Hurricane Earl — thankfully, “only” a category-three storm at the moment — is hurtling down on us here in Hampton Roads.
The question on everyone’s mind: Will the storm turn to the northeast as has been forecast? If so, then our little nest here in Virginia Beach will receive only a glancing blow (literally) from tropical storm-force winds in the wee hours of Friday.
If, however, the storm doesn’t turn as expected… well, it could get very nasty very quickly in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
On the left is a diagram from the National Hurricane Center showing the size of Earl’s wind field, as of mid-afternoon Thursday. The orange area shows the extent of tropical-storm-force winds:
On the right is the forecast for winds as the storm passes by tonight and early Friday. The border between the orange and bright red runs very close to our house. Meaning we have about a 70 percent chance of getting tropical-storm-force winds.
And that’s if the storm turns. So: Turn, baby, turn.
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In the meantime, here’s how papers along the East Coast covered the approach of Earl today.
We’ll start with the Daily Times of Salisbury, Md. The designer there chose to build around a horizontally-cropped photo by staffer Gary Emerigh (click any of todays’ pages for a larger view):
Not bad at all. Even better when you consider the paper’s daily circulation is only 18,554.
That secondary shot, by the way, is from the Baltimore Sun.
Many papers went with the ol’ “boarding up the windows” shots that can often be a cliché during hurricane season. The Cape Cod Times of Hyannis, Mass., did it right, however, using an interestingly-composed local photo and a nice, bold headline:
The picture is by staffer Ron Schloerb. Average daily circulation for the Times is 38,386.
Talk about interesting angles — few photojournalists have shot more hurricane-prep photos than old friend Chuck Liddy of the News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C.
Check out this beaut:
Average daily circulation for the N&O is 137,804.
The Telegram & Gazette of Worcester, Mass. — circulation 70,433 — built its front today around an AP photo of two men boarding up a home in North Carolina:
The Free Lance-Star of Fredericksburg, Va. — circulation 46,672 — did the same:
A number of papers chose to run satellite photos of the storm (Read much more here about hurricane imagery.)
The Charlotte Observer — circulation 166,546 — went with a straight photo treatment of the satellite imagery:
There’s certainly nothing wrong with that. In fact, it’s quite good. But do you see the little wire map below the photo? How about we take the data from that map and place it, in scale, onto the photo?
Perhaps something like this:
That’s the Union Leader of Manchester, N.H., circulation 51,782. I’m not crazy about the fuzzy edges around the package. But I do like the dotted line, the estimated positions of the storm’s eye and the detail spotting the paper’s hometown.
The photo is a NASA/GOES image. The graphic treatment is by staffer Tom Lynch.
The Republican-American of Waterbury, Conn., used a striking infrared-type image and did, in fact, overlay some info. But Perhaps the designer could have gone a bit further as did Manchester, eliminating the need for the locator map:
Average daily circulation for the Republican-American is 46,694.
Bluffton Today of coastal South Carolina — circulation 16,500 — used a satellite photo as a simple magazine-style cover illustration:
I’m pretty sure that’s going to be a NASA photo. But for some reason, Bluffton Today credits the image to a staffer. Interesting.
And the Boston Herald — circulation 132,551 — used yet another satellite image to plug a story about predictions by local TV meteorologists.
The storm passed far enough off the coast of South Carolina to pose no threat at all. The enormous winds — Earl spent most of the past two days as a category four hurricane — make for dangerous rip currents and huge surf.
The Post and Courier of Charleston played off this with a great photo and an even better headline:
The photo is by staffer Alan Hawes. The Post and Courier circulates 86,928 papers daily.
The Baltimore Sun — circulation 201,830 — also captured the scene out at the beach, focusing on a lifeguard keeping watch over vacationers by the rough seas:
It’s a bonus, I presume, that the lifeguard happens to be female. And wearing a bikini. The photo is by Sun staffer Lloyd Fox.
The Times-Dispatch of Richmond, Va. — circulation 133,161 — built its front with a montage of images: A satellite image up top, a picture — by the Virginian-Pilot‘s Steve Earley — of cars evacuating North Carolina’s Outer Banks and a picture of crowded Virginia Beach, heading into the last weekend of summer:
Nice, clear, effective design. But for my montage dollar today, I preferred the picture selection and cropping on the front of today’s Observer of Fayetteville, N.C.:
All three pictures were from the Associated Press. Average daily circulation for the Observer is 55,412.
Across the James River from us, the Daily Press of Newport News — circulation 81,241 — used smaller images and bold text treatments above the old and ran its lead art below:
This defies conventional wisdom. And, as you can see, proves — once again — that all rules have exceptions. This page works, and very well.
The photo is of a local boat captain who says he watches the tides to get a feel for how bad a storm will be. It was shot by Daily Press staffer Adrin Snider.
And finally, here’s the paper I picked up in my own front yard this morning, the Virginian-Pilot:
The designer stretched Steve Early’s evacuation photo across six columns and place it behind a reversed nameplate. This allowed the Pilot to play up two other huge, non-storm-related stories today.
Why no map? Partially because there was some uncertainty, perhaps, in how the storm might move overnight. But also because the Pilot hit the map angle pretty strongly atop A1 the previous two days:
The map on Wednesday’s front (left) was created by outgoing artist-slash-multimedia guru Miranda Mulligan. The encore Thursday was by Bob Voros.
And all of the Pilot‘s hurricane graphics are built with a library of material Bob has built up over several years. There are few news artists better prepared for tropical weather than Bob Voros.
Average daily circulation for the Virginian-Pilot is 164,454.
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As I finish this post — just before 5 p.m. Thursday — we’re still being assured that Earl is, in fact, turning north-northeastward and will only brush us. And that the winds are down just a bit. It’s still a category-three storm. But the winds are definitely diminishing.
This big mother is just beginning to show up on our local radar, though. And yeah, it’s a little scary:
Sharon is at school — school begins next week — so Elizabeth and I spent the day hurricane-proofing our house. We removed anything from the backyard that could possibly become a projectile in high winds. And we created a bit of a jungle in our den with Sharon’s array of potted plants:
Oh, the cats have loved that. They’ll be hacking up half-digested leaves all night.
We’ve freshened our batteries, charged up our cell phones, filled our cars with gas.
We’re about as ready as we can be. Because that’s how you keep these storms away, we’ve discovered over the years. If you prepare, they head in another direction. If you’re not prepared, then you’re dead meat.
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UPDATE: 8:15 p.m.
I took the kids out for dinner tonight at Firehouse Subs at Landstown Commons here in Virginia Beach.
Next door to the sub shop is a FedEx/Kinko’s copy shop. Which — much to my surprise — we found all boarded up:
That little blue sign says:
They are the only place I’ve seen in town battened down for a hurricane. And their plate glass windows seem well-protected by a typical strip-mall canopy. Very strange.
As the sun set over Virginia Beach, it did us the favor of peeking through the initial cloud bands. I asked my daughter to try to capture the resulting blaze of pinks, blues, oranges and purples:
She tried hard, but her cell phone wasn’t quite up to the task.
The 8 p.m. update from the National Hurricane Center suggests that Earl is, indeed, making its turn to the northeast. Just a few hours later than expected:
As a result, the eye of the storm will move even closer than expected. Despite what you see on the map there, the hurricane warning exists only for North Carolina. Up here in Virginia Beach, we are “only” under a tropical storm warning and a hurricane watch.
Having said that, I’m sitting right now in my kitchen. And I’m roughly five miles, as the crow flies, to the state line. So go figure.
Earl has also decreased in strength this afternoon. With winds of “only” 110 mph, Earl is now “just” a category two storm. It’s still awfully large, though (click this photo for a larger view):
Find the latest info from the National Hurricane Center here.
Again, go here to find the latest satellite imagery — both still and moving — from NASA’s project GOES.
Watch Earl roll by here via National Weather Service radar based in Wakefield, Va.
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UPDATE: 9:45 p.m.
The Weather Channel just talked with a reporter for the Virginian-Pilot who reported they could hear the wind and rain picking up outside their building (which is on Brambleton Ave. in downtown Norfolk, a little more than 20 miles from here).
I walked outside. No wind. No rain. No nuthin’.
The most recent radar image from the WeatherUnderground…
…suggests that the first heavy rain bands are still another half-hour to 45 minutes away.
I’ve never heard of the reporter. I’m going to assume the call was legit. But man, this is just damned weird.
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UPDATE: 12:30 a.m.
That Pilot reporter, it turns out, was speaking to the Weather Channel from a hotel in Buxton, way down in the Outer Banks. Mystery solved.
It’s now after midnight and we’re still getting nuthin’ here in Virginia Beach. The winds were supposed to be quite strong by now. Instead, it’s very still outside. And although radar shows a couple of minor rain bands have moved over us, we’ve not received a drop.
The latest radar picture, via the WeatherUnderground:
The latest forecast is that we’ll get our heaviest rain, now, between 7 and 9 a.m. and our strongest winds — more than 30 mph, they’re still saying — between 10 a.m. and noon. I’m guessing the high tide — about 3:30 a.m., here in Virginia Beach — is no longer a concern.
Looks like this might be a complete fizzle. And don’t get me wrong: That’s a good thing.
Years later, some things are still the same:
* There is WAY too much white space at the end of the subheds on the N.H. Union Leader. That looks horrible. Also, the words “immigrants” and “Immigration” are used way too often in the display type at the bottom.
* “HIS NAME IS EARL” is the kind of unoriginal headline that should not make print. Ever. Also, I believe “southerner” should be capitalized.
* “Tiger’s on the prowl” and its cousin, “Tiger lurking,” have been used millions of times. Time to get some better ideas for the sports refers in Boston. I do sort of like DUKES OF EARL, even though it is way too large and way too white, and it should not have an exclamation point at the end.
* The capsules in the Daily Press are too redundant. If it’s not possible to say something that differs from the headline, then take a new approach.
Some of these things have been showing up for years. “Tiger lurking” was old in 1998. Papers need fresh ideas, and not the kind that feature gimmicks.
“Hurricane Earl — thankfully, “only” a category-three storm at the moment — is hurdling down on us here in Hampton Roads.”
Ummm … I believe that should be “hurtling,” unless there are jumps involved.
Thanks, Linda. Fixed.