Monday, September 21, 2015

Dennis-Yarmouth Hurricane Information


There are no imminent storms, Dennis-Yarmouth are just next up to bat in our ongoing series.

We have two maps from FEMA to check out today. The map above is a Hurricane Inundation map, and it depicts storm surge from a direct hit hurricane visiting D-Y at mean high tide. It also shows what sort of storm would be needed to soak certain regions, which we'll get to in a minute.

The map is from the combined efforts of FEMA, MEMA, NOAA and the NHC. They use the funny-weatherman-titled SLOSH model of storm surge estimation. They do not depict freshwater flooding.

The colors relate to the Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity, and break down like this:

Light Green = Category 1 hurricane. Hurricane Gloria was one of these, and the offshore Halloween Gale was, too. Although not a tropical system, the Blizzard of '78 did Cat. 1-style damage.

Dark Green = Category 2 hurricane. Hurricane Bob was one of these.

Yellow = Category 3 hurricane. We've only had five of these hit New England since the Other Man arrived in 1620, the most recent being Hurricane Carol in 1954.

Pink = Category 4 hurricane. We've had one in recorded New England history, and it struck in 1635.

Flesh = One Hundred Year FEMA Food Zone. This is the "100 year storm" you hear people speak of, but you have to go pre-Colombian to find them ("going pre-Colombian" means using salt marsh soil samples to look for sand layering associated with large hurricanes). New England has had storms in the Category 4+ level in the 1100s, the 1300s, and the 1400s.

Sorry about Flesh, but my knowledge of color names was and continues to be heavily influenced by whoever was in charge at Crayola in the 1970s.

We shall leave the street-by-street analysis to the reader, who can use the links I'll throw in at the end of the article to zoom in on their own house if it suits them.

Note that you don't need to be in a shaded area to get yourself a quick and sudden Ending. You can have a tree fall on you, have your car washed out in street flooding, step on a downed power line, get purged by looters, enjoy the Robespierre treatment from flying shingles, be summarily executed by National Guardsmen, or even stumble into a sharknado. There's no shortage of ways for you to get Left.

With that in mind, we now present to you the down-there-somewhere Evacuation Zone map.

Remember, you don't HAVE to leave when 5-0 tells you to. Also remember that the cop you read the Constitution to before the storm may be the one who has to fish you out of the drink when the ship hits the fan.

The E-map is easier to read, as it is made up of only two colors.

Red = Get Out.

Yellow = Get the f*** out.



Hurricane Inundation Maps

Evacuation Maps

Worst Hurricanes To Hit New England

List of all hurricanes to hit New England



Chatham Hurricane Special


Chatham is, if you view Cape Cod as a big fist being shaken towards Europe, the Elbow. Like any other elbow, it's gonna get banged off things now and then. In this case, instead of a table, its a Hurricane.

There are no imminent storms, Chatham is just next up to bat in our ongoing series.

We have two maps from FEMA to check out today. The map above is a Hurricane Inundation map, and it depicts storm surge from a direct hit hurricane visiting Chatham at mean high tide. It also shows what sort of storm would be needed to soak certain regions, which we'll get to in a minute.

The map is from the combined efforts of FEMA, MEMA, NOAA and the NHC. They use the funny-weatherman-titled SLOSH model of storm surge estimation. They do not depict freshwater flooding.

The colors relate to the Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity, and break down like this:

Light Green = Category 1 hurricane. Hurricane Gloria was one of these, and the offshore Halloween Gale was, too. Although not a tropical system, the Blizzard of '78 did Cat. 1-style damage.

Dark Green = Category 2 hurricane. Hurricane Bob was one of these.

Yellow = Category 3 hurricane. We've only had five of these hit New England since the Other Man arrived in 1620, the most recent being Hurricane Carol in 1954.

Pink = Category 4 hurricane. We've had one in recorded New England history, and it struck in 1635.

Flesh = One Hundred Year FEMA Food Zone. This is the "100 year storm" you hear people speak of, but you have to go pre-Colombian to find them ("going pre-Colombian" means using salt marsh soil samples to look for sand layering associated with large hurricanes). New England has had storms in the Category 4+ level in the 1100s, the 1300s, and the 1400s.

Sorry about Flesh, but my knowledge of color names was and continues to be heavily influenced by whoever was in charge at Crayola in the 1970s.

Zoomed out... blurry, but anything unshaded is flooded....
We shall leave the street-by-street analysis to the reader, who can use the links I'll throw in at the end of the article to zoom in on their own house if it suits them.

Note that you don't need to be in a shaded area to get yourself a quick and sudden Ending. You can have a tree fall on you, have your car washed out in street flooding, step on a downed power line, get purged by looters, enjoy the Robespierre treatment from flying shingles, be summarily executed by National Guardsmen, or even stumble into a sharknado. There's no shortage of ways for you to get Left.

With that in mind, we now present to you the down-there-somewhere Evacuation Zone map.

Remember, you don't HAVE to leave when 5-0 tells you to. Also remember that the cop you read the Constitution to before the storm may be the one who has to fish you out of the drink when the ship hits the fan.

The E-map is easier to read, as it is made up of only two colors.

Red = Get Out.

Yellow = Get the f*** out.






Hurricane Inundation Maps

Evacuation Maps

Worst Hurricanes To Hit New England

List of all hurricanes to hit New England






Sandwich Hurricane Information

Sandwich is a town with a funny name, even in a state that has a Marblehead and an Athol in it. Sandwich is also a town with gorgeous beaches and marshes, which are awesome for 364 days a year. Those beaches and marshes become a problem when a hurricane comes to town.

We come to you today to talk about hurricane maps. These maps come from FEMA, MEMA, NOAA and NHC. The map at the top of the page is a Hurricane Inundation Map.

Here's how it works:

Light Green = Category 1 hurricane. Hurricane Gloria was one of these, and the offshore Halloween Gale was, too. Although not a tropical system, the Blizzard of '78 did Cat. 1-style damage.

Dark Green = Category 2 hurricane. Hurricane Bob was one of these.

Yellow = Category 3 hurricane. We've only had five of these hit New England since the Other Man arrived in 1620, the most recent being Hurricane Carol in 1954.

Pink = Category 4 hurricane. We've had one in recorded New England history, and it struck in 1635.

Flesh = One Hundred Year FEMA Food Zone. This is the "100 year storm" you hear people speak of, but you have to go pre-Colombian to find them ("going pre-Colombian" means using salt marsh soil samples to look for sand layering associated with large hurricanes). New England has had storms in the Category 4+ level in the 1100s, the 1300s, and the 1400s.

Sorry about Flesh, but my knowledge of color names was and continues to be heavily influenced by whoever was in charge at Crayola in the 1970s.

Yes, that's Duxbury, and yes, that's from a nor'easter and not a hurricane, but it is Inundation.
"Inundation" is a big word for "storm surge," which are two small words for "saltwater pushed ashore ahead of an incoming cyclone." Feel free to develop more colorful terms like Deathwash or Liquid Doom if that gets your people serious. Flooding is the big killer in hurricanes, sort of what artillery is to warfare.

This map is based on the zany-weatherman-titled SLOSH model for storm surge inundation. It depicts the inundation that FEMA thinks will occur with a direct-hit hurricane arriving at mean high tide. It does not account for freshwater flooding. It also shows what intensity (on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane intensity scale) of storm would be needed to soak certain parts of Sammich.

I have written this very same article for every town in SE Massachusetts with a coastline, and many towns are tricky with flooding. Pembroke, which isn't even near the ocean, will get some salt water in a bad enough hurricane. Mattapoisett floods several miles inland, while New Bedford should- in theory- hardly flood at all.

Sandwich isn't even a little bit tricky. Most of her flooding will occur very close to shore, and you can pretty much guess where it will happen if you take a Sunday drive through town. Granted, someone with my job has looked at a lot of hurricane inundation maps and gets sort of jaded with coastal destruction, but nothing on the Sandwich map makes me say "Damn... who woulda thunk?"

That's not snow, it's, uhm, stubborn hurricane wave foam...
Now, don't look at that map, see that your neighborhood isn't colored (FEMA is very egalitarian, and "colored" neighborhoods on FEMA maps are generally populated by less swarthy, waterfront-property-having folks... towns with significant minority populations usually have them in the White neighborhoods), and think that you are off the hook from hurricane damage if one comes up on us. No.

You can get Ended in an innumerable amount of ways if a hurricane hits Sammich, only a few of which involve saltwater inundation. You could step on a downed power line, get the Charles I treatment from flying debris, drown in pond flooding, have a tree fall on your car, get crucified by purging looters, get swallowed (either up into a cyclone or down into a whirlpool), drown in your attic, suffer summary execution by the National Guard, stumble into a sharknado... trust me, I'm just scratching the surface here, player.

We want you alive. Beyond base reasoning like "If you actually looked at this article, we cherish you and cannot fiscally afford to lose your potential site visits," we also have a sort of "If they utilized the article properly, they live" professional pride thing going on. We also want you alive for regular, nice-person reasons. You're our kind of people.

This leads into our next map, the Evacuation Zone map. This one is much less nuanced than the Inundation map, in that there are only two colors.

They basically break down to:

Pink = These people should leave.

Yellow = You should leave, too.



Here are a few things that my highly trained eye sees with these here maps of ours:

- Storms will be very, very capable of washing out Route 6A in some spots. This makes Scorton Neck into an island.

- Add that to "the bridges close when the winds top 70 mph or so," and you have a Trapped Sandwich.

- Marylou's of Sandwich is vulnerable to Category 4 storms, a problem I expect them to have solved before the next Category 4 storm hits. I need Marylou's, as I don't like Red Bull and this site doesn't make enough for me to afford cocaine.

- The Sandwich fire and police stations are vulnerable to even a minimal hurricane.

- You're safe off Route 130, and I'd encourage coastal people to befriend someone off 130 well enough to be granted asylum from the storm.

- Even a minor hurricane will at least temporarily end Sandwich's above-water presence on the mainland.

- The Canal would only spill over in Category 3 and above.

- The power plant is safe from flooding in all but the worst storms, according to FEMA.

- Ridiculous shoreline change is likely, with much sand loss into the marshes. Thanks to the Canal jetty and certain legislative failures, no replenishing sand will be forthcoming.

- We'll leave the street-by-street analysis to the reader. You can use the maps on the site to zoom in to your very home. We'll link you up at the end of the article, no worries.

- Seek out and question whichever old-timer has lived in your neighborhood the longest. Ask him or her what happened in Hurricane Carol. Find out how bad the road flooded, what happened to your house, how impossible escape was, and all that. You should never fail to utilize the Old School when planning your personal emergency response.


Bone up on the Hurricane Information with these handy links:

Hurricane Inundation Maps

Evacuation Maps

Worst Hurricanes To Hit New England

List of all hurricanes to hit New England


Sandwich Flood Mitigation Plan

(pictures by FEMA, Stacey Moreau and Carter Malpass)

Sunday, September 20, 2015

NFL Week 2 Picks





9/20 1:00 ET At Carolina -3 Houston 39.5

MC Mallett (comes in at 0:25) takes over in Texas, with predictable results.

Carolina, 20-10


9/20 1:00 ET At New Orleans -9.5 Tampa Bay 47

Tampa had about 40 points put up on them by the QB they passed over in the draft to get a guy named Jameis.

NO, 41-14


9/20 1:00 ET At Pittsburgh -6.5 San Francisco 45.5

San Francsco ran right over Minnesota, which is sort of disppointing because I went to (Teddy) Bridgewater State University and want to get one of his jerseys instead of the uglier BSU one. I don't want to get his jersey if he's inept.

Pittsburgh, 28-20


9/20 1:00 ET At Minnesota -2 Detroit 43.5

I already used my BSU line, so we'll just point out here that the last RB to play Minny ran for 160 yards and 2 TDs. I'm sure that Detroit has factored this into the old game plan.

Detroit, 24-21


9/20 1:00 ET At Buffalo PK New England 44.5

Not related, but the last Pick 'Em tip I got for a game ended with me watching Bourne go down 42-0 last Friday. Fortunately, I don't bet on high school football any more... very often.... in large sums.

New England 24-21


9/20 1:00 ET Arizona -2 At Chicago 46

I like Chicago for absolutely no logical reason at all.

Chicago, 21-17



9/20 1:00 ET Tennessee -1.5 At Cleveland 41.5

Everyone hates Johnny Football, but I'm rooting for him. I want him to win without giving up his evil ways. "Weird heroes and mould-breaking champions exist as living proof to those who need it that the tyranny of 'the rat race' is not yet final.”

Cleveland, 24-18



9/20 1:00 ET At Cincinnati -3 San Diego 47

I've been writing about the NFL for 12 years now, an I still have to double-check when I spell "Cincinnati." Just did it right there, you see. I also can not memorize the spelling of "Apponequet," but that only matters when I write the high school columns.

Cincy, 28-24


9/20 1:00 ET St. Louis -3 At Washington 41

The last time these two teams played, the Rams sent out every guy they got in the RGIII trade for the coin flip. It was like 8 guys. RGIII's job this week is to make sure that no one steals the bench by holding it down with his ass.

St. Louis, 24-3


9/20 1:00 ET At NY Giants -2.5 Atlanta 51

The best pass rusher in NY has like 2 fingers on his dominant hand, so what's not to like?

Atlanta, 31-24


9/20 4:05 ET Baltimore -6.5 At Oakland 43

I want a cigarette every time I say "Joe Flacco" for some reason.

Baltimore, 30-10


9/20 4:05 ET Miami -5.5 At Jacksonville 41.5

Only warriors in the Amazon- none of whom I can contact, and none of whom follow the NFL- can tell you if a Dolphin or a Jaguar would win in a fight. Unrelated: Why doesn't the car company pay Jacksonville to use their car logo on the football helmet?

Miami, 24-14


9/20 4:25 ET At Philadelphia -5 Dallas 55

Dez breaking his foot doomed like 5 of my fantasy teams in Week 1.

Philly, 35-21


9/20 8:30 ET At Green Bay -3.5 Seattle 49

Jordy Nelson doomed the other 5.

Seattle, 20-19


Monday Night Football Line
9/21 8:30 ET At Indianapolis -7 NY Jets 47

Indy looked butter-soft last week, but NY looks weak pretty much all the time.

Indy, 31-20


FANTASY

We took an L last week, although it would have been closer if DeSean Jackson didn't tap out of the game after one friggin play. Our other WRs combined to score 5 points. Those same guys are starting this week, because Alshon Jeffery is taking the day off as well. Andre Johnson will be on Revis Island, too. We do have Chris Johnson, unemployed a few months ago, rising up into the flex spot.

CJ2K is a gut call, as my other options are Bishop Sankey (may have had his one good game of the year already) aand LeGarrette Blount (first game back after suspension).

I'm up 20-11, as my defense put up 20 on KC, while his WR1 (Thomas) got 11 points.

Magnanimous Sunni Chieftans

QB Andrew Luck
RB Marshawn Lynch
RB Joseph Randle
WR Andre Johnson
WR Anquan Bolden
TE Duane Allen
FX Chris Johnson
D/S Denver Broncos
K Steven Hauschka

Our honorable opponents, Deez Nutzzzz:

QB Russell Wilson
RB Adrian Peterson
RB Alfred Morris
WR Demaryius Thomas
WR Brandon Marshall
TE Greg Olsen
FX DeAngelo Williams
D/S Houston Texans
K Stephen Gostkowski


Saturday, September 19, 2015

Barnstable Hurricane Information


Barnstable is in a position not unlike that which Germany faced in the World Wars. They have a two front battle going on if a hurricane arrives.

We have two maps from FEMA to check out today. The map above is a Hurricane Inundation map, and it depicts storm surge from a direct hit hurricane visiting Barnstable at mean high tide. It also shows what sort of storm would be needed to soak certain regions, which we'll get to in a minute.

The map is from the combined efforts of FEMA, MEMA, NOAA and the NHC. They use the funny-weatherman-titled SLOSH model of storm surge estimation. They do not depict freshwater flooding.

The colors relate to the Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity, and break down like this:

Light Green = Category 1 hurricane. Hurricane Gloria was one of these, and the offshore Halloween Gale was, too. Although not a tropical system, the Blizzard of '78 did Cat. 1-style damage.

Dark Green = Category 2 hurricane. Hurricane Bob was one of these.

Yellow = Category 3 hurricane. We've only had five of these hit New England since the Other Man arrived in 1620, the most recent being Hurricane Carol in 1954.

Pink = Category 4 hurricane. We've had one in recorded New England history, and it struck in 1635.

Flesh = One Hundred Year FEMA Food Zone. This is the "100 year storm" you hear people speak of, but you have to go pre-Colombian to find them ("going pre-Colombian" means using salt marsh soil samples to look for sand layering associated with large hurricanes). New England has had storms in the Category 4+ level in the 1100s, the 1300s, and the 1400s.

Sorry about Flesh, but my knowledge of color names was and continues to be heavily influenced by whoever was in charge at Crayola in the 1970s.


We shall leave the street-by-street analysis to the reader, who can use the links I'll throw in at the end of the article to zoom in on their own house if it suits them.

Note that you don't need to be in a shaded area to get yourself a quick and sudden Ending. You can have a tree fall on you, have your car washed out in street flooding, step on a downed power line, get purged by looters, enjoy the Robespierre treatment from flying shingles, be summarily executed by National Guardsmen, or even stumble into a sharknado. There's no shortage of ways for you to get Left.

With that in mind, we now present to you the down-there-somewhere Evacuation Zone map.

Remember, you don't HAVE to leave when 5-0 tells you to. Also remember that the cop you read the Constitution to before the storm may be the one who has to fish you out of the drink when the ship hits the fan.

The E-map is easier to read, as it is made up of only two colors.

Red = Get Out.

Yellow = Get the f*** out.

Notice that Route 28 washes out in a few spots.

It's a big town, we break the maps down a bit to make it easier for you

Egad! The Hyannis Port Compound could get soaked!


Hurricane Inundation Maps

Evacuation Maps

Worst Hurricanes To Hit New England

List of all hurricanes to hit New England








Bourne Special Effects

Red skies at night...

...quarter mile visibility in the morning.

Our fog fights their sun and almost wins...

Cranberry Highway, heading towards the Seafood Shanty and Barlow's

Fishing for some fog...


Friday, September 18, 2015

High School Predictions, 9/18-9/19

FRIDAY'S GAMES

Martha's Vineyard at Bourne, 6:30

I was talking to one of the MV coaches, and he told me several unexpected advantages his team holds in a home game (which is not happening for them today):

- Kids are often taking their first boat ride as they go to oppose MV at home, and arive seasick.

- The MV game is their first trip to an island, and it gets the claustrophobic ones nervous.

- There's a difference between MV and other islands, and the trip to the Vineyard can become bigger than the game.

- One time, with the opponents driving down the field, an osprey flew over the field with a striper in her claws. She landed in her nest, and started ripping into the fish. The opposing team, who were from way inland, got a delay of game penalty because they were all watching the bird.

- He says tonight's game is should be very close, and he knows better than me.

Bourne, 21-20


Taunton at Durfee, 5

If you have no jokes for a game, just read the team names aloud and try to think of "Tauntin' Nat Durfeee."

Taunton, 14-10


Scituate at Dennis-Yarmouth, 6

South Shore kids and Cape kids have a good rivalry, it'd be a good war if America were divided by towns instead of states.

D-Y, 28-27


Blue Hills at Carver, 7

I'd pay for Carver to hire Dan Reeves, just so I can make Coach Reeves/Carve High jokes once aa week until my bank dries up.

Carver, 20-10


Cohasset at Rockland, 7

Two different South Shore species slug it out.

Cohasset, 20-10


Fairhaven at Old Rochester, 7

There is no New Rochester that I am aware of.

OR, 12-10


Falmouth at Mashpee, 7

"Mashpee" sounds like  nasty sort of soup.

Mashpee, 20-17


Matignon/SJ at Monomoy, 7

Monomoy should get a shark tank in one of the end zones and have people jump on waterskis it at halftime.

Matignon, 7-6


Nauset at Cardinal Spellman, 7

FOX game of the week.

Spellman, 27-14


Oliver Ames at Plymouth North, 7

Plymouth Norf stomps all over whoever this guy is.

PN, 21-19


Plymouth South at Silver Lake, 7

The world deserves, and I will constantly push for, a North/South Thanksgiving game.

PS, 21-10


Wareham at Bishop Stang, 7

Stang wants no part of the 'Ham, trust me.

?ham, 14-10


Whitman-Hanson at Pembroke, 7

The fate of the interior South Shore will be decided in Pembytown.

W-H, 12-10


Barnstable at No. 4 BC High, 7

Barnstable isn't ranked, but they will be after they stomp all over BCH.

Barney, 28-24



No. 7 Duxbury at No. 16 Holliston, 7

My old school isn't going to lose to anyone named after a sweater.

Duxbury, 70-1



No. 5 Everett at New Bedford, 7

Everett is #1 overall more often than they aren't #1, no mean feat in a state with 200+ schools.

Everett, 30-13


No. 21 Stoughton at No. 3 Marshfield, 7

Marsh Vegas dined on a Jersey team last week, so Stoughtoon will be more like a snack, even with that snazzy #21 ranking.

Vegas, 38-14


SATURDAY'S GAMES

Cape Cod Tech at Tri-County, 1

Trying to word a "Tri-County means you date girls in Sandwich, Scituate and Somerset" joke.

CCT, 7-3


Nantucket at South Shore, 1

The MV coach tells me that landlubber kids are more seasick with the Nantucket games than the MV games, as those extra ferry minutes are essential when making the tougher kids puke.

Nantucket, 20-18



Sandwich at Sharon, 1

It must suck to beat a team with a tough sounding name like Rockland, then get dominated by giry-name team like Sharon.

Sammich, 14-13


Upper Cape at Old Colony, 1

I may check this game if the weather is nice. We'll do the Bourne game tonight.

UC, 21-14


Apponequet at No. 19 Middleboro, 1

Middy gambles the ranking against a local power.

Middleboro, 21-20