Dangerous Hurricane Frances

Be prepared Bridget. My house payment never budged until Allison. Has went up steadily since and over 85% of it is insurance, the rest is taxes. :evil:
Mine has jumped $162/mo in 2.5 years. Already know it will jump again in March, possibly to over $1k/mo. This will be an increase of almost $300 since we signed the papers on this fixer upper in 2000. Nuts.
 
Carrie Halliday wrote:
Be prepared Bridget. My house payment never budged until Allison. Has went up steadily since and over 85% of it is insurance, the rest is taxes.
Mine has jumped $162/mo in 2.5 years. Already know it will jump again in March, possibly to over $1k/mo. This will be an increase of almost $300 since we signed the papers on this fixer upper in 2000. Nuts.
Click to expand...

Ouch - what a sting :shock:
My insurance was probably already in gear for wind damages due to past correlation with Fran and Bertha and flooding with Floyd, so the difference that I will see, "they said" should only be about $15/mo more.

It is still depressing, and an interesting thing to look into when you decide to move in an area that is prone to certain weather conditions, and how it has it's effect over the years. NC has always been hit by hurricanes, it's just surprising how the insurance companies change knowing this.
 
Very interesting tidbit from my sister in Tampa. At least one of the stations down there has reported that they believe Frances is going to go up into Georgia.

At least that was enough for my sister to call me and ask if that was true.

There was a promotional "war" between the Tampa stations regarding which of the stations was first to predict the farther south landfall of Charley. They seemed, IMO, to be proud of themselves that they were right and the NHC was wrong... and as far as the business goes, that is perfectly understandable.

While a miss is a possibility, I wonder if anyone else has heard any specifics from the TV mets down there about whether they said it "might" or it "will." What my sister heard was while she was passing the TV, and she was sure the met said "probably" or "will", though she couldn't recall verbatim. Their thinking just had to do with ridging to the west.

I wouldn't want to go against TPC right now, esp. as it looks like she's slowing and could really start meandering. Maybe they think that luck is on their side, so they want to be the "first" to predict that movement. I hope no one is that foolish.

Interesting.
mp

FOLLOW UP: I couldn't find such a prediction on any of the TV stations' websites in Tampa. I'll ask my sis when she gets off work whom she heard that from.
 
Random meaningless ramblings

I'm surprised at the number of gawkers on South Beach this afternoon......or, NOT.

http://www.evs123.com/mbeach/default.htm

Mandatory evac of Miami Beach? Hmmm.

Having been there many times myself, I can tell you there is nothing currently exceptional about the size of the waves.

I'm expecting weather.com to announce an official Guinness Record for hits to the site after all is said and done. Of course, that is because, it being Labor Day weekend, there are legions of gardeners wanting tips on preparing their gardens for Autumn......
 
It looks like there's a little squall coming that should send most of them indoors. The "experts" on TWC mentioned that waves are mostly blocked from the beach until the circulation clears the Bahamas.
 
Webcam pic of rain band

Check it out:

http://www.evs123.com/mbeach/pan001.jpg

[edit] that particular picture no longer available

From Miami Herald, 3:26PM EDT:

... Spiral band with tropical storm force gusts reaching the Southeast
Florida coast...

National Weather Service Doppler radar shows a band of squalls with
wind gusts of 60 mph moving rapidly toward the southwest at 50 mph.
A measured wind gust to 54 mph was received from Boca Raton.

Changing the subject, I can't help but imagine that the mood inside the NHC this last week has been something akin to that scene in "Top Gun":

"This is not an exercise. This is what you've been trained for."
 
Could somebody change the name of this thread to "Somewhat Dangerous Hurricane Frances"

Double ughh! How many times did Jim Cantore say this will be a CAT 4 when it makes landfall? Don't worry if you can't find any fuel in Florida, there is plenty of time to ride your bike or walk out of the way of this storm. Don't let your guard down yet but if this thing stumbles onshore as a CAT 2 there is going to be a major overhaul in the TPC. Safety is great but the biggest economy in the world can't put up with these bumps. Without one house being destoroyed the economic losses are already in the billions.

Meteorologically this could be great. A huge influx in research spending. Better satellites, more buoys, faster computers, more hurricane hunter planes.
 
Could somebody change the name of this thread to "Somewhat Dangerous Hurricane Frances"

Double ughh! How many times did Jim Cantore say this will be a CAT 4 when it makes landfall? Don't worry if you can't find any fuel in Florida, there is plenty of time to ride your bike or walk out of the way of this storm. Don't let your guard down yet but if this thing stumbles onshore as a CAT 2 there is going to be a major overhaul in the TPC. Safety is great but the biggest economy in the world can't put up with these bumps. Without one house being destoroyed the economic losses are already in the billions.

Meteorologically this could be great. A huge influx in research spending. Better satellites, more buoys, faster computers, more hurricane hunter planes.
Click to expand...

I agree with you... The only problem is, you end up doing some major desensitization to the general public! Yes, major flubs to tend draw congressional action which tends to draw research money, but you can't tell people that this one is going to be "the one", only for it to turn out to be a weak hurricane. I mean, people on the east coast of FL went through this back with Hurricane Floyd. People on the gulf coast went through this with Isidore and Lili a couple of years ago too...

Atleast it's pretty sure that Frances will hit FL, but there's a huge difference in wind damage between Cat 2 and Cat 4/5. I think we do need a lot more money in hurricane research, as I can come up with many examples of busted hurricane forecasts (in either intensity, path, or both)... I'm not speaking specifically of busted NHC forecasts, as the models themselves have been mainly pegging eastern FL for a Cat 4 landfall. We simply don't have enough of a theory on the dynamics of hurricanes, not to mention the incredibly sketchy upper-air network for anything east of central America that puts all forecasts in doubt. Models can't produce accurate output without accurate input. What's the nearest sounding site from tropical storm Ivan now? Exactly...
 
I know, I know, I was a little rough. It's very hard to convince the public that this is still a very dangerous storm. As it stands right now this storm is more deadly then its ever been. Inland flooding is the biggest killer in hurricanes, it's the biggest weather related killer nationwide (save heat waves) and Frances promised to bring a lot of rain.

I think the track forecast was good. Over a week ago I pegged central Florida for Saturday afternoon (check the fcst thread) and that was lookig at the GFS only. It's the intensity that draws the headlines. And that is a big forecast problem.

Ironically, the people on TWC keep saying this is good news for Florida. Yet, for TWC it's not good news. They get good ratings from dangerous and severe storms. I've never seen a media influx like this for a hurricane. Every major news show had their main anchor in Florida. Even Dan Rather was down in FL.
 
Ironically, the people on TWC keep saying this is good news for Florida. Yet, for TWC it's not good news. They get good ratings from dangerous and severe storms. I've never seen a media influx like this for a hurricane. Every major news show had their main anchor in Florida. Even Dan Rather was down in FL.
Click to expand...

And for pretty good reason though. As a strong Cat 4 storm (130kts from NHC forecast), and with a hurricane-strength wind diameter of ~200 miles (85 mile avg radius plus 30-mile diamter eye), and with the prolonged exposure to these high winds given the slow movement, there was very good reason to expect complete devastation, perhaps more than what we've ever seen in the past. The property value and population on the east coast of FL has grown considerably since Andrew, and a hurricane of that strength, with the size of Frances, would have caused extreme destruction (likely >$20 billion). Add onto this the flooding that seems likely and it could have been very very bad. I'm not saying it's "good" now, but it looks much better than before.
 
11pm on Wednesday and things were looking pretty bad. I was thinking most destruction in US history, damage records were going to be crushed, and I was hoping the storm chasers were going to be smart. For awhile I was debating flying down there, but even I was scared away by the data on Wednesday night. I think TWC has been right on track with this. As a public service it has been excellent. They really hammered home the message that this was dangerous. I had even complained how they ran Storm Stories one night instead of Frances coverage. The problem is the public is going to lose respect for hurricanes again. They gained a lot of respect during Charley, but it's melting away as each new advisory comes in.
 
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