Yes, this is a Q Win. But we are family and now a lot of Florida pedes are facing a potentially dangerous storm. Some are new Floridians and have no idea of how evacuations work here or may need other help from us experienced Floridians.
So I thought we could do a check-in post here and we can move to another Win to support each other, if needed. I lost my old home at Weather Underground when they got bought by Weather Channel so it would be nice to have a bunch of y’all to chat with.
Right now, TropicalTidbits.com is the best online site outside of the National Hurricane Center. Levi has been hurricane forecasting for many years and is excellent. You can see the Euro and GFS models there also.
So if you are a Floridian and are facing the roller coaster of the next five days, go ahead and say hi!
I’m noticing the models do their normal shift to the west for these Gulf storms aimed at FL, with each model run. So watch the trends. If you are in the bulls eye early on, almost always, you are not in it close to landfall. For example, the Naples area is now out of the woods apparently.
Charley's path switched from Tampa to Charlotte Harbor 1 hr before landfall. The announcement was "if you haven't left already DO NOT ATTEMPT to leave now. Your dead on about the paths being useless this far out, it's extremely rare to pinpoint the exact spot of landfall until right before. The important things to take note of right now are how wide the storm is (which can still change) and if your likely to be in the wall side or back end. A lot of damage will actually occur from tornados in high CAT storms. If it's slow moving expect flooding, and if power lines go down be very aware of your surroundings.