Jeff Lindner - Harris County Meteorologist Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Six, twenty three, got time you're in Houston's boring news. Well,
we got long wave, we got June, we got July, August, September, October.
That's generally about the end of it right there. Join
us to talk about it, Jeff Linder, Harris County Meteorologists.
Where of course preparations that have already begun for this
hurricane season. Take us through it, Jeff. What do you
guys do to get ready?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yeah, so we you know, we've been working on preparing
for hurricane season really since the beginning of April, and
a lot of it is going through checklist and making
sure we're you know, we have all of our supplies
in place, and communicating with our partners, you know, our
transportation partners, our private industry partners, those folks that we

(00:43):
lean on when bad things happen for supplies and stuff
like that. And then of course going through any sort
of drills that we need to go through. Have one
actually this week with the corp of Engineers with Addicts
and Barker on Thursday, just to make sure we're on
the same page. You know, throughout the year, staffing change
his phone numbers, change all that type of stuff, and
It's kind of the same thing that we certainly ask

(01:04):
everybody out there to be doing this time of year,
is making sure you have your plan and your kit
in place.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Yeah, what do you recommend for a hurricane kid? What
are the bare minimum things you need to have ready
to go? Water obviously is one of those things I
would assume.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Yeah, I think a lot of those kind of really
got a feeling of what we needed last year with
Beryl and the Directo. You know, the biggest issue most
of us are going to have is lack of power.
And so what do you need to get by for
four or five six days without power? You know, obviously
the nonperishable foods, the water, big water's big time here
with the heat and the humidity that comes after these storms.

(01:40):
Of course cash needs to be on hand, and if
you have a generator, make sure you have gas to
power that generator. And then specific stuff for your specific family,
if you have any sort of medications, pets, pet food
for any sort of pets. And then obviously things to
keep the kids. The younger kids occupied obviously without any

(02:02):
sort of devices and stuff, they need to be sort
of occupied and those times of things, and also to
keep their mind off of what's going on. We've seen
a lot of post disaster recently where the kids have
a lot of impact from that. And one other thing
I'll mention is what we've seen a lot in the
last five years with hurricane landfalls on the Gulf Coast

(02:25):
is we've seen a lot of fatalities in the aftermath
of the storm. And so it's the carbon monoxide potentially
from the generator, it's being overcome with heat. If you're
not typically used to working out the heat, folks get
out there and they get overcome with that. We have
a lot of increase in heat illness and heat fatalities
and the aftermath of these disasters. And then also just

(02:47):
if you're not used to working with chainsaws and power equipment,
people getting in trouble with that types of stuff. So
really be careful in that aftermath because we've actually seen
more people dying in the aftermath of the storm than
the actual storm itself.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Yeah, I believe that. In addition to all that, I'm guessing,
you know, you folks try to everybody, I guess tries
to predict what sort of a hurricane season we're going
to have, you know, El Nino or La Nina. How
that's going to impact. What are you hearing or what
is your best guess mean about what kind of a
hurricane season that you would predict based as your background

(03:21):
as a meteorologist.

Speaker 3 (03:24):
Yeah, I think it's going to be slightly above average
this year.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
And so average number of main storms in the Atlantic,
which includes the Atlantic, the Caribbean, and the Gulf of
Mexico is fourteen. That's the thirty year moving average, and
so I think we're going to be somewheres in the
range of above that, maybe up around seventeen or eighteen
named storms would be very similar to.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
Last year's hurricane season.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
The number of hurricanes probably somewhere around seven to nine,
which is a little bit above average also, but you know,
the key is not so much for numbers. That's where
they go, it's where they make landfall. And so obviously
if we're impacted, that's a bad year. So we can
have a relatively quiet and if we get a storm
here on the Texas coast is a bad year for us.
And so that's you know, that's kind of the question,

(04:06):
and it's you know, late May, early June. We don't
really have a lot of confidence at this point where
the where the kind of pattern is going to sit
up of where these storms are going to track. A
lot of things can change between say now and August.
One thing I will say here in Texas we do
kind of need to be ready right out the gate.

Speaker 3 (04:23):
We do get tropical storms and occasionally hurricanes in June
here on the Texas coast, and so we do we
do need to, you know, have those plans, have those
kits in place here this week and be prepared for
that because in Texas we've seen tropical storms and hurricanes
in the month of June.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
Sure did last year. Jeff, always a pleasure. Thank you, sir.
I hope did not have to talk to you anytime soon.
Jeff Linder at Harris Counting he's the meteorologist for the
Gunning six twenty seven