faulker015

The entire Gulf Coast of Florida, from the Keys to Pensacola, is especially vulnerable to storm surge as hurricanes and tropical storms come ashore.  Counterclockwise winds push water toward the coast on the "right" side of storm's eye, forcing it across the low country and up the coastal rivers. This process is accentuated along the Florida Gulf Coast due to the topography of the Gulf itself.  A broad shallow area, representing the west portion of the Florida Platform , parallels the State's Gulf Coast; as ocean water is swept in by the storm, it cannot displace downward and builds to destructive depths across the barrier islands and coastal lowlands, leveling structures and flooding the landscape. Hurricane Michael, now a Category 4 storm, is poised to come ashore near Panama City this morning.  Storm surge is expected to reach 13 feet or more in some parts of the Great Bend before the hurricane and its remnants cut a swath of destruction across the eastern Panhandl...

Florence, now downgraded to a Category 2 Hurricane, has grown into a broad storm with hurricane or tropical storm force winds stretching across 400 miles.  The outer bands have come ashore in eastern North Carolina this morning, igniting tornadic thunderstorms and producing heavy, wind-swept rain. Due to "blocking highs" to its north and northwest, Hurricane Florence is expected to stall near the Coast and then drift southwestward along the southeastern coast of North Carolina and the northeastern coast of South Carolina, perhaps as far south as Charleston.  North of the storm's eyewall, which currently has sustained winds of 105 mph, onshore winds will produce a storm surge of 10 feet or more, as well as inland flooding from up to 2 feet or more of rain. Due to its slow forward motion (toward the coast and then down the coast), the high winds, storm surge and heavy rain will persist for a long period of time (perhaps 48 hours), increasing the risk of flooding and damage ...

After a slow start to the Atlantic Hurricane Season, a chain of tropical storms, hurricanes and tropical waves has developed in the past few days.  Of course, September is generally the peak month of the annual Hurricane Season (which runs from June to early November) and current atmospheric and oceanic conditions are favoring storm development. Just yesterday, Tropical Storm Gordon made landfall along the Mississippi Coast and its flooding rains continue to fall near Pensacola and Mobile; in the coming days, that tropical system will inject copious moisture into the Midwest which will interact with a cold front to produce flooding from Arkansas to the Great Lakes.  Next in line is Hurricane Florence, currently a Category 3 storm in the Central Atlantic; its future course remains uncertain but it could potentially affect the entire East Coast of the U.S.  Behind Florence are three tropical waves, emerging from the West Coast of Africa every few days; since wind shear has ...

Mention the State of Mississippi and most Americans likely think of Delta cotton fields or beautiful Gulf beaches bracing for the next tropical storm or hurricane.  But most of the State is covered by forest and woodlands, a fact that I confirmed as we traveled through Mississippi yesterday. Returning to Missouri, we entered Mississippi west of Mobile, Alabama, and exited the State just south of Memphis, Tennessee.  From the Alabama border to Hattiesburg, we undulated through the De Soto National Forest, crossing the Chickasawhay and Leaf Rivers, tributaries of the Pascagoula which enters the Gulf of Mexico.  Between Hattiesburg and Jackson, the terrain leveled out as we crossed the "pine belt" before reaching the Pearl River, which also flows to the Gulf. North of Jackson, woodlands still predominate but are broken by small farms and ranches and by wetlands along the Big Black River and the upper tributaries of the Yazoo River (all of which flow westward to the Mississip...

Yesterday morning, we left Knoxville, driving eastward through the foggy Tennessee Valley.  After crossing the Holston and French Broad Rivers (which join to form the Tennessee), we climbed into the Blue Ridge Mountains, following the course of the Pigeon River.  Leveling out west of Asheville, we crossed the divide between the Pigeon and the French Broad Rivers, encountering the largest concentration of tent caterpillars that I have ever seen. At Asheville, we angled southward on Interstate 26 and crossed the Eastern Divide just south of Hendersonville; this Divide, which snakes north to south through Eastern Canada and the Eastern U.S., separates the watersheds of rivers flowing to the Gulf of Mexico from those flowing toward the Atlantic Ocean.  South of the Divide, we soon arrived at the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains and were treated to a spectacular view of the Southeastern Piedmont. After undulating across the Piedmont, hemmed in by a pine-broadleaf forest, we cr...

This week, I started reading Cold Mountain , by Charles Frazier, some 20 years after its initial publication.  This highly acclaimed novel is set in the Southern Blue Ridge Mountains during the Civil War; much to my delight, it is accompanied by a map of that region, an area through which I have travelled on many occasions. Before getting too far into the novel, I decided to review the topography of the Southern Blue Ridge, with specific attention to its major rivers.  The mountains themselves stretch along the border of Tennessee and North Carolina, extending into northwestern South Carolina and northern Georgia; their highest summit is Mt. Mitchell (6684 ft.), in North Carolina.  This swath of highlands is bordered by the Ridge and Valley Province , to its north and west, and the Southeastern Piedmont to its south and east.  The eastern section of the Southern Blue Ridge is drained by the Watauga River, flowing northward to the Holston River, and the Catawba River...