Miami Update - School's Closed & Pics From Shopping at Publix for Hurricane Supplies

The words to the song below should be Shopping USA or Flor-i-Day.

Cause people in Florida today are shopping and less for school supplies than hurricane ones.

School is officially canceled. My college called employees and said we are off tomorrow and possibly Tuesday. YAY? Okay, well let's have a reality check Miami is due to be on the "dirty" part of the storm and although there is a chance we will get more we are getting the weather from this storm by default Irene Style I believe unless it truly wraps and moves towards Naples like a bat out of hell.

I do not believe Tampa will get this storm. That's my thoughts. Just Bobbi.

I cannot see it getting that far north as the angle of the moisture in the Gulf is already west to east and zooming by. You look at the water vapor loop and you see moisture rushing down towards the storm as the storm is beginning to feel it's tug. It's like a magnet. Low goes to Lows. Simple.

Check the WV Loop out:

http://www.goes.noaa.gov/HURRLOOPS/huwvloop.html

All that weather in the Gulf is moving west to east and down a bit towards Fay. Suddenly Fay starts to lift. I do not see this as a slow, meandering process. Not the way the WV has started changing rapidly today.

I still see Fay coming in more to the right of the forecasted track but well within the cone and making her turn possibly to the NE over the Everglades/Florida Bay. Possibly she can reach Naples but I just don't see any further northward movement.

Hey I am not the NHC I have just been watching storms a long time and have watched a lot of water vapor loops. We'll see but I am not going to go by the models on every shift because if I believed the models I could believe the ones 2 days ago that showed Fay going right. As I said last night, they have not been good with this storm. The NHC HAS been VERY good and they will continue to be and they have said several times in the discussion they have low confidence in the models. They are being very conservative and erring on the side of caution I believe and I am damn impressed.

So... here's my local Publix from Sunday morning. Note that when you enter the store the water is there as are the supplies. I looked over at the check out and everyone was buying water, diapers, paper supplies, snack packs of fruit and baby food.

There was no panic, just the sense of hunkering down on a Sunday morning and doing what needed to be done .. just in case. No frenzy at the Home Depot. No rush to get shutters. Just the reality of possibly dealing with no power if strong storms on the right side of the storm ..the dirty side.. hit us much like they did with Irene when Miami had massive flooding and got blindsided as a the "center" moved towards the west coast.

So... use this as a pictorial guide. Buy instant coffee if you don't think you'll coffeepot will be working but you have a way of heating water. Canned foods, Crackers, Tuna, Peanut Butter, water and a few cans of cola because I have to tell you one thing I learned after Andrew. Screw the Water. My first can of coke was like heaven. Sometimes you need caffeine... Walgreens has Starbuck's drinks 4 for $5 and even warm they are better than nothing.

More later.. but school's out and imagine a whole bunch of people will be going to the ocean for a look and imagine the surfers will hit the beaches.

As for me.. my youngest son Zalmy is coming in tomorrow mid-day from Orlando, just in time. He was away at Camp. Remember those pics from earlier in the season of kids evacuating Texas? Well, his camp ends tomorrow and the bus back to Miami will get here just in time for him to possibly see some tropical weather. Or... waves at the beach.

By the way, everyone I spoke to felt that Miami would see some weather from this and they aren't trusting the cone to the west. They all felt it was more an Irene set up not an Ernesto one.

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/WEATHER/10/04/miami.flooding.01/index.html

Life in the tropics...surely makes you lose your mind ;)