8/10/04 FCST: [Gulf] Charley

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The eye of hurricane Charley is now (2106Z) visible on 248nm base reflectivity from the Key West RDA.

Regards,

Mike

Boy, it's really right on the fringe there. What height would that be scanning at? It's so far away....probably just nicking the tops of the clouds.

Edit: found a pretty decent site to figure this out...
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/mkx/radar/part1/slide11.html

According to that, the beam height for the BREF1 would be about 30k ft. (simply doubling the height at 120nm since it looks almost linear) That sound right? Probably a little too conservative as the earth starts to fall away from the beam more and more with distance...
 
Looking roughly at about 35K-40K, but since hurricanes are pretty much symmetrical (there are exceptions) I'd put the center fix at 21.14N, 82.02W as of 2117Z.

Regards,

Mike
 
I traveled from Charleston, WV to Pennsylvania today via I-79, and passed several large convoys of cherry picker trucks on the Interstate in West Virginia heading southbound. Another sign that confidence in this being a major storm is high.
 
Key West got lucky

So far, Hurricane Charley made it over the Cuba mainland without losing its punch and has moved past Key West this morning. I would say that Key West and the rest of the key islands dodged a major bullet. Let's hope and pray it doesn't hit a major coastal city like Tampa Bay. Current projections put it on track to hit the Florida west coast line sometimes later today or tonight.
 
Tides for the tampa bay area:

Day High Tide Height
/Low Time Feet

F 13 High 12:11 PM 2.2
13 Low 8:12 PM 0.0

Sa 14 High 3:41 AM 1.4
14 Low 6:24 AM 1.3


With the current forecast, it looks like Charley will be coming to shore when the tides are in-between low and high. If Charley slows any (which is not forcast) it could arrive at high tide, though. Just FYI.
 
Looking at the latest radar images, it seems to me that Charley has made a turn east and has been moving at about 25 degrees, making a beeline for Fort Myers. Unless this is just a wobble, Charley could be making landfall further south than projected.
 
"The Tampa Tribune website is reporting that the storms track has shifted a bit more north and may just scathe Tampa in passing."

I don't see anywhere on that website where the storm is going to miss Tampa or even come close to missing Tampa... Don't rely on second-third hand reports of the same info - the National Hurricane Center is the source of all hurricane forecasts so your best bet is to go right to the source.

- Rob
 
"The Tampa Tribune website is reporting that the storms track has shifted a bit more north and may just scathe Tampa in passing."

I don't see anywhere on that website where the storm is going to miss Tampa or even come close to missing Tampa... Don't rely on second-third hand reports of the same info - the National Hurricane Center is the source of all hurricane forecasts so your best bet is to go right to the source.

- Rob

Unfortunately it looks like the TPC/NHC is having trouble keeping their website updated, however a good secondary site (that gets their info straight from TPC/NHC) is here:

http://vortex.plymouth.edu/tropical.html
 
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