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Saturday, September 04, 2004 |
| At 11:00 PM EDT, Hurricane Frances was 35 miles east-northeast of Palm Beach, Florida and continues to plod to the west-northwest at 5 miles per hour. The western part of the eye has entered Palm Beach, Martin, and St. Lucie counties. Winds remain at 105 mph and minimum central pressure is estimated to be 960 millibars. The eye is about 45 nautical miles (52 statute miles) in diameter. The motion is expected to continue in its current direction and speed for the next twelve hours or so. After that, the forecast track has Frances moving a bit more rapidly to the northwest with a Monday morning jaunt over the Gulf of Mexico as a tropical storm. The one thing that has struck me this evening is just how slow five miles per hour is with regards to a storm this large. Consider that Charley got to the east coast of Florida in just over seven hours after landfall began. At her current rate of motion, Frances' eye will just be getting completely ashore in that amount of time (leaving the whole eastern side of the storm to pass by before the coast is in the clear). Regardless of how much I tell myself the bare facts, I can't quite belive how long the area from Melbourne to Palm Beach has been affected by the storm (and how much is yet to come). Weather comment []11:18:51 PM  trackback []
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| At about 10:00 PM EDT, the eye of Frances started to cross into Florida in the vicinity of Jupiter and Tequesta. With the eye being as broad as it is, it will still be a few hours until the center of the storm passes over land (and with it, the winds from the northeast quadrant of the storm, which are the strongest in a hurricane). Weather comment []10:21:51 PM trackback []
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| At 8:00 PM EDT the center of Hurricane Frances is estimated to be 50 miles east-northeast of Palm Beach Florida and is drifting slowly to the west-northwest at 5 mph. Winds remain set at 105 mph, and as reported in my last post, minimum central pressure has fallen to 951 mb (28.08"; the lowest pressure recorded since the weakening started Thursday night). The feeder band at the edge of the outer eyewall is about to cross into Martin and St Lucie counties. This will be worse weather than anything they've received up to this point. LATER: They've posted a correction to this advisory, saying that that pressure actually was 957 mb (must have been a mathematical error somewhere as the surface pressures are an extrapolation, not a direct observation). A later report apparently found a pressure of 960 mb Weather comment []8:03:08 PM trackback []
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| At 6:24 PM EDT, the Hurricane Hunter calculated a surface pressure extrapolated a surface pressure of 951 millibars, which would be an 8 millibar drop in less than two hours, that's kind of a dramatic drop. Also, for the first time in over a day, the hunter found a closed eyewall 60 nm in diameter. It also found a partial inner eyewall of about 10 to 15 nm in diameter. It appears that Frances is trying her best to strengthen at this late hour. As you can see on the composite radar loop, the eye indicated by radar has been shrinking rapidly in the past three hours, which has been verified somewhat by the Hurricane Hunter LATER: ERRONEOUS REPORT, see ~8:30 post for details... Weather comment []7:49:00 PM trackback []
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| Unfortunately, in the affected areas, work to restore power can't begin until winds drop below 35 mph. It's going to be a long night and morning for a lot of people... Weather comment []6:49:54 PM trackback []
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| The message didn't get out in time for the latest update, apparently. It shows a 3 millibar drop in pressure to 959 and the 'banding feature' (what we've somewhat improperly been calling the eye) has shrunk to 60 nautical miles in diameter. While those are indications of strengthening, higher wind speeds were not observed. Vortex Data Message 04/2041Z (note that this is not a permanent link, instructions for reading the message here)
At 5:25 PM tornado warning was issued for Seminole and Volusia
counties until 6:00 PM, apparently on the basis of Doppler radar (vice
physical sighting) the potential tornado is moving rapidly to the
southwest. Weather comment []5:37:59 PM trackback []
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| At 5:00 PM EDT, Hurricane Frances was 50 miles east of Palm Beach, Florida. Frances continue to be near stationary, winds are at 105 mph and minimum central pressure is estimated to be 962 millibars. As we've noted, the eye looks a little better organized. However, hurricane hunter observations don't show any change in strength. The track continues for Frances to slowly move west-northwest and come ashore in the early hours of Sunday morning. Precipitation sensors at the observation stations at Vero Beach and Fort Pierce are out-of-commission at this time. My general meteorology professor who specializes in remote sensing, advised against putting much stock in the estimates from Doppler radar (they tend to lowball). With that caveat in mind, you can get a feel for the rainfall totals by looking at Melbourne's Storm Total image. The heaviest areas of rain concur with where the bands have been coming in at. The highest totals are on a southwest-northeast line just west of Fort Pierece. The second highest area is on a southwest-northeast line from Sebring to Melbourne. Weather comment []5:05:43 PM trackback []
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| As noted by Weatherblog, it looks like the eye has been contracting over the past couple of hours. Looking at it frame by frame, it doesn't seem that way (lots of variability), but when you look at a longer loop, the overall trend is clear. It's been annoying that Frances has been between the two radar sites of Melbourne and Miami, as neither site has a good complete picture because of where Frances is positioned. I remembered that Intellicast has a composite radar image. If you click on "start looping", you'll get two hours worth of images and will be able to see that the area of the eye has been decreasing recently. At the moment there are almost two closed circles. I would expect that they will shape each other into one smaller circle. Something to keep an eye (oops, sorry) on while we watch and wait. Weather comment []4:01:12 PM trackback []
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| While walking to the gas station to get a refill on my root beer, I realized that it would probably be appropriate for me to give y'all an idea of where I'm coming from when I write about hurricanes. My earliest (and vague) memory comes from when I was five years old and we were living in Orange Park, Florida. My father was on deployment overseas and there was a hurricane that threatened to approach. My mother was on the phone with other members of the squadron's Wive's Club coordinating stuff. I was running around all excited about the hurricane (though I doubt I understood at all what a hurricane was). Looking back at the archives, the storm was probably Hurricane Barry of 1983. Not long after, we moved to Hollywood, Maryland. When we visited my grandparents in Virginia who had cable television, I was attracted to The Weather Channel for some reason. One such trip to Virginia coincided with Hurricane Gloria of 1985 threatening to hit the Outer Banks and south-eastern Virginia. I remember the drama surrounding that, even though it didn't make landfall in our area, instead it headed north to Massachusettes. I was living in Pennsylvania in 1989 when Hugo made landfall. Paid some attention to it, but not much. I paid much closer attention to Andrew in '92 (when I was living in Maine). I was up most of the fateful Saturday night watching the Weather Channel and was glued to the national news coverage on Sunday. By this time, I knew that I wanted to major in meteorology. When I was in high school in Virginia, several storms made threatened us, but most of them turned to sea, such as Emily of 1993, Gordon of 1994, Felix (and others) in 1995. In 1996, my father and I were driving back to Chesapeake from Florida State and were in the tropical storm remnants of Bertha. We had the unfortunate experience of striking a downed limb and subsequently blowing out a tire. It is not fun to change a tire with such heavy rain falling. I was volunteering at the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Wakefield, Virginia when Danny passed by in 1997. The 'eye' passed over my house as it was on its way to becoming a tropical storm again when it reached the Atlantic. I was at the office the next day and it was a great expereince as all of the forecasters reviewed the events of the day past, which had included several tornado touchdowns. As I mentioned earlier, I had known for awhile that I had wanted to major in meteorology, so when I was considering colleges, I seriously examined only those that offered meteorology as a major. For a variety of reasons, I ended up choosing Florida State University. Our meterology department is really strong and I've enjoyed all of my professors so far (I started my senior year this semester, a four year enlistment in the Navy came in between my stints at FSU). Our superstar is Dr Krishnamurti, who I've mentioned on several ocassions in the past few days. In 1996, he received the International Meteorology Organization Prize, which is the most prestigious award in meteorology. He has also received the highest and second highest awards from the American Meteorological Society. Now back to my regularly scheduled coverage... Weather comment []3:00:41 PM trackback []
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| At 2:00 PM EDT, Frances was 70 miles east of Palm Beach, Florida. Based on aircraft observations, it does not appear that Frances has moved much in the past few hours, no no heading is set. Winds are at 105 mph and minimum central pressure is 962 millibars. The update states that sustained winds of 80 mph were observed at Jupiter Inlet. Looking at the latest radar, it doesn't look like the eye is shrinking any (a sign of strengthening). The edge of the eye indicated by radar appears to be about 20-25 miles east of Palm Beach. Weather comment []1:53:33 PM trackback []
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| TCPalm.com, which covers the Vero Beach area has a storm blog going. Orlando tv station WESH has a live webcast like it did for Charley. They have a photo gallery as does the Orlando Sentinel. If Florida Cracker has any interesting photos, she will post them as well. Hang in there, my fellow Seminole! Once we beat this hurricane, we can beat the Hurricanes on Friday! Weather comment []12:41:50 PM trackback []
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| We are enjoying the last bit of nice weather for the next few days. We continue to enjoy the upper level ridge of high pressure that in addition to dictating Frances' path, has been supressing afternoon thunderstorms the past few days (Thursday afternoon brought a cloudless sky, something that is unheard of for a late summer afternoon in this area). At 11 AM we were under near cloudless skies with a temperature of 84 degrees and a light wind coming in from the northeast. Weather comment []11:41:32 AM trackback []
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| At 8:00 AM, Frances was very near Freeport, Bahamas and 110 miles east of West Palm Beach. Movement is to the west-northwest at 6mph. Winds remain at 105 mph and the minimum central pressure is 960 mb. Not much change in strength is expected. The forecast track has landfall at 2 AM Sunday morning, a slow transit across the Florida peninsula followed by entering the Gulf of Mexico on lates Sunday and a second landfall near St George Island on Monday morning. Rain from Frances is falling everywhere from the middle Keys to Fort Myers and Naples on the west coast and up to the Cape Canaveral area on the east coast. Weather comment []9:56:00 AM trackback []
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| At 2:00 AM EDT, Hurricane Frances was 45 miles east of Freeport, Bahamas and 135 miles east of Palm Beach, Florida. She is currently moving to the west-northwest at 6 mph. Winds are at 105 mph and the minimum central pressure is 961 millibars. Hurricane force winds extend 110 miles from the center and tropical storm force winds extend out 200 mph. Weather comment []2:03:46 AM trackback []
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Weather comment []1:52:52 AM trackback []
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| This was kind of funny. It is from the hourly observation at Palm Beach International this afternoon (emphasis added): KPBI 031753Z 03018G27KT 10SM SCT030 BKN200 32/22 A2981 RMK AO2 PK WND Weather comment []1:13:50 AM trackback []
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© Copyright
2004
Charles Fenwick
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Last update: 10/2/2004; 11:03:31 PM .
Last update: 10/2/2004; 11:03:31 PM .
