While rated a force 1 hurricane Irene is huge with large storm surges and a central pressure hanging around 954 millibars. Its path has paralled the coastline dropping as much as 16" of rain on coastal cities.
So far every state on the US Eastern seaboard has evacuated to at least 2 miles inland, and NYC has totally shut down; no subways, trains, taxi's, or bridges once the winds exceed 45mph. NYC/Long Island look to take a direct hit with storm surges of up to 8 feet over and above a new moon tide. Not good in an area that averages 16 feet above sea level (and that's skewed by Staten Island's hills.)
A few hours ago Irene hit NASA's Wallops Island, Virginia spaceport and reports are that there is extensive flooding from the storm surge, including the assembly building where Orbital's Taurus II and Cygnus ISS resupply test spacecraft are being integrated. Cygnus just arrived 2 days ago.
Irene from ISS
So far every state on the US Eastern seaboard has evacuated to at least 2 miles inland, and NYC has totally shut down; no subways, trains, taxi's, or bridges once the winds exceed 45mph. NYC/Long Island look to take a direct hit with storm surges of up to 8 feet over and above a new moon tide. Not good in an area that averages 16 feet above sea level (and that's skewed by Staten Island's hills.)
A few hours ago Irene hit NASA's Wallops Island, Virginia spaceport and reports are that there is extensive flooding from the storm surge, including the assembly building where Orbital's Taurus II and Cygnus ISS resupply test spacecraft are being integrated. Cygnus just arrived 2 days ago.
Irene from ISS
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