Best Advice and Prediction for 2018 Hurricane Season - From Ormond Beach Thoughts on the 2018 Atlantic Hurricane Season.

In Ormond Beach this morning enjoying the sunrise. I'll update the blog later today. But this is the best advice I can give you above.  Take it to the bank.  Prepare.

I also believe  GOM will continue to be in play as well as the East Coast from Florida Georgia line to Maine this year. A cooler distant Atlantic doesn't stop Home Grown from developing.  And usually only the strong waves survive the trip and can turn into deadly storms that make it to higher latitudes.

Many meteorologists make predictions as do government agencies. They can tell you why this year is different from last or the one before the last one. They can tell you there is a cool pool of water out by Africa in late May going into the season and that would inhibit tropical waves from developing into Hurricanes in the MDR. That is true, it also inhibits the development of strong, early hurricanes that become Fish Storms and curve gracefully out to sea. They point to a ton of factors all of which exist and all of which are part of the mathematical problem they are trying to solve that being predicting what the 2018 Atlantic Hurricane Season will be like. 1985 and 1989 were years with similar conditions and they brought Hurricane Gloria in 1985 to the East Coast and Hurricane Hugo in 1989 to South Carolina. The rains from Hugo spread far inland into areas where mudslides and flash flooding were caused this week by residual tropical rain from the remnants of Alberto. This May in North Carolina was one of the wettest Mays on record and it reminds me of interviews I have had with old timers who always tell me that the year of Hurricane Fran was a very wet year when the soil was already soaked before Fran made it to landfall and kept on going all the way to Raleigh.

No meteorologist, not even the best, can tell you which city is going to get impacted until after the final Cone from the NHC has been posted and after the last reporter leaves town. Jim Cantore can tell you where he's going and where he's been, but the season unfolds in real time in the rear view mirror. Andrew was the first named storm of the very slow 1992 Hurricane Season and no one in South Florida will ever tell you 1992 was a slow season, it is synonymous with Hurricane Andrew a worst case scenario that happened.

This is the truth, real truth, take it to the bank .... the ONLY thing you CAN know for sure is that you have prepared as best you can for your particular harbor ...or home. Each person has a different priority and each home has a different priority. If you are elderly and have special needs or if you have 3 small children under the age of 5 you have your own particular needs. A big house with large windows has special needs that a small condo with one sliding glass door facing the ocean on the 18th floor might have. An ocean front Studio Apartment with an awesome view or a 13 room 2 story house with multiple windows and a leaky roof each have their own point of entry where the wind could get into their home, their lives and leave memories. Many kids who went through Hurricane Andrew have ....and they were the FIRST to get out of DODGE when they thought Irma was coming to Miami.

Trust me... being Hurricane Strong is the best thing you can be to give the best chance of making it through this Hurricane Season. Do not be distracted by exotic scientific words in reports explaining why this may be a weaker year or why it is comparable to such and such a year. Prepare as if this is the year that you get your Hurricane Andrew, Fran, Hugo or Gloria. And remember far from where Subtropical Storm Alberto made landfall near Panama City, Florida people were killed in Interior North Carolina from residual effects of intense, tropical rain that caused their homes to collapse, a tree to fall on the car of two reporters covering flooding and there may be more to come.

Take it seriously. Prepare. That's the best advice I can give you. And, IF the East Coast gets to see a Hurricane up close and personal later this year don't say I didn't warn you.

http://www.publix.com/pages/publix-storm-basics

Reporting in from the always beautiful Ormond Beach where we spend quite a bit of time on our way back and forth from Miami to Raleigh.

Besos Bobbistorm
@Bobbistorm on Twitter

Ps... Got to see the sunrise and the moon set this morning at the beach. How incredible is that?