National Hurricane Center



  • @KUSTEVE jethro! Aren’t you on the west side?



  • @Crimsonorblue22 I’m northwest of Tampa. We are smack dab in the middle of it.





  • @KUSTEVE I hope you and all folks in the area remain safe



  • They are saying the winds are 130 mph, yet the highest anywhere is 63 mph, with 1 gust that went up to 94 mph in Key West. No WAY does this storm reach even half the numbers they are throwing around. I would be surprised if the winds in Tampa get over 50 mph. Rainy, nasty, lots of damage… but not nearly as bad as they are saying. I’m real glad I stayed put.



  • @KUSTEVE nice!



  • Ok, we finally got some rain. now they’re saying it’s a tropical storm, so they are walking back the storm of the century talk.



  • @KUSTEVE Glad it is not as bad as it would have been had it stayed west, but it has been much worse than you seem to think. Gusts upwards of 135 mph and sustained over 95 mph are pretty serious, and gusts upward of 100 mph on the east coast from the morning on show how big the storm is. Still a Category 2. Orlando already has winds up to 70 mph and the center isn’t close yet. You might be lucky after all in TB, but that was not foreseeable. The effects of going over land, and an influx of dry air, are not predictable parts of a hurricane.

    3 to 4 million without power (incl 80% of Miami-Dade!) indicates it was pretty serious. The only reason more residences haven’t been demolished is the strengthening of hurricane-resistant building standards, first 40 years ago, and later after Andrew in the 90s. A huge reason we aren’t seeing more injuries and deaths is the effectiveness of the warnings and evacs.

    Hope the power stays on for you. The grid will definitely be a mess for awhile!



  • My cousins are likely to lose house in Venice to storm surge. Friends in ft lauderdale are ok but no power since early am. Tree damage. They are just west of town. Haven’t had cell service and water lines have broken.



  • @Crimsonorblue22 My sister-in-law and her Dad finally finished their 1422 mile 4-day migration to Chicago this evening.

    We are supposed to get winds of 30 to 45 tomorrow, along with “torrential rain.” Irma literally spreads over 1000 miles from DC to Cuba. Jose is going into a 290 degree loop this week and then points west, but I think it is supposed to veer off north after that. Lord knows the Lesser Antilles do not need another hit after going thru Irma and Jose once already.

    Good luck to your friends and cousins. We thought about moving to Venice. Now, no dice. I hope they (friends) have a generator.



  • @KUSTEVE

    Great to hear its just a nice gusty breeze your way!!

    I lived on the southwest coast of Oregon a few years and we used to get 50-60mph winds on a clear day!!!

    A little gale never hurt anyone.

    But 95-135 mph can put a few wrinkles in a forehead.

    Hope you keep missing all of it.

    Rock Chalk!



  • Jethro, Jethro, where art thou, Jethro?

    @KUSTEVE Hope the beer didn’t send you out with the water when the reverse surge drained Tampa Bay! Have you power, sir? And your roof?



  • @mayjay Power is still out…a few quick moves to the ice chest earned the coveted extension cord from the neighbor’s generator. So, ridiculously uncomfotable just went to slighly uncomfortable.



  • @KUSTEVE Excellent redeployment of assets, young man! We were thrilled with an extension cord from our neighbor back when hit by Isabel in Virginia (2003). Rotated it between coffee pot, frig, freezer, TV, and laptop charger that kept us connected to the internet via modem on a phone line!

    Hope you get plugged in soon!



  • They are saying it will be Sunday night before the power comes on. No ice anywhere…no batteries…my whole neighborhood is like a ghost town. The extension cord from the neighbors is very intermittent, so it is a challenge. No hotel rooms available anywhere.



  • @KUSTEVE

    One thing I forgot to suggest before the storm hit.

    Keep $5000 cash in hand just for boat buying immediately afterwards. 🙂

    You need to start shopping for a boat immediately.

    The insurance totaled boats along the inland waterway are the best deals going.

    And if the adjusters can’t get in yet, then all the better.

    Offer cash only.

    Be picky though.

    Insist on a Contender. 🙂

    Or a nice single-screw diesel trawler for motoring the Caribbean islands, while the clean up is underway.

    Aw, just having a little fun.

    I’m sure this situation sucks big time.



  • @jaybate-1.0 even worse if he was in a nursing home



  • @KUSTEVE

    I have many friends in the Sarasota area where my dad resided before I moved him to Kansas. They were out of power for 48 hours but they have had the power back for while now and things seem to be pretty normal, at least in the parts of the town that are not next to the coast.

    Sound like your area was hit pretty hard. Hopefully power return soon so you can all get back to normal…or something close to it…



  • My sister-in-law left Chicago today with her father to take him back to Ft Lauderdale. His condo has all systems running. They are driving via St L and New Orl, for God alone knows what reason. My brother spent the past 3 days with his F-in-L, and has now gone certifiably nuts.

    The families of evacuees: hidden victims of Irma.



  • good news: they came and picked up the trash. that was fixing to be a BIg issue.



  • @mayjay

    That is crazy, it adds close top 500 miles to the trip and will take them through areas that were affected by Harvey which might require additional detours.

    They must really want to go to New Orleans or maybe it is the great barbecue in Saint Louis that Cuonzo Martin just stated is better than Kansas City barbecue.



  • @JayHawkFanToo That would be nice, to think there is a plan.

    No, it is just because they are totally, unbelievably, mindeffingly, diagnostically nuts.



  • @mayjay my friends are in a hotel.



  • As of 11:11 am, the power finally came back on. Oh my gosh…



  • @KUSTEVE

    Just in time to watch the game…which might not necessarily be a good thing baseon the first few minutes of the game.😡



  • @KUSTEVE I was thinking this morning of posting about how I have always gotten power back before they predicted, and that I hoped you would be lucky, too! But I held back to avoid jinxing you.

    Hooray for all those thousands of workers who have been working on restoring power all through Florida! BTW, you have a few thousand South Carolinians down there helping. Meanwhile, the quarter million homes out of power here have been tended to by crews from NY, Md, Penn, and Va.



  • Good lord, this could be another one. Here is the projected track of Potential Tropical Cyclone 15, predicted to become a TS soon and a hurricane later this week.

    The track takes it directly through the islands just whacked by Irma. Some of these storms that develop quickly can really surprise. Those poor people need many months to recover, not this!

    0_1505583212356_145528_5day_cone_no_line_and_wind.png

    Meanwhile, TS Lee is further east and on a similar, but (as currently oriented) more northernly, track. It is not predicted to be as exciting and may dissipate instead.

    0_1505583451173_144929_5day_cone_no_line_and_wind.png



  • Update: Fifteen is now Tropical Storm Maria. The newest track shows it becoming a hurricane into the Virgin Islands and then a major hurricane when it hits PR on Wednesday. Any hurricane with that trajectory and strength could go on to the Bahamas and Florida or East Coast.

    0_1505595466202_204552_5day_cone_no_line_and_wind (1).png

    Update: A number of spaghetti models show Maria spinning off into the Atlantic to the East of the Bahamas. They said that about Irma, too, IIRC.


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