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The Amazing Race 17 TIMELINE/Spoiler Summary Thread

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--- Quote from: walkingpneumonia on October 25, 2010, 09:12:30 AM ---I have a theory as to why the teams are in Muscat for a very short time. On June 4 cyclone Phet hit Oman, killing 2 people and effecting oil and gas production. Winds near 120kph and heavy rains in Muscat.

This occurred while the teams were in Norway.

If you look at the photos in flickr for the date, you can see that there was quite a bit of flooding in Muscat. School exams were canceled for the whole week.
I speculate that there may have been some damage done to some of the infrastructure that would be needed for TAR to hold a complete leg there so TPTB had to do some rescheduling. So in one episode we get travel from St.Petersburg, maybe a single task in Muscat city, then travel to Bangladesh.
This is just speculation - trying to explain the weirdness of the sightings of teams in Muscat.

--- End quote ---

It's a good theory, walkingpneumonia, but Phet was not that strong a tropical cyclone when it actually reached Oman. It was stronger before landfall and after leaving Oman on the way to Pakistan. Here is the AccuWeather summary for Oman during Phet:

Phet slammed into Oman Thursday evening. Soon after landfall, the strength of the storm's maximum sustained winds were equivalent to a Category 2 hurricane. Phet's intensity matched a Category 4 hurricane as recently as early Thursday morning. The interaction with land is what caused Phet to weaken early Friday morning, but it remained a potent storm. The storm dumped nearly 6 inches of rain in 24 hours, ending Friday morning EDT, on Ras al Hadd, Oman.

Digital Journal reported this on Friday June 4:

NASA's Terra satellite have captured infrared and visible images of Tropical Cyclone Phet today that showed the lack of an eye, indicating that the storm had weakened after making landfall in Oman...  When Phet made landfall in Oman on June 3, it caused landslides and floods in the eastern part of the country. After landfall Phet weakened and continued heading in a northeasterly direction up Oman's coast and back into the Arabian Sea. No casualties have been reported. Tropical Cyclone Phet's maximum sustained winds were down to 65 knots (74 mph) making it a Category One cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. That's down from the Category Four cyclone it was before it made landfall yesterday. Phet is now 65 miles southeast of Musqat, Oman, near 22.9 North and 59.5 East. It's moving north-northeast near 6 knots (7 mph). Tropical Storm-force winds extend out to 115 miles from the center, so the storm has grown in size since it made landfall. It's now 230 miles in diameter.

That means that there was severe rain, but wind damage may not have been as severe as needed to seriously disrupt the Amazing Race visit for 2.5 to 3 days later .

DrRox:
Those of us that live in hurricane country know its always the water from the storm surge and rain that lasts long time after the storm....it just doesn't drain away in 2-3 days.

I remember in TAR9 that they had to fjord several low water crossings when they were there........those would be deep water crossings after a hurricane.....lol

FLFan:

--- Quote from: DrRox on October 25, 2010, 10:16:25 AM ---Those of us that live in hurricane country know its always the water from the storm surge and rain that lasts long time after the storm....it just doesn't drain away in 2-3 days.


--- End quote ---

Very true.  Fay in 2008 never reached hurricane strength - just a tropical storm, if I remember right.  But there were lots of low areas in Florida that were flooded, some up to thigh high.  It was so wet that even just "swampy" areas had ankle deep water for weeks not the usual soft/wet ground.

theschnauzers:
An alternate source for discussion of Tropical Cyclone Phat is the blog by Dr. Jeff Masters, who founded Weather Underground (a frequent TAR detective information source, no?). Here's the link to his entries for the month of June; the entries are in reverse chronological order (more recent on top), so you'll have to scroll down to get to June 4th, 3rd, and 2nd, where the storm is discussed. (link)  And he posted satellite photos of the record-setting cyclone.

Meanwhile, and slightly off-topic, the lowest barometric pressure ever recorded in Iowa in the month of October took place overnight. (979mb), which is more often found in a category two hurricane. The winds were close enough today 30-40 mph and some higher gusts.  I've stayed inside as those are hard winds to drive in.

sphoebus:
Regarding Nick and Vicky's placement:  In an post-elimination interview quoted below, Katie mentions that she and Rachel didn't get a chance to talk to Nick very much.  I think this may be a good indication that Nick and Vicky never get to Elimination Station, and are at the very least decoys in the final legs. 

http://www.realitytvworld.com/news/exclusive-katie-seamon-and-rachel-johnston-talk-the-amazing-race-11652.php

Reality TV World: What did you two think of Nick in general?  He seems to put up a confident front but it seems like Vicki is actually the tough one on that team. [This week] he let her do the rappelling, and then he also seemed to struggle with the bike ride after talking up his BMX experience.

Katie Seamon: We didn't really get to talk to him too much but they seemed like good people and Nick seemed like just a pretty chill guy. I understand the anger and getting mad, and Katie and I are the first ones to get frustrated to lash out at each other, so I mean I think it's just being competitive

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