Edmund Schweppe

Tropical Storm Henri made landfall today just after noon near Westerly, RI:
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Henri is currently just southeast of Hartford CT, moving towards the north-northwest. Lots of rain for northern New Jersey and southern New York. Basically a non-event for me, which is how I like my natural disasters.

Elsa is now post-tropical, and is leaving the building:
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As predicted, I received relatively little wind, but copious amounts of rain. Lots of puddles on the local roads. The Sudbury River is flooding, and the Assabet is likely to flood in the next little while.

Tropical Storm Elsa is getting closer. Earlier this morning, the National Weather Service upgraded the Tropical Storm Watch for the Massachusetts coast to a Warning:
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Expecting a whole lot (more) rain tomorrow.

As of 4PM today, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is reporting 16 newly reported confirmed deaths (7 less than yesterday - down 30.4%) for a total of 9,766 deaths, 1,292 newly reported confirmed cases (196 less than yesterday - down 13.2%) for a total of 154,521 cases, and 18,122 new patients tested by molecular tests (2,126 less than yesterday - down 10.5%) for a total of 2,741,323 individuals tested. There were 93,234 new molecular tests reported (14,630 more than yesterday - up 18.6%) with a total of 6,103,161 molecular tests administered to date. The ratio of newly confirmed cases to individuals tested by molecular test is 7.1%, compared to 7.3% yesterday. The state also reported zero newly reported probable deaths (1 less than yesterday) for a total of 225 deaths, and 138 newly reported probable cases (44 more than yesterday - up 46.8%) for a total of 4,055 cases. The state also reported 203 patients tested by antibody tests (59 less than yesterday - down 22.5%) for a total of 127,219 patients, and 2,509 patients tested by antigen tests (564 more than yesterday - up 29.0%) for a total of 187,483 patients. Combining the confirmed and probable numbers gives 16 new deaths for a total of 9,991 and 1,430 new cases for a total of 158,576.

The seven day average number of newly confirmed cases per day is 1,214.0 compared to 874.3 last week (up 38.9%) and 615.0 two weeks ago (up 97.4%). The seven day average number of newly confirmed deaths per day is 21.4 compared to 16.1 last week (up 32.7%) and 18.7 two weeks ago (up 14.5%). The seven day average number of newly tested individuals per day is 18,025.9 compared to 16,585.3 last week (up 8.7%) and 14,784.7 two weeks ago (up 21.9%). The seven day average percentage of individuals coming back confirmed positive per day is 6.8% compared to 5.3% last week and 4.2% two weeks ago. (The above averages are calculated from today's raw data download.)

Of the Commonwealth's four "key metrics" listed on page 2 of the report, the seven-day weighted average positive test rate is 1.9%, 140% above the lowest observed value of 0.8% on September 21. The three-day average number of COVID-19 patients in hospital is 585, 93% above the lowest observed value of 302 on August 29. The number of hospitals using surge capacity is 2, 2 above the lowest observed value of 0 on October 18. The three-day average number of COVID-19 deaths is 21, 121% above the lowest observed value of 9 on September 7.

To put it mildly: yuck. Day-to-day isn't so bad, as confirmed deaths and cases are both down; on the other hand, that's not an unusual trend for the weekend. And we haven't cracked the ten-thousand-death barrier - yet. But the absolute number of new cases is still over a thousand, which is way, way too many; the seven-day averages for cases, deaths and percent-positive are all way up and continuing to trend even higher; and the state's "key metrics" are way up from their lowest observed values, with both the positive test percent and COVID-19 death averages more than twice the LOV. Oh, and the hospitalization rate has been steadily climbing for six days.

No reaction as of yet from Governor Baker (that I've seen, at least). Meanwhile, almost ever state in the US is in the red on the Tracking Our COVID-19 Reponse site that Massachusetts uses for its "lower-risk states" list - and Massachusetts, with 182 new daily cases per million as of yesterday, is well into the "uncontrolled spread" range, doing worse than places like Louisiana and Georgia (let alone relative bright spots Vermont and Maine). Overseas, much of Europe (including the United Kingdom, France, and Germany) are reentering some form of lockdown as their COVID-19 cases surge.

Oh, and the National Hurricane Center expects to start issuing advisories on Tropical Depression 29 at 5PM. The official hurricane season runs until November 30.

Happy Halloween.

The town of Acton has yet to post an update today. As of the most recent report at 2:45PM on October 28, the town of Acton reported 233 cumulative cases of COVID-19 in town with 11 individuals in isolation, 201 recovered and 21 fatalities.

Back in August, I spent a fun day playing seaport tourist, including a tour of the replica HMS Bounty as she was making a port call in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Today, she sank off Cape Hatteras, courtesy of Hurricane Sandy:

PORTSMOUTH, Va. (AP) — The Coast Guard rescued 14 members of a crew forced to abandon the tall ship HMS Bounty caught in Hurricane Sandy off the North Carolina Outer Banks and continued the search Monday for two other crew members.

[ ... ]

The director of the HMS Bounty Organization, Tracie Simonin, said the tall ship had left Connecticut last week en route for St. Petersburg, Fla.

"They were staying in constant contact with the National Hurricane Center," she said. "They were trying to make it around the storm."

[ ... ]

Coast Guard Vice Adm. Robert Parker, Operational Commander for the Atlantic Area, told ABC’s "Good Morning America" that at the time of the distress call the ship was taking on two feet of water an hour.

He said the crew abandoned ship into canopied, rubber life rafts with about 10 feet of water on board.

I presume that the two life rafts mentioned by VADM Parker are the ones in this picture:



The sea can be unforgiving.