Just saw a graphic from a weather station in Florida showing the path going straight up the middle of Florida. But here’s the scary thing....they still had it as a cat 4 when it was well on land...at least 50 miles above Miami. With that in mind would it be reasonable to assume that it’s going to be a cat 4 or a cat 3 going up most of the middle of Florida (providing that model holds) and if so has that ever happened before and what kind of damage are we looking at?
Okechobee is a large, warm lake and storms have fed off of that in the past if I’m not mistaken, so that could help sustain the storm. Honestly though, unless it really picks up a head of steam as far as directional movement it’s going to break down and lose internal wind speed fairly quickly while over land. It can reorganize and regain strength if it exits Florida to the Atlantic or the Gulf of Mexico, that has happened many times. Katrina did that to an extent, but it didn’t spend much time at all over land.
That would be a direct hit where my brother and SIL (emergency response team workers) are Broward County. Think Ft. Lauderdale area.
Charley was a 4 when it hit, but became a 1 soon after. If this maintains at a 3 or 4 once it hits land, we’re going to see quite a bit of destruction.
Just an FYI, this could effect a lot more than people are expecting. Time will tel where actual land fall and the subsequent path will be. However... This run could also result in very high inland wind/gusts into ga, sc and the mountains. It would appear winds will be enhanced by the fact of wedging/high over the northeast. Euro was showing 10 meter winds gusting as high as 75 to 90mph over all of ga/sc and this run of the gfs would likely be even worse since the track remains closer to the coast (less weakening vs an inland track) yet the low ends up near atlanta by 105. So widespread power outages are likely well inland...including atlanta. Such a track would also make for significantly higher storm surge along the ga/lower sc coast. A 18z gfs track is about as bad as it gets.
The only good part about going up the spine is that it could make landfall in the everglades. Eye wall damage there would be minimal, but the Keys will probably be cut off for awhile. They estimate it would be Cat 1 when crossing into Georgia. CAT 3 or 2 over Orlando. Add the twisters to that mix and big trouble.