Tropical Storm Andrea at 11... 60 MPH and Speeding Towards Landfall North of Tampa in Big Bend... Raleigh and DC Tomorrow..

The picture above is a reminder that Andrea is STILL OUT OVER THE GULF and has NOT made landfall and that the damage being reported and shown on TV and on the web and on Pinterest is NOT from the storm AFTER she makes landfall...but from severe weather in her feeder bands far from her central core which is still out over water and still trying to develop.

NE at 15 MPH maintaining 60 MPH and on track to copy the track that the NHC said it would. Good job there, with the exception of missing the intensity but good on track as always.



She has already hit 60 MPH winds at 8AM which is more than the NHC forecast for her to top out at 45. A good meteorologist at Weather Dr. Ryan Maue said on Twitter to me it would be at least 55 to 65 and he was right. I waited for the 11 AM advisory to finish this post as I didn't want to count out further intensification.  So much for the dry air and the shear, some storms learn to function well in what would be for many storms poor conditions for intensification.  Anyone ever know someone with a 3 legged dog who ran around the yard not aware he wasn't supposed to be able to run let alone walk? I did, we had a neighbor with a hyperactive 3 legged terrier who got into more trouble than most basset hound with all four legs.

Anyway I want to add that Dr. Ryan Maue is really good meteorologist, knows his stuff and he always amazes me. One of the group of younger meteorologists who I follow and trust. No one that day gave this storm a chance of being as strong as she is now, so who knows what she will be like at landfall. Giving credit where credit is due tho.. he did call for this strengthening.

Ryan Maue ‏@RyanMaue5 Jun

@BobbiStorm 991-993 mb, winds would be 55-65 mph if advisories were written.

This is a story also this morning of two cities... Panama City where they are waiting for the fringe weather associated from Andrea and Palm Beach FAR away from the center and not in the path of the storm and WPB is getting slammed while Panama City is a great place to take a walk on the beach this morning and watch some waves.

A possible twister touched down in a field out to the NW of WPB... 

as I said yesterday this is not about where the center is

the weather is EVERYWHERE and the isolated twisters

like the one in

Myacca would occur in distant bands.

This is what I woke up this morning, bleary eyed and half asleep..a storm pulling it together

Well defined bands with strong squalls visible on radar imagery

She reminds me a lot of the way she looked as she was making landfall in Mexico...or the rather the way Barbara did at landfall and she was intensifying into landfall.



Incredible radar imagery ...despite her less than stellar presentation on satellite imagery...according to the NHC.



Personally I think she looks pretty good all things considered, we never expected her to be Hurricane Rita...she is Tropical Storm Andrea and a pretty one to watch with hopefully minimal damage at landfall.




What really is the most amazing to me in ways is that this storm Andrea could pull herself together from a rather crappy, large, amorphous blob of bad weather with the only real thing it had going for it was the remnants of another rapidly developing storm named Barbara.

I'm not going to make a case for the name Barbara to being used, it's just not important a storm by any other name is still a storm...what is in a name? But, what is a storm? It's not just rain or wind or squalls .. it is "energy" and sometimes an area of convection pulls together and sometimes it doesn't. You see it all the time with Cape Verde Waves and you see it often with storms in the Caribbean. You don't see it coming together, it looks really looks crappy about to fall apart and suddenly it wraps.

I got to tell you, just from the perspective of observation, they are awesome... they are amazing... they are spectacular to watch as they wind up trying to perfect themselves and attempt to reach hurricane status. Sometimes they are MORE spectacular to watch in this phase of development than watching a Category 1 hurricane chugging along.  In the same way that a Cat 2 Hurricane is sometimes more beautiful to watch as she moves gracefully across the ocean curving up into the Atlantic with long arms spiraling around and a well developed eye forming than a tight knit round Category 3 that just moves steadily across the Central Atlantic. Both usually have the same date with destiny up in the North Atlantic recurving around the Atlantic and causing only problems for ships at sea... but they are all beautiful to look at for a person like me.

And, a rapidly developing one who finally..................at long last.................pulls it together and has visible bands on radar spiraling across Florida is spell binding to watch and sometimes more dangerous to predict in both intensity and in possible tragedies that will befall some small town in the middle of nowhere like Myacca where a Twister touched down last night causing damage ahead of Tropical Storm Andrea. No...the damage done from this tornado was nowhere like the damage done in Moore Oklahoma, but I got to tell you something. If a small tornado picks up your trailer and destroys everything in it from the your grandma's china to the family picture album getting destroyed and trashed your car you use to get to your job... it was a F3 Tornado to you...

Tell someone in Miami that had no electric for TEN days and roof tile damage and repairs around the house they could not afford to  take care of ...especially after losing 5 days of work that they did not get "hit" by KATRINA or WILMA. We were hit, we remember and tragedy is localized. It may  not be a BIG fire ...but when it destroys your house... it's the biggest fire you have ever seen.

So, give Andrea here her due as she is going to be remembered well in this region as one of those storms that tossed tornadoes here and there far away from her center still out in the Gulf of Mexico. West Palm Beach, Myakka and others are going to be part of a long list that had localized, severe damage up and down the coast from this Tropical Storm that would really love to be a Hurricane again and travel up I95.

Do not count her out. She is not Katrina hitting New Orleans or Sandy hitting NYC but she will be Andrea and her story is far from being finished. She is a work in progress and a beautiful one in her way from a purely scientific, nature loving way of a named tropical storm that did not want to die near the Yucatan as just "remnants of" or "strong convection" and a storm like that you  never count out as not much to write home about.  

Back to the storm...at 11AM Tropical Storm Andrea is speeding up her forward motion and moving in for a landfall later today.  High winds going on in Cedar Key and even Tampa is getting gusts up to 40MPH from this.. maybe Tampa should use this as a wake up call and a reminder that the big one is out there waiting to hit her one day. Two years back to back from weather associated from a Tropical System should remind them they can get a Cat 2 or Cat 3 one day soon. Never think you are immune from that when you live in Hurricane Country and Tampa is in Hurricane Country.



(love this graphic they are including in their package...says so much)

Important part of the 11 AM Discussion on Tropical Storm Andrea that I was waiting for before posting this..

THE STRONGEST CONVECTION REMAINS LOCATED IN A BAND THAT IS MOVING ONSHORE THE WEST COAST OF FLORIDA AT THIS TIME...AND THE TAMPA WSR-88D HAS BEEN SHOWING 65-70 KT AT
ABOUT 6500 FT.  THE INITIAL INTENSITY IS BEING HELD AT 50 KT
PENDING THE NEXT AIR FORCE RECONNAISSANCE MISSION THIS AFTERNOON.

Another point:

THIS FLOW IS EXPECTED TO CAUSE ANDREA TO RACE
NORTHEASTWARD ALONG THE EAST COAST OF THE UNITED STATES DURING THE
NEXT 48 HOURS OR SO.  THERE IS VERY LITTLE SPREAD AMONG THE TRACK
GUIDANCE...AND ESSENTIALLY NO CHANGES WERE REQUIRED FROM THE
PREVIOUS OFFICIAL TRACK FORECAST

They also mention that they cannot connect the poor presentation on satellite imagery with her excellent presentation on radar and remind us that they are sending planes in and again the planes aka RECON will tell the final story as to her true strength just prior to landfall.  They also possibly hold up the chance that she may remain Tropical longer than they expected by adding in this sentence:

BASED ON THE ASSUMPTION THAT ANDREA WILL BECOME
POST-TROPICAL IN 36 TO 48 HOURS...WE DO NOT EXPECT TO EXTEND THE
TROPICAL WARNINGS ANY FURTHER NORTH ALONG THE COAST.  OUR CURRENT
INTENTION IS THAT ANY HAZARDOUS WIND CONDITIONS FROM THE DELMARVA
PENINSULA NORTHWARD TO NEW ENGLAND WOULD BE HANDLED BY LOCAL
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE WARNING PRODUCTS.

REGARDLESS OF THE EXACT TRACK OF THE CENTER OF ANDREA...THE
PRIMARY EFFECTS ARE EXPECTED TO BE HEAVY RAINFALL ACROSS MUCH OF THE
FLORIDA PENINSULA AND INTO THE COASTAL SECTIONS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN
UNITED STATES...STORM SURGE FLOODING ALONG PORTIONS OF THE WEST
COAST OF FLORIDA...AND ISOLATED TORNADOES TODAY ACROSS THE FLORIDA
PENINSULA. 

Note they are assuming, never good but it's a forecast not a report written after the fact. They are also pointing out that once transition occurs they will hand her off to the NWS. Mentioning Del Marva is big for them as she is far away and they are predicting fast movement. She hasn't made landfall in Florida but we are treating her like the 1938 Long Island Hurricane racing from NE rapidly. She is of course catching a front NE out of Florida, but this is not a Fall Hurricane and she does need to be watched carefully. She may move through your area FAST ... they have her in Charleston by 2AM Friday and Raleigh by 11 AM Friday...

We get more problems from storms like this that can create very localized havoc over a wide area with a perception that it's just some "rain" and hopefully it will be but........I beg you to pay attention to your local weather, listen to your weather radio, keep your APP up to date and your phone on vibrate so that you don't miss an urgent localized warning from your NWS about fast breaking weather in your area.

This is not a major hurricane, but she has major potential to upset someone's world over the next two days as she speeds up the coast along I95 and off the Outer Banks on her way to New York, Boston and moving faster than an Amtrak Train... choo choo.

I'll be back with more data as the day progresses... I just wanted to give you a heads up to what is going on and to share with you my thoughts on the beauty of watching even a small, Tropical Storm pull it together from a "blob in the Gulf of Mexico" to Tropical Storm Andrea with 60 mph winds which are.........fifteen MPH more than she was estimated to have by the NHC ever just yesterday.

Besos Bobbi
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At 10:47 AM TWC was hawking Lionel Ritchie performing on the Today Show tomorrow while our TWC meteorologists who used to be on the Today Show doing weather tried to badly sing "Once twice, two times a lady" and then said he was "sorry" and am sure he meant for doing a poor job of pretending to be Lionel Ritchie. Putting TWC back on mute until the next update...cause if I want to hear Lionel Ritchie sing I have many CDs sent by my stalker friend that I can listen to..when I put on THE WEATHER CHANNEL I hope to see "weather" not him doing a time share type spot for condos on the Isle of Palm. Now THAT'S a FAIL and why I go to other sources for weather...and keep it on mute to watch the radar on the 8s ...if they don't take that part of their programming off...