9/03/04 NOW: Hurricane Frances [Florida]

[mrobinson]

my friends husband is in northern Dade county and she's telling me her hubby was just out golfing and getting no rain..

He's an idiot but I'm gonna call BS on the whole miami golf courses being open today as she insists.

She is not concerned at all :shock:

 

[mrobinson]

WPBFNEWS.COM is doing a live feed and they just went live to Juno Beach where they showed a group of four or five storm chasers climbing over the pier after getting some footage.. These idiots then got on camera and hooped and hollared about it and said they were going for the eye..

I couldnt really make out who it was because the video is not great but they just basically called them dumbasses and they acted like dumbasses. I hope its not anyone from here.

 

[Bob Schafer]

she's telling me her hubby was just out golfing

LOL, well, I wouldn't doubt that there weren't any course employees working to STOP someone from playing, but it's been very windy all day. Latest Miami metar says 25kts, G42.

I'd love to see a vid of a nice 8-iron shot going up, then blowing 90 degrees off to oblivion.

 

[Jason A.C. Brock]

Yeah those guys are dumbasses. Almost as bad as driving into a tornado.

 

[mrobinson]

Yeah those guys are dumbasses. Almost as bad as driving into a tornado.

agreed except I wasnt driving.

I'm not saying they are dumbasses for being out there but whooping it on on live TV while the residents of the area are watching their stuff get tore up is pretty retarded. Theres been enough bad press for chasers this year.

 

[Kevin Scharfenberg]

Still here at Merritt Island airport. Pretty surreal to still have high speed internet access. Peak gusts here so far around 65 mph, with sustained winds winds 40-45 mph. We fully expect the center of the hurricane to pass 50 or so miles south of us. Looking at radar, the main part of the hurricane should be arriving within the hour. Damage here on the island so far is relatively light, with power still on and some small trees and signs down.

 

[mikegeukes]

Lots of customers without power from the latest LSR out of Miami

0540 PM NON-TSTM WND DMG DOWNTOWN MIAMI 25.77N 80.20W
09/04/2004 MIAMI-DADE FL UTILITY COMPANY
88,000 CUSTOMERS WITHOUT POWER ACROSS MIAMI-DADE COUNTY.

0540 PM NON-TSTM WND DMG WEST PALM BEACH 26.71N 80.06W
09/04/2004 PALM BEACH FL UTILITY COMPANY
495,000 CUSTOMERS WITHOUT POWER ACROSS PALM BEACH COUNTY.

0540 PM NON-TSTM WND DMG FORT LAUDERDALE 26.12N 80.15W
09/04/2004 BROWARD FL UTILITY COMPANY
242,000 CUSTOMERS WITHOUT POWER ACROSS BROWARD COUNTY.

Also reports of 90 to 91 mph winds being reported so far.

Source of data:
http://kamala.cod.edu/offs/KMIA/0409042218.nwus52.html

More Local Storm Reports: Hit Refesh from time to time for the latest LSR
http://kamala.cod.edu/fl/latest.nwus52.KMLB.html -Melbourne FL
http://kamala.cod.edu/fl/latest.nwus52.KMFL.html -Miami FL

Mike

 

[David Wolfson]

951mb!!! Down about 10mb since the last vortex report....

 

[Jeff Snyder]

Lots of customers without power from the latest LSR out of Miami
Mike

Here's one map of power outages that I've found valid at 4pm eastern -- note that there's ~1.5 million customers without power:
[Broken External Image]:http://www.fpl.com/storm/images/fpl_cust_out_090404_16a.gif

From ]http://www.fpl.com/news/2004/contents/0412...map.shtml[/img]

I heard just a few mins ago that it's now >2 million customers w/o power. Eek.

 

[B Ozanne]

Eyewall is about 2-3 minutes away from Hobe Sound/ Jupiter Island area according to Palm Beach tv.

 

[David Wolfson]

The eyewall dynamics are just too fascinating! It's really still aways offshore and continuing to tighten down to a 10 or 15 mile eye.

 

[Jeff Snyder]

David,,, Agreed!

Also interesting is the warming of the cloud tops. Certainly a 9mb drop in a few hours would signify rapid deepening... The winds may not be responding to the deepening, however, given the weakening of convection throughout the hurricane. There is typically a nocturnal upswing in convection, which certainly could bring those winds up to Cat 3 strength. Per the Melbourne radar, the (outer?) eyewall is probably 10 miles off Jupiter Beach/Island/Inlet. Gusts of 80-90mph continue to occur in this area as well.

EDIT: SPC recently issued a tornado watch for much of central and northern FL. Low-level shear is very impressive, with 0-1km helicity of 250-450 per SPC Mesoanalysis, which, if I recall, is considerably greater than with Charley. Luckily, night has come, so there will be no more solar heating to destabilize the area. Forced convection, associated with Frances, however, should be able to tilt and stretch the strong vorticity in the near-surface layer effectively enough to produce tornadoes... Melbourne radar is showing quite a bit of cellular convection off the east coast, which should come inland in the next couple of hours. It'll be interesting to see if Frances will become a signficant tornado producer as well...

 

[Kevin Walter]

New info in from some chaser friends of mine in Ft. Pierce. Sustained winds just now approaching hurricane force. They've seen very little damage occur near them so far, though undoubtedly some superficial damage has taken place in and around the area, and the worst is yet to come. The most dramatic thing he said was taking place, besides the wind, was the rainfall. It's starting to become torrential as the eyewall comes ashore.

 

[B Ozanne]

951mb has been corrected to 960mb.

 

[Jeff Snyder]

951mb has been corrected to 960mb.

Actually it's 957mb... The update mentioned 960mb winds on latest recon, but the recon just sent a correction of their report stating:
"957 MB ...
MAX FL WIND 100 KT NE QUAD 2212Z. PARTIAL INNER EYEWALL 10-15NM DIAMETER POORLY CORRELATED WITH FL AND SURFACE CENTER. MSLP CORRECTED FOR RE-CALCULATED SONDE 700MB HEIGHT."