymouth's lobsetermen were taking no chances.

This guy was psyching himself up to jump the Sandwich boardwalk, but he didn't get it done while I was watching.

You'll get various opinions on fishing during storms, but this guy was at least putting his theories to practice in the Cape Cod Canal

Strong winds in effect for a few days, which means that we'll be out there tomorrow, as well.

CCM knows not fear, and runs only for the exercise.

Rotten shot, but this was as far East as I went... Sandwich, MA

Surf Check: Round 1

CCM sent out their A Team to chin-check the coastline during the waning Supermoon high tide, and we went from Scituate to Sagamore. This is an iconic photo angle from Marsh Vegas.

Unfortunately for the readers, it wasn't that bad. Here is fearsome Scituate, about 45 minutes before high tide. Joaquin is still a day away from threatening the Bahamas, let alone Massachusetts.

The surf does look mean if you, say, stand on some steps, squat down, and shoot the wave as it rolls safely under you.

OK, that's what it really looks like.... Duxbury Beach, high tide.

Staring down at Green Harbor from Duxbury, you can see where this will become an issue once the seas have built themselves up over a few storm tides.

The prospect of having allergy fuel like Goldenrod blown into your face at 70 mph is something that most coastal residents of Scituate don't waste a lot of time worrying about.

Duxbury Bay is showing us that it can inundate a neighborhood on a flood tide, even without waves.

Duxbury Beach can look you in the eye and stab you in the back at the same time, as water washes in around Saquish and enters the neighborhood from the seawall-free marsh side.

Water flowing over Gurnet Road, during a storm where the biggest wave could be dodged by standing on the 3rd step up on a set of beach stairs.

We got out of Scituate before the marshes started spilling over. I want to do some storm time in Scin Scity, but I also had to get the kid off the bus at 3:30... and beaches with marshes behind them can sometimes hold you in place for a few hours.

We did high tide in Duxbuy, where I know the roads better and where we still almost got trapped. Gurnet Road and her side streets get washed over rather easily.

This is us driving down Gurnet Road, which washed over a foot deep in the ten minutes that we were in town. For locals, this is at the bottom of Cable Hill.

To be fair to Duxbury Beach Park, the scenery to the left of the sign is what they're selling. We shot to the right.

I only have so much flooded-marsh material. This is Duxbury Beach, aiming at Duxbury Proper.

Not storm related... but pretty cool, playboy.

Any insurance actuary worth her salt would say "Stephen will die in a 45 mph crash on a Scituate side street while shooting a blurry picture out of the car window," right up until she saw me open the Marl'bros.

They got the Duxbury Beach seawall up just a few months before Hurricane Carol hit. If you don't believe me, ask Tony. Our friend Tony, if he is alive, is 60+ years old if he did that as a child. He might be 60 years dead if he did that as the job foreman.

We got off easy today, but we're planning the same trip tomorrow, after the seas have built a bit. Go Coast Guard!