At Irene’s closest, it got within 15 miles or so of Ocean City around 2:30am. This put us right on the outside edge of the eye wall. Yes I was awake.
Irene's eye wall right off the coast
Hurricane Irene didn’t disappoint; both in Ocean City and in New England. I was asked yesterday on KVUE if I thought the damage in Ocean City fit the expectations that we had been forecasting. Yes, mainly because we didn’t expect devastating damage. (View the entire interview here).
By night fall, Irene was packing its punch. I saw a few gusts on the WeatherBug network over 70mph, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that is what we saw in Ocean City. The WeatherBug truck was offline since I had to move it in away from the beach.
Doing the Lean
Intensity grew, rain pounded; it was miserable to be in… but man was I having fun.
I had a conversation with Justin Berk about the power of the hurricane. We saw max winds where we were of maybe 80-85mph during the worst and we were having trouble standing. I couldn’t imagine if the storm had come ashore as a stronger category 1 or 2. It simply wouldn’t have been safe to be outside.
Around 6pm yesterday, Irene was about 150 miles away from Ocean City. I decided to pull our my Kestrel, a hand-held anemometer, to measure the sustained wind speeds. The highest sustained winds I found at that time were 45mph, which are tropical storm strength.
I was truly surprised how strong 45mph winds can be. It was enough to make it very difficult to walk when going into the wind. Still, this was nothing for what I experienced later.
I think my hat wanted to fly off because there isn’t enough friction to keep it secure. Thoughts?
A powerful rain band from Hurricane Irene blew through Ocean City around 2pm today. I headed to the Ocean City Inlet with a news crew to get some footage. I think it was my first real experience with a hurricane.
I have a Skype interview with WFXL this afternoon after a phone interview this morning with KVUE. Check it out here – Ocean City, Maryland prepares for Hurricane Irene
I have to admit… I live for this stuff.
We expect the eye to be at its closest around midnight or so. I’ll probably be updating before then.
I know I’m late to the party, but I just finished up all 60 episodes over 5 season of HBO’s [...]
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