Dr. Jeff Masters' WunderBlog

Quoting icmoore:
"WOW! An offshore wind gust of 91 mph has been reported all the way up there in Cedar Key. We’ve circled it on the map. Don’t take these high winds lightly."

MyFoxTampaBay

Winds were 30-50mph this morning between 4-5 am here.
Pouring rain, some thunder 35F.

Had to change my morning route to swim practice to avoid fallen trees.
When I woke up it sounded like a severe thunderstorm.

Was that offshore wind 200 feet up on an oil rig, or something ?

Quoting MahFL:
Was that offshore wind 200 feet up on an oil rig, or something ?

I haven't seen any reports of 90mph winds. That type of wind would do damage (trees, power lines, etc...)

Quoting clwstmchasr:
The downtown Clearwater report station only received .22 in and the heavy rain has now passed through. Pretty disappointed that we didn't see more. Also, the strongest wind gust was 27.6mph.

Just be patient. Another storm system will come along and roar through this area sometime soon. So this one was fairly quiet but not all of them will be.

In fact, we get something potent in the wintertime or later almost every year. In some years we can get two or more such systems in quick succession.

In 2011, I recall waking up in the pre-dawn hours to flash/flash/crash/bang, whirling and howling winds and the heavy rain drops just starting to fall...

Then I turned on Bay News 9 and the other local news outlets and found tornado and severe thunderstorm warnings all over the place. This was in late March and early April of that year. A few weeks later, the massive and tragic outbreak took place up in Alabama and surrounding states.

IDW24100
Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology
Western Australia
Tropical Cyclone Warning Centre

Media: Transmitters serving the area between Wallal and Whim Creek are
requested to USE the Standard Emergency Warning Signal before broadcasting the
following warning.

TOP PRIORITY FOR IMMEDIATE BROADCAST



TROPICAL CYCLONE ADVICE NUMBER 28
Issued at 11:51 pm WST on Tuesday 26 February 2013

A Cyclone WARNING is current for coastal areas from Bidyadanga to Mardie
including Port Hedland, Karratha and Dampier, and adjacent inland areas of the
Pilbara, including Marble Bar, Nullagine and Millstream.
A Cyclone WATCH is current for remaining central and eastern areas of the
Pilbara including Tom Price, Newman, Telfer and adjacent parts of the Gascoyne
district.

At 11:00 pm WST Severe Tropical Cyclone Rusty, Category 3 was estimated to be
125 kilometres north northeast of Port Hedland and
285 kilometres northeast of Karratha and is near stationary.

Severe Tropical Cyclone Rusty has been near stationary over the last few hours
but is expected to resume a southerly track towards the Pilbara coast during
Wednesday. The slow motion and large size of Rusty means that the destructive
and very destructive winds will occur on the coast well before the centre
crosses the coast, and will extend some distance from the centre. Wind gusts to
120 kilometres per hour have already been experienced in Port Hedland and
conditions there are likely to get slowly worse during Wednesday.

Gales are occuring on the coast between Sandfire Roadhouse and Whim Creek, with
destructive winds extending from near Port Hedland to around Wallal. Gales may
extend west to Karratha and begin to extend inland towards Marble Bar and
Millstream later Wednesday.

VERY DESTRUCTIVE winds with gusts in excess of 165 kilometres per hour are
likely to develop in coastal parts between Whim Creek and Pardoo during
Wednesday as Severe Tropical Cyclone Rusty approaches the coast.

This is a large tropical cyclone and its slow movement is likely to result in
an extended period of destructive winds near the track, with rainfall that is
heavier than that associated with a typical system. Widespread very heavy
rainfall on Wednesday and Thursday is likely to lead to MAJOR FLOODING in the
De Grey catchment. Significant flooding is also likely in the Fortescue
catchment and in Pilbara coastal streams.

Severe Tropical Cyclone Rusty's intensity, size and slow movement is also
likely to lead to a VERY DANGEROUS STORM TIDE. Tides are likely to rise
significantly above the normal high tide mark with DAMAGING WAVES and VERY
DANGEROUS COASTAL INUNDATION.

DFES State Emergency Service (SES) advises of the following community alerts:
RED ALERT: People in or near communities between Pardoo and Whim Creek,
including Port Hedland and South Hedland should remain in shelter.
YELLOW ALERT: People in communities between Wallal and Pardoo, extending inland
to Marble Bar need to take action and get ready to shelter from a cyclone.
BLUE ALERT: People in communities between Bidyadanga and Wallal and between
Whim Creek and Mardie, including Karratha and extending to inland areas
including Nullagine and Millstream, need to prepare for cyclonic weather and
organise an emergency kit including first aid kit, torch, portable radio, spare
batteries, food and water.


Details of Severe Tropical Cyclone Rusty at 11:00 pm WST:
.Centre located near...... 19.3 degrees South 119.1 degrees East
.Location accuracy........ within 30 kilometres
.Recent movement.......... near stationary
.Wind gusts near centre... 205 km/hour(127mph)(110kts) and INTENSIFYING
.Severity category........ 3
.Central pressure......... 953 hectoPascals

The next advice will be issued by 3:00 am WST Wednesday 27 February.

Goodnight all.

Quoting MahFL:
Was that offshore wind 200 feet up on an oil rig, or something ?

probably a weather buoy.

Meteorologist Brooks Garner from WFLA recorded a peak wind gust of 60 mph. in downtown Tampa. It was raining pretty hard at the St. Pete Gibbs Campus about an hour ago.

It always suprises me when a big storm is ongoing that a NWS office would post a test tornado warning, lol.

* THIS IS A TEST MESSAGE. TEST TORNADO WARNING FOR...ALL OF WISCONSIN...

Quoting ScottLincoln:

Although for the country-as-a-whole tornadoes are rather rare, when you compare different locations one can find places that are more prone to tornadoes than other locations. Florida is actually among the states with the highest density of tornadoes (I've seen some analyses indicate it as #1), although a larger proportion are in the EF0-1 range than in Dixie Alley or the Great Plains' traditional Tornado Alley.

Saying that tornadoes are rare in Florida is about like saying that murders are rare in New Orleans. It's true in the sense that your chance of being murdered is low, but compared to most other cities, the rate is higher.

Tell me about, here in Pinellas county we see a lot of tornadoes. I personally have witnessed at least 2 and that doesn't include the numerous funnel clouds and water spouts I've seen.

Just a few year back we had 10 tornadoes in a severe event just in this county. I can't think of a year where at least 1 tornado hasn't been confirmed somewhere around Tampa Bay. I'm sure there may have been some years. but not in recent memory. I've had close calls with tornadoes coming within a couple miles of striking my house at least a few times since living here in the 90's.

Quoting FLWaterFront:


I know this was from a couple of hours ago and many others have commented. But I wanted to add some historical info to the discussion.

Tornadoes ARE very common in Florida. Yes, most of them are small, EF-0 and EF-1 tornadoes and happen with the summertime pulse severe thunderstorms. They are isolated in nature and cause little damage, typically.

However, EF-2 and EF-3 tornadoes are not uncommon in Florida and these usually happen either in conjunction with tropical cyclones or with the passage of vigorous frontal systems, particularly in the Spring but also sometimes in Autumn or in Winter.

Florida has recorded at least two EF-4 tornadoes in its history. One was in the 1950s and occurred in rural Polk County, where it touched down and caused some damage to agricultural properties but no deaths or injuries. The other one was much more significant and killed at least 11 people in its track across the central part of the state, mostly in the cities of Lakeland and Tampa. That one happened on April 4, 1966. This was a "long track" tornado and stayed on the ground for most of the distance between where it first came ashore as a tornadic waterspout in the Tampa Bay area and its exit into the Atlantic near Cocoa, Florida.

No EF-5 twisters have ever been officially recorded in Florida. But bear in mind that in the days before doppler radar, there is no telling what may have taken place in parts of Florida that are unusually isolated, such as the South Central region and the Everglades. And there is certainly no reason an EF-5 could not happen in Florida, if all of the right atmospheric ingredients were to come together. Chances are it will happen someday.

Too many people tend to simplify things in their perspective, associating certain areas of the planet with certain types of weather and not others. So when a hurricane like Sandy strikes in the populated areas of the NE US, this is thought to be "unprecedented" and totally abnormal; "it just shouldn't ever happen." The truth though is that it can and does happen, occasionally but what is logged into the consciousness is that hurricanes are associated with places much further to the south. They happen there much more frequently, yes but this does not mean they cannot happen elsewhere.

And so it is with tornadoes. The phenomenon of hurricanes is so much associated with Florida that many people tend to block out of their awareness that Florida is a tornado-prone state as well. Tornadoes are supposed to happen in Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas, not Florida. And not North Carolina either. But they do happen in those places and they have taken many human lives in both of those places as well as many other areas around the world that are not immediately associated with them in the mass consciousness.

In fact, if a freak low pressure system like those that produce major tornado outbreaks in the Southern plains and deep south were to track over Florida, the fact that we often have a lot higher dew points, heating, and CAPE available would actually make our area prime for high end tornadoes.

It's just the upper level system that produce the necessary dynamics are so far removed they usually aren't strong. However the large amount of tornadoes we get are indication that Florida actually is a great environment for tornadoes to form. It's just the systems which provide the strong cold pools aloft and dynamic shear most of the time stay well north of us.

But Sandy is a great example, it can certainly happen. The scary thing is our worse tornado outbreaks often come during the Spring when we are on average experiencing the driest and fair weather of the year.

error