Saturday Night Tropical Ice Cream Cones & Miami Hurricane History

A few things I want to say before looking around the boards and catching up to speed with what everyone else is saying.

First current thoughts on Fay... The Canadians current model as of 9:30pm on Saturday night is similar to what I have said all the time I think this storm will do. I can be wrong, someone will be but this is what I have thought.

http://moe.met.fsu.edu/cgi-bin/cmctc2.cgi?time=2008081612&field=
Sea+Level+Pressure&hour=Animation

I think the storm will turn towards the north rather sharply and move through the Upper Keys, perhaps near Key Largo and move northward over the Everglades leaning either to the left or the right and depending on timing she would exit the coastline north of WPB between there and the Cape. I will fine tune that tomorrow morning but I still think that is most likely. If something is going to pull her north it will do so more sharply and she will move faster. If. So I would say Middle keys to Upper Keys as the first US land to be affected. Then??? We'll see.

I will say though that I think pressures are falling over this area and the doorway is there for the Fay if she wants to take it. Again, a big IF.

Barometer here started out at 30.06 this morning and ended the day being 29.96. That is one heck of a drop. I had a friend here today watching TWC which I left on mute on a small TV and she kept mentioning how the pressure was dropping. So, wouldn't that mean that the high pressure that had been here is beginning to move out? Maybe.. we'll see.

Just know that so far 4 people have died from island reports and that number should go higher so though she may not look like much she is already a Killer Storm and has had her first taste of blood!

As for your History Lesson for the day.. enjoy.

Will Fay be like Cleo, King or Charley?

Larry, Curly or Moe?

You decide...
I had these thoughts on my mind today as often over the Jewish Sabbath I have more time to think, reflect and read in real books not just surfing the web. Books are wonderful.

The cone is basically the same flavor tonight as it was on Friday night except for possibly a drop more to the right at 5pm but barely.

The State of Florida is under the gun for a landfalling Tropical Storm or Hurricane by Monday Night. Where exactly is hard to say as Tropical Systems are unpredictable and most often storms south of Cuba forecasted to move north are the most difficult to predict.

So, while I watch the very impressive Chad Henne play for the Fins I want to take you down the lane back to some Hurricane History with two storms that came up from under Cuba and hit the Miami area.

Hey, I am a Miami girl. I know Miami storms best. I'll leave storms that hit Naples and Tampa to someone else. My great-grandparents are buried in Tampa, shame I can't ask my great-grandfather's ghost about that Tampa storm in 1921. Oh what stories ghosts can tell.



Let's start with Cleo as Cleo Lemon is now in the slot as QB for the Fins as I type this :)

This storm has frequently been compared to Cleo and with good reason. On August 18, 1964 the first pictures from a satellite called Tiros VIII were sent back to the people at the Hurricane Center in Miami. This was by the way a BIG deal as the satellite was new and pictures of waves SW of the Cape Verde Islands were rare and an exciting new tool. The tropical system moved west and hit Guadeloupe on August 22 with 80 mph winds. Over 1,000 homes were destroyed and 14 people died. Cleo had her first taste of blood. She moved on south of Puerto Rico and intensified rapidly into a Category 4 Hurricane with winds of 140 mph. A U.S. Navy Recon flight suffered damage from the powerful winds in the storm. The plane lost two fuel tanks which were ripped off and the flight crew of seven sustained minor injuries. The strength of the storm took them by surprise to some degree and no flights went in the following day. The storm moved on to the Dominican Republic and Haiti with more loss of life, her second taste of blood. That flight crew was lucky to get out alive if you ask me, must have been some incredible pilot that got them to safety.

After the tango with the mountains of Hispaniola she limped on towards Cuba, a weaker version of her previous self. Because of Cleo's travels across Cuba she was thought to diminish in strength so much so that by the time she would hit Florida she would remain a weak, version of her once strong self.

They were wrong. So wrong that when all was said and done Florida Senator George Smathers called for an information into the misinformation on her path. Basically, they sent a recon plane into the storm and they could not find a strong western side, winds were light and central pressure high. They decided Cleo would parallel the coastline and stay offshore by 20 miles. Because the winds on the west side were so weak they felt the effect on the Miami area would be minimal.

They were wrong.

The storm rapidly intensified over the warm waters of the Gulf stream and turned just enough to the left that she slammed into Key Biscayne at 2am on August 27th with a 10 mile wide eye that left the moon visible. The small but intense storm moved up into the Miami area and created tremendous damage in downtown Miami and on Miami Beach. She had sustained winds of close to 110 mph with gusts of 135 mph.

Why were they so off with Cleo? Why did the Recon plane fail to find strong winds or notice her rapid intensification? Why did she shift paths and move in for a kill making landfall a fourth time? Because Tropical Storms and Hurricanes are fickle.

The name Cleo was retired but the lesson learned has stayed with the NHC that just because a storm passes over Cuba it can reform and intensify rapidly in the warm, Florida Straits.



10 years earlier Miami had another hit from a similar storm named King. Hurricane King in October of 1950 a storm south of Cuba and bobbled around on an uneven path looking as if it was going to turn NE or ENE and go out to sea like many an October storm when she veered back and slammed into Miami with winds much stronger again than expected. It seems that buoy data and radar showed the storm was intensifying but when they sent in Recon... they Recon couldn't find the proof for the intensity and it was believed the data from the buoys in the Florida Straits was corrupt and the recon data was right.

They were wrong.

It turns out that the data was not over estimated but right and that the center of King was very small, so small it was later compared to a tornado like structure. Winds of 97 mph were sustained for five minutes, 122 mph recorded for one minute and gusts to 150 mph were recorded.

Now days we can go to QuikScat and check out radars but as seen with Fay we still wait for recon to verify the other data which is a good idea and usually works but sometimes, especially when you have a storm near very hot water and close to the islands in the Carib it seems that data sometimes is hard to get right or perfect. A storm can intensify as the recon leaves or the eye can be smaller than it is thought to be and therefore ... well you get the idea, garbage in, garbage out.

But even now we make mistakes. Hurricanes are fickle.



Charley like Cleo made the smallest adjustment in his track and came in within the famous cone but farther from where people thought it would as a much stronger storm as it intensified going in much like Cleo did in 1964. The NHC did a good job with track but mistakes were made and mistakes are inevitable, there are just so many factors that can make a storm bobble, fall apart or rapidly intensify and it is easier to be a Monday Morning QB than it is to be in the slot with some team's offensive line coming at you!

The difference between Fay and these storms is that Fay was not a Category 4 like Cleo and is still struggling to find it's groove and I may add she seems to do better over land than over water. Go figure. Check out the models that show her intensifying while over Cuba.

Run the models and you will see and learn much more than just looking at the pretty pictures of spaghetti models. You see where the high is supposed to be strong or weak and when things change. Many of the models show Fay growing stronger over Cuba not just as she exits. Interesting and normally I would say that's not gonna happen but seeing as she formed over land and at times looked stronger over land it could happen.

So... besides learning tonight that Henne really has one hell of a gun as an arm and looks good we have learned that storms down south of Cuba cannot be counted out and can reintensify over the warm waters south of Florida as could be seen with Cleo or Charley.

We will wait for the next models and next shift where the GFDL will change it's mind again and the GFS waits trying to figure out what the GFDL is doing and vice versa. Bill Read will ponder the problem that he has on his hands tonight and we will see if Chad Pennington can really pass and run for the Fins.

We will wait. I will wait. Tomorrow morning we will decide what to do.

I'll make lists during the 4th quarter.

Yes gang.. I have priorities and the Dolphins are a bigger priority to me tonight than Fay as nothing new will be learned until the 11pm. I will do my nails, watch the game and read the board and I'll be back later.

The Fins are winning... things may be looking up for Miami ;)