Hurricane Wilma Live Thread, Part IV

NHC - NOAA ^ | 24 October 2005 | NHC - NOAA

[NautiNurse]

Category Three Major Hurricane Wilma is barreling toward the Southwest Florida coastline. The storm is packing wind speeds of 125mph, moving NW at 20mph, with an enormous eye 65 miles in diameter. Landfall is anticipated shortly in Collier County between 6:00 and 7:00AM ET.

Storm surge flooding of 9 feet to 17 feet is possible along the coast near and to the south of where Wilma makes landfall. Storm surge of 5 to 8 feet is predicted for the Keys. The storm has spawned tornados throughout the Florida peninsula since yesterday evening.

The following links are self-updating:

Public Advisory Currently published every 3 hours 0500, 0800, 1100 etc. ET
NHC Discussion Published every six hours 0500, 1100, 1700, 2300 ET
Three Day Forecast Track
Five Day Forecast Track

Wilma Forecast Track Archive
Forecast Models
Buoy Data SE Florida
Current Weather Warnings and Watches for Florida
Florida Department of Emergency Management

Images:

Storm Floater IR Loop
Visible Storm Floater Still (only visible during daylight hours)
Color Enhanced Atlantic Loop
Florida Radar/Sat Loop Caution: Broadband users only
Extra Large Miami Radar Broadband only
Extra Large Key West Radar Broadband only
Miami Long Range Radar Loop
Key West Long Range Radar Loop
Miami Radar Still Image w/watches warnings
Melbourne Radar Still Image w/watches warnings
Key West Radar Still Image w/watches warnings
Tampa Bay Radar Still image w/watches warnings

Streaming Video:

WBBH-TV/WZVN-TV Ft. Myers (WMP): http://waterbc.wm.llnwd.net/waterbc_netvideo
WESH-TV/DT Orlando/Daytona Beach (RP): http://mfile.akamai.com/7883/live/reflector:24028.ram
WFTV-TV/DT Orlando (RP): http://mfile.akamai.com/7883/live/reflector:20361.ram
WKMG-TV/DT Orlando (RP): http://mfile.akamai.com/7883/live/reflector:23942.ram
WPBF-TV/DT West Palm Beach (RP): http://mfile.akamai.com/7883/live/reflector:24035.ram
WSVN-TV/DT Miami (WMP): http://216.242.118.140/windowsmedia/asx/wsvn_broadband.asx
WTVJ-TV/DT Miami: http://nbc6.feedroom.com/iframeset.jsp?ord=381015
WPLG-TV/DT Miami (RP): http://mfile.akamai.com/8660/live/reflector:23941.ram
WFOR-TV/DT Miami (WMP): http://wfor.dayport.com/viewer/content/special.php?Art_ID=612&Format_ID=2&BitRate_ID=8&Contract_ID=2&Obj_ID={obj_id}
WTSP-TV/DT St. Petersburg/Tampa (WMP): mms://wmbcast.gannett.speedera.net/wmbcast.gannett/wmbcast_gannett_sep252004_1915_64623
Hurricane City (Real Player) - http://hurricanecity.com/live.ram
ABCNews Now (Real Player) - http://reallive.stream.aol.com/ramgen/redundant/abc/now_hi.rm

Additional Resources:

Pet Friendly Florida Shelter Info
Central Florida Hurricane Center
Hurricane City
CrownWeather.com

Category	Wind Speed	Barometric Pressure	Storm Surge	Damage Potential
Tropical Depression	< 39 mph < 34 kts			Minimal
Tropical Storm	39 - 73 mph 34 - 63 kts			Minimal
Hurricane 1 (Weak)	74 - 95 mph 64 - 82 kts	28.94" or more 980.02 mb or more	4.0' - 5.0' 1.2 m - 1.5 m	Minimal damage to vegetation
Hurricane 2 (Moderate)	96 - 110 mph 83 - 95 kts	28.50" - 28.93" 965.12 mb - 979.68 mb	6.0' - 8.0' 1.8 m - 2.4 m	Moderate damage to houses
Hurricane 3 (Strong)	111 - 130 mph 96 - 112 kts	27.91" - 28.49" 945.14 mb - 964.78 mb	9.0' - 12.0' 2.7 m - 3.7 m	Extensive damage to small buildings
Hurricane 4 (Very strong)	131 - 155 mph 113 - 135 kts	27.17" - 27.90" 920.08 mb - 944.80 mb	13.0' - 18.0' 3.9 m - 5.5 m	Extreme structural damage
Hurricane 5 (Devastating)	Greater than 155 mph Greater than 135 kts	Less than 27.17" Less than 920.08 mb	Greater than 18.0' Greater than 5.5m	Catastrophic building failures possible

Previous Threads:
Hurricane Wilma Live Thread, Part III
Hurricane Wilma Part II
Hurricane Wilma Live Thread
Tropical Storm Wilma
Tropical Depression #24

[debg]

Checking in safe and sound from the Northeast end of Miami. My condo unit has a northern exposure which was a God send as our Southern units all have blown in windows and sliding glass doors. The building swayed quite a bit and that was scary. Many people here hovered in the stairwells; I stayed in the innermost room.

The building's main a/c unit on the roof is gone. There was a scaffolding platform that an idiot contractor had left tied up mid-building and that repeatedly slammed breaking down portions of the building walls. Also, there's about a dozen cars in the upper level parking lot that had their windows broken/blown out. There's some damage at the dock from loose boats but it's not too bad.

I haven't been able to check my condo units in South Beach yet. I'm anxious about that since they are Southern exposure and high up.

I figure I'll spend another day of eating out of the pantry and may brave the stores tomorrow. I heard there's a 3-4 hour wait to get into the store and there's slim pickings...so why bother?!

Power to the people!

[NautiNurse]

Thank you for checking in...wonderful news that you are safe, and your property is intact.

Nuts that the contractor left the scaffold to do so much structural damage. Take care, and let us know if there is anything we can do over here in the Tampa Bay area.

[debg]

Thanks for the note and for all you do in keeping the storm threads. Send trees :)

[sheikdetailfeather]

Jeb Bush on Fox now.

[NautiNurse]

MSNBC still carrying presser after FNC cut away.

[sheikdetailfeather]

"Utility trucks are the superstars of Fla. Points of distribution did not work as well as anticipated, but maybe I have raised the bar too high. Plans are to distribute water, ice and supplies across the state who do not have power. The weather is spectacular now and will make it easier to help people. Be patient and be good neighbors. Esp. senior citizens. If you have power and others don't, share it. If you have a cellphone, etc., let your neighbors use it to call loved ones. We will get through this."

[sheikdetailfeather]

Chertoff up now. "Fla. is at the top of hurricane disaster response. I understand your frustrations. But people are working 24/7 to live up to Gov. Bush's high standards. We in the federal govt. will do all we can to help."

[sheikdetailfeather]

Craig Fugate, Emerg. Management Director: "We will push more products in the areas we need to and will stabilize these areas. We did not meet the expectations of Gov. Bush."

[jeffers]

That's always been the thing that never fails to shock me about tornados, how unbelievably tall they are. You keep tilting your head back and up and up more and there's just no end to it. They put skyscrapers to shame.

Glad to hear you're ok and that it didn't get closer to you than a near miss.

Other reports have the general surge on Key West between 4.5 and 5.5 feetASL. Does that sound consistent with what you've seen?

Do you know what time the bulk of it came ashore?

[sheikdetailfeather]

Jeb: "People had time to prepare for this storm. They were told to prepare for 72 hours and a loss of power is nothing compared to what your neighbors may have lost. Put things in perspective. We did not perform to where we want to be yesterday. Today will be significantly better. Answering a question from the press about power out now for many.."36 after a hurricane having no power is common. The power companies are making an effort to power up the north/south roads and school closings allowed the power companies to reprioritize the areas to power up gas stations, etc."

[jeffers]

"To: NonValueAdded; My Favorite Headache
Hurricane season is over.
Is that a wishful, exhausted, or a declarative sentence?

yes"




If I had to pick a year for the hurricane season to extend past the usual ending month, I'd probably pick one where conditions ripened early, generating records for the earliest major storm on record, and one that then continued to ramp up until conditions supported one or more all time or near all time records for lowest pressures and shortest TS to Cat-5 intensification periods.

If several such hurricane seasons existed, I'd pick the one that managed to set similar records for the highest number of seperate storms.

[sheikdetailfeather]

The press quotes the criticism of Mayor of Miami/Dade regarding FEMA slow response. Jeb told reporter "Check your notes. I doubt this mayor said that! I am establishing a no-criticize zone. If anyone wants to blame anyone, blame me...Jeb ..not FEMA. If anyone has a complaint, call me and complain."

[sheikdetailfeather]

Per news 13 in Orlando. "The sunshine state provides 1/2 of the nation's vegetables between the months of Nov. and Feb. but hurricane Wilma damaged vegetable packing houses and flooded tomato and pepper fields. That means prices could double over the next few months. Sugar cane fields and orange groves also were damaged."

[sheikdetailfeather]

St. Johns River is being watched for flooding and 3 areas were shown on Ch. 13. Sanford, Deltona and Deland.

[Karson]

I'm still trying to contact my brother, with no luck. Have you been able to get through to your aunt yet?

[angcat]

Hi

Yes I just called and she has phone service but no electricity. She said the place is trashed, trees all over. They expect the electricity to be up on Friday.

[buickmackane]

Wow, no sooner did I get off the phone with a friend of mine in Gloucester, Massachusetts than I discovered a CNN piece on this very subject:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/10/26/wilma.newengland.ap/index.html

I could actually hear the wind whipping through the phone. My friend says they had a power outage there, too.

And meanwhile, here in Louisiana, our local forecaster said the "B" word during his noontime broadcast -- ai yi yi!!

[buickmackane]

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH!!

Just popped over to Weather Underground. Jeff Masters updated his blog about 20 minutes ago and he said the "B" word, too -- he predicts a TS by Thursday with serious damage to Nicaragua.

A poster who responded predicts that the next TD (26?) tracking map will be up at 5:00 pm (I guess that's EDT).

Time for more batteries and cans of Wolfgang Puck latte, I guess...

[You Dirty Rats]

Graphic on FP&L Website shows the transformers out in Florida. Huge areas of the Southeast have no power at all.

http://www.fpl.com/storm/pdf/wilma_outage.pdf

[NautiNurse]

Thanks for the map. They are making progress. Will take this info upstairs to the Stuart refugees.