Hurricane Frances (1 Viewer)

[Malcolm R]

Good news if the weakening trend continues, but the NHC forecasters still seem to think it will re-intensify prior to landfall, back to around 140 MPH.

 

[Todd Hochard]

I'd say regaining a bit of strength is a good probability, due to it passing over the warm Gulf Stream.

 

[Zane Charron]

Heading a bit more northerly too now. The slowing of the hurricane's speed will dump a lot more water on everything, which is never good.

 

[Malcolm R]

Current forecast on Ivan has it possibly into the Caribbean, over Hispanola, and into the Bahamas region within 7-10 days.



All subject to major changes, of course, since they can barely predict these things 24-hours at a time, but if you've boarded up your house for Frances, you might want to wait until Ivan makes its move before you take things down.

 

[Todd Hochard]

Duck and cover, St. Augustine!



You read it here first.

 

[nolesrule]

You think it's going to cut that far north? I guess we'll get a better idea of where it's really going at 5pm.

 

[Peter Kline]

We're having high winds in Coral Springs right now. Cloudy but no rain. There are bands of squalls preceding the main event. Looks like Frances is in fact turning West sooner and may make landfall closer to West Palm Beach. Amazingly, the Florida Keys will escape all of this. Miami and Miami Beach will have wind and rain but probably less then my area which is between Ft. Lauderdale and Boca Raton but inland. Now I wish that big truck in the parking lot across from my living room window goes away!

 

[Chris_Morris]

Seeing as Jim Cantore from TWC is in Palm Bay, I'd give that as a high probability of a landing zone. He always gets the gravy jobs

Chris

 

[nolesrule]

Almost everyone was in the wrong place to cover Charley. Very few news crews were in Punta Gorda, and the only crew whose satellite equipment survived was from a local Tampa Bay station.



But even Don Germaise was smart enough to get into shelter when the worst of the weather came knocking.

 

[nolesrule]

quote:We're having high winds in Coral Springs right now. Cloudy but no rain. There are bands of squalls preceding the main event. Looks like Frances is in fact turning West sooner and may make landfall closer to West Palm Beach.

That's a false assumption. Remember, a hurricane is circular in shape. The outer west edge of the storm is making contact with Florida, but that doesn't mean it's moving west more rapidly. It just means the western outermost edge has moved far enough North to make contact with Florida.

We'll see in 45 minutes where it's going.

 

[Peter Kline]

The slight turning West was reported by the metereologist on TV when I posted the last report. No assumption my my part. However, they still believe the eye will impact somewhere North of Palm Beach County. My area will receive high winds and rain starting at 2 AM Saturday according to the latest report with the eye hiting the coast at 2 PM. By the way, this hurricane is nominally circular. Most radar shown on tv shows it to vary between that and more oval shape. One thing without question is that it is very large, spanning some 90 miles in length.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Right, and Charley was supposed to hit north of Tampa (not to mention that nobody expected it to jump to category 4 just hours before making landfall well south of there) and Andrew was supposed to hit in Jupiter.



Face it, it is impossible to predict where the eye of any hurricane is going to make landfall, and the only rational thing to do if you are anywhere along the several hundred miles of coast in the "target zone" is assume it is going to hit your front door head-on and plan accordingly. Anything else and you're taking a foolish risk.



Regards,



Joe



(Keeping a close eye on my front door...)

 

[nolesrule]

Our meteorologists locally like to say not to focus on the line in the middle of the track, but rather the entire area of the cone. Which is another way of saying what Joe D. just said...there's just no way to know. Hurricane-force winds are extending 85 miles from the center, or a diameter of 170 miles. making it impossible to make an exact point for landfall. Even if it stays on track, a lot of cities besides WPB are in that 170 mile diameter.



That's what makes it different from Charley. CHarley had a very narrow area of hurricane-force winds, so determining the landfall point (after the fact was easy and obvious.

It will be difficult to determine how far up the coast Frances will make landfall, especially now that the steering currents are severely reduced and it's moving at only 4 mph.



The good news is that Frances has been downgraded to Cat 2, but a hurricane is still a hurricane.

 

[Vlad D]

quote:The good news is that Frances has been downgraded to Cat 2, but a hurricane is still a hurricane

I Agree. While she no longer has 140 MPH winds, the current 105 MPH winds are still strong.

 

[nolesrule]

Frances seems to be getting bigger. The 2am intermediate advisory states that hurricane force winds now extend 100 (up from 85) miles from center, or a 200 mile diameter. Tropical storm force winds extend 200 (p from 185) miles from center, which is a 400 mile diameter. That's a big-ass storm.

 

[Todd Hochard]

Well, this one sure is taking its sweet old time. Looks like WPB is getting pummeled pretty good. At least it's the "gentle" side of the storm.

 

[Malcolm R]

The eye appears to be re-forming. Hopefully it will landfall before it re-intensifies too much.

 

[nolesrule]

Here in Pinellas, we've gotten a couple of minor rainbands already,with winds gusting up around 35 mph. By tomorrow morning, we're supposed to have sustained tropical storm weather, but we're not going to get nearly anything as bad as the east coast.

 

[Todd Hochard]

Looks like I was off. Good thing I'm not a weatherman.

We've gotten a few rain bands here. I'm not worried too much about the winds here (what's to come, that is), just the errant tornado.



I still have power. WOOHOO!

 

[Eric_L]

quote:I've NEVER gone to a shelter... EVER. My parents have always lived in a house with concrete block construction (as with most houses in their area and mine in Orlando) and I've never felt the need, really. The houses you always see obliterated on the news are made of wood... ever heard of the story of the big bad wolf?

Concrete block is good, but unless you have no windows you may have some problems. Storm shutters help, but I've also seen plenty of new homes with their storm shutters up and no roof. Trees is a whole different matter.



Imagine driving your house down the freeway at 140+ MPH and bringing all the trees around it for the ride...