"On Hurricanes in Florida" by sunlovey

----Are you serious!??!?!?!---- Today is August 1st, I'm just 10 days away from departing for Mexico and what do you know? I wake up to tropical storm Chris, a newly formed system down by Antigua at the moment. Currently Chris's winds are around 40MPH. The five-day projected path puts Chris somewhere between the Bahamas and Cuba on Sunday morning. I leave Thursday morning. So all, please cross your fingers that this system dies out rather than strengthens. Thank you.

Aug. 2nd. We are most likely about to have our first hurricane of the season. Chris has been getting more organized and gaining strength. The Southern Bahamas & the Turks & Caicos are now under a hurricane watch meaning, winds of at least 74MPH are possible in their area in the next 36 hours. The track continues to wobble, the latest track has the storm skirting the Florida keys and moving into the Gulf of Mexico some time early Monday morning. Stay tuned...

Aug. 3rd. The coast appears to be clear for Florida. And the storm has weakened significantly. However, I must keep an eye on it for changes/developments as it goes into the gulf of Mexico.

Five of the names used for hurricanes in the record-breaking 2005 tropical season are being retired. These are the names associated with the storms that had the greatest loss of life and property. The names Dennis, Katrina, Rita, Stan and Wilma will never be used again; instead, replacements have been chosen for when the list is re-used in 2011. The new names will be Don, Katia, Rina, Sean and Whitney, respectively.

Names for the current 2006 season, which begins June 1, include Alberto, Beryl, Chris, Debby, Ernesto, Florence, Gordon, Helene, Isaac, Joyce, Kirk, Leslie, Michael, Nadine, Oscar, Patty, Rafael, Sandy, Tony, Valerie, William.

The Colorado State University team led by Dr. William Gray, a pioneer in forecasting storm probabilities, said it expected 17 named storms to form in the Atlantic basin during the six-month season starting in June.

Nine of the storms will likely strengthen into hurricanes, with winds of at least 74 mph, the team said, reaffirming their early prediction in December.

The forecasters said five of the hurricanes were likely to be major storms, reaching at least Category 3 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity, and boasting winds of at least 111 mph.

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From 2005 Season

Here comes Wilma...
Thanks to a cold front coming from the North Western United States, hurricane Wilma is predicted to make a crazy turn into Florida sometime Saturday. Right now she's ENORMOUS. But they expect much weakening. Hope they're right.

Oct. 29th Update...
So... yeah, South Florida got slammed by Wilma. And it took me by surprise I must admit. That Sunday night before it hit we were rushing to complete our hurricane preparations at home... "She" made her appearance Monday morning the 24th around 4:30 am. And lasted until 1pm that afternoon. It was not so much fun. South Florida from Key West to Vero Beach was hit with hurricane-force winds. And Palm Beach county took a hard hit specifically (as well as Broward). I write this from Lake Wales, Florida... We came up for the weekend because we were just sick of seeing the mess that is our area for now. :-( The biggest victims from storms like Wilma are the trees. And it's really sad... Nevertheless, we are fine... And Beta (yep, we've used up all the names and have started over with the Greek alphabet this year) is about to pound on Nicaragua. Yikes.

Oct. 31st. Things are slowly but surely getting back to normal, for example, I'm at work today. But living through hurricanes is traumatic. A lot of people I know are totally frazzled and on edge at the moment.

Aug. 24th She (Katrina) should be visiting us some time Thursday into Friday... let's hope she doesn't strengthen too much in the warm waters of the Atlantic.

Aug. 25th Well we're under a hurricane warning now... weather is deteriorating slowly but surely. And yet, I'm still at work! NOAA.ORG says the storm is getting better organized. Not what we want to hear. But no matter, I can't imagine the storm going above a cat. 1 hurricane. Not that a cat. 1 is fun and games. But it's not something we haven't dealt with time and again.

Sept. 19th. Well everyone knows how catatrophic Katrina turned out to be. Just not to Florida. My thoughts and prayers continue to go out to everyone affected by this storm. Today it looks as if the Florida Keys must brace for Tropical storm Rita. The lower keys have all been evacuated. NOAA believes this storm could become a hurricane as well. It's over the Bahamas at the moment.

Sept. 21st. Rita is a nasty, scary monster of a storm hurling itself towards Texas at the moment. Currently (at this moment) a very strong Cat. 5 with maximum sustained winds at 165MPH. The keys got slapped around by her but it's the gulf states that have to worry about a -much- harder hit. Once again, thoughts and prayers. :-(

*Arlene gained strength and then lost it making land fall with 60 MPH winds and a 20-foot storm surge (wave).*

(Had to recognize the first named storm of the season ahead. Respect the weather and perhaps it will respect you back? )

*Update July 6th:

Tropical storm Cindy approaching New Orleans with winds of 60MPH with stronger gusts.

And then there's Dennis, heading WNW through the central Caribbean. Jamaica has a hurricane warning as does part of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Looks like it's headed for Cuba and from there, somewhere into the gulf of Mexico. Maximum sustained winds are at 65MPH with higher gusts and they think it will be upgraded to a hurricane later today...

July 7th- Dennis is now a cat. 2 hurricane. The path wobbles a bit with each update but the Florida/Alabama border looks like a place I wouldn't really want to be this Sunday-into-Monday...

July 8th. Dennis has reached category 4 status. This is really terrifying for Cuba, the lower Florida Keys and perhaps Pensacola, Florida. These people are in my thoughts right now. :-(

July 8th cont'd, the 11am advisory puts Dennis at 150-mph winds. Just 5 mph short of a cat. 5. Its eye has widened quite a bit as well. This could be one of those tragically historic type storms I'm affraid.

July 11th. Dennis made landfall yesterday afternoon just east of Pensacola as a cat. 3 hurricane. Its 'arms' were massive, smacking us down in South Florida with strong gusts and sideways rain at the same time it was doing the same to Jacksonville, Tampa and Alabama.

This morning's news said to stay tuned however, as there is another tropical depression headed our way, brewing off the coast of Africa. This season looks as if it's going to be madness. If I need to update I will...

July 12th- ...And then there was Emily... this development headed our way became a named tropical storm last night with winds reaching 45mph. Let's see what happens...

July 13th... Emily is moving quickly to the West. Her track has moved further South. It looks like the U.S. on the whole could be free of this storm. However, Mexico might be in a bit of trouble. Let's hope not! As for those other tropical waves behind her (Emily) stay tuned...

July 18th Emily has crossed the Yucatan peninsula and is headed for the rest of Mexico now. Maximum sustained winds are at 100MPH currently. A tight little compact storm with a big punch, similar to last year's Hurricane Charley.

July 19th. Emily is still at cat. 1 (90mph winds and believe me, 90mph winds is scary as hell) but the hurricane center expects it to gain strength again before hitting Mexico but again. This season seems to be in competition with last years. Unbelievable.

No really, I am fascinated by hurricanes and such despite their wreckless nature.

When the season is in full force check out:
http://www.noaa.org and
http://www.weather.com
http://www.hurricanealley.com

Fortunately a lot of comedic images and such came out of the whole affair and I thought I'd post them for your enjoyment.

Come visit us real soon! ;-)

(For some reason the image to the side of this is nearly impossible to read. If you'd like, I'll email it to you, it's quite funny.)

Let's see, first there was Charley... Charley came along and kicked the crap out of the West Coast and Central Florida (Lake Wales, where my parents live).

Next there was Frances, Frances was a monster. That thing was huge and it came in on the East coast of Florida and just hovered there wrecking havoc for 10 hours straight. I'm not exagerating.
This was so incredibly crazy. It scared the you know what out of me. 10 straight hours of screaming wind, we had our shutters up and the entire night I heard things, BIG things, slamming into them. Then, it moved on to Central Florida and hit Lake Wales again.

Then came Ivan. Ivan is the reason I ended up in Labadee Haiti in 2004. Ivan slammed into North west Florida and Alabama.

And last, there was Jeanne. Jeanne was another big girl, but nowhere near the size of Frances. Jeanne came in(made landfall) within about a mile of where Frances did, so that was BAD. All the places that got hit just a few weeks before got smacked again.

Here it is, 2005. People down here are starting to spend the thousands of dollars it costs to install accordian shutters. I'm saying there's no way this year can be like last.

If you like to live on the edge a little, I'd imagine you'll get cheaper rates this year than usual on accommodation in my neck of the woods... :-)