This isn't animated but it has the tracks for five different computer models, so it's better.

4 of the 5 from that model show landfall between Pensacola and St George Island, and come within range to make life hell for the Keys as it passes by. Mucho rain would appear to be headed my way as well.

Ok...so one has it going through Tallahussy. Maybe they could use the FSU players that are out on work release to bag some sand bags.

KWG, stay safe down there buddy and here's hoping you only get a little damage, if any.

[quote]GatorJamie
[/qb][/quote]I think I just threw up a little in my mouth...

Seriously, stay safe KWG. BOHICA. [/QB][/QUOTE]

Ditto - Ah looks like a record hurricane season. As luck would have it in May I moved into a house, on a canal, 3 blocks from the Gulf of Mexico....

Thanks for the laugh GJ!!!

Hang tight, KWG ... or do you prefer loose? wink

Either way, stay safe and button up that bar of yourn! :cool:

KWG I wish you good luck, hopefully the island won't get the full effect of Dennis.

Thanks for the good vibes. We're a little worried down here now. We'll finish up preparations in the morning and hope for the best.

I hope this thing somehow loses its strength, for KWG as well as its eventual direct recipients. Cat 3's are nothing to sneeze at.

KWG - are you planning on sticking it out, or are you gonna get out for a couple of days?

Sadly, I think we have some Cat 4 and 5's coming up this summer. It's gonna be a bitch. The only things that will rejoice are our yards. For the humans, I fear tremendous property loss and a few deaths along the way. Sounds pessimistic, but we're on the letter D and its early July.

The Alabama Gulf Coast is getting ready. Our crews are having to leave the area since most of the hotels will be closing down today. Let's all keep the people in the path of Dennis in our prayers for their physical safety and their mental well-being.

Also, here's hoping that those of us on the path further inland don't get tornadoes and destruction like the Atlanta Motor Speedway did yesterday.

Aubie - the Atlanta Motor Speedway was hit due to the residual aura left behind by its periodic occupants. The tornado thought it smelled trailer parks. Large crowds of trailer denizens are known to leave a whiff of their essence, which can take years to dissipate.

Herr Tiggee, God's gonna get you for that one, no matter how true it is. I bet that Tornado was pissed when it realized there were no aluminum boxes to chew on over there.

Been getting some nasty feeder bands already, and it's rained pretty much all day. Got the shutters up and every non-perishable item at Winn-Dixie (along with a bottle of Jose Cuervo), so it's all about the waiting now.

Good luck to those on the Gulf Coast who will be dealing with this after it passes us.

KWG, I was in your shoes last year, and if this year's like last year, will probably be there again later this year (I had power for a total of 14 days last September). Good luck to you, enjoy the Cuervo, and I hope that things get back to normal down there again soon.....

In another thread, billsf posted

Apparently there was utmost devastation in Cuba and it's expected to hit FLA by Saturday. Any of you Floridians making plans yet, or is it too early to tell?

We got a bit of a punch from Dennis overnite. Much bigger than in any of the 4 last year. We had a total of about 5 hours of 45-75 mph winds, maybe higher. It knocked over a 30 foot tree into our driveway. Hope KWG is doing OK...

Yeah, it's dark and rainy here, too. Lots of wind, but nothing too bad. Florida Keys are without power, which means KWG's sitting in the dark with his Cuervo ....

Perhaps someone up there is listening to prayers, for it now looks like Dennis is being affected by unfavorable climatic conditions from the east and west, thereby squeezing it and not letting it regenerate as originally expected when it exited Cuba. It seems most experts don't expect it to restrengthen back to a category 3, as it now sits at a cat. 2. Either way, it sure doesn't look like it's going to be anywhere near the cat. 4 strength it was yesterday.

Of course, who knows with these things.

One good thing about all this: we get to see TWC's Mike Bettes looking quite nice in his TWC short-sleeved shirt on the presently sunny beaches of Panama City. Personally, I think he should be there in only his bathing suit, but that's just me.

Hey guys (that includes you, GJ wink )!

Made it through the storm in decent shape. I didn't have power from about 8 pm last night until 1 pm today and the phone lines were down about 3 or 4 hours this morning. The wind has been intense and pretty much non-stop the last 18 hours. It's still blowing about 40-50 mph right now, but that should be the end of it.

Thanks for all the good thoughts. I hope those up north who will be next come through relatively unscathed as well.

There will be quite a party on Duval Street tonight . . . :cool:

Hey KWG have a hurricane for me tonight. Glad you are okay.

Looks like Dennis which dropped down to a cat 1 at 90mph after raking Cuba, is now back to a cat 3 at 115mph.

For all those weather geeks out there I have a question. There is usually a relationship between the pressure in millibars to the windspeed of the hurricane. I noticed though while perusing intellicast.com that the same pressure can result in a different windspeed. For example last night at one point the speed was 115mph at 957mb, This afternoon there was a reading 105 mph at 955mb. Is there a delay or catchup the winds have with respect to the pressure?

Not necessarily, PR. While lower pressure usually equates to higher wind speed, it isn't always the case. The highest wind speeds are found around the eye wall, and the pressure is taken within the eye of the storm. Oftentimes eye walls regenerate completely on their own, and I'm not talking because they went over land.

Yesterday, for example, before Dennis came ashore in Cuba, it was going through an eye wall regeneration, where the eye wall collapses on itself and a new one is formed. This is a very common occurrence among stronger hurricanes and doesn't happen in weaker ones. When the eye wall regenerates, the pressure can fluctuate independent of the wind speed (or vice versa, for that matter). The most powerful storms can even briefly have two eyes, though that doesn't last very long, since the main one will regenerate.

Did I happen to say Mike Bettes is hot?

Damn! Now he's all covered up in that rain gear. Earlier he was walking around the streets of Panama City, but I couldn't tell if he had shorts on.

Personally, I think he should walk around naked so he can report of a hurricane's impact upon the human body. eek!

Yikes! This doesn't sound good.

Wind is directly proportional to the pressure gradient, not necessarily the pressure itself. When Dennis moved over Cuba, friction (wind moving over land) disrupted and weakened the pressure gradient at low levels, so the wind speeds really decreased. Today, new thunderstorms developed all around the center of the storm, which released a lot of latent heat (on the order of several atomic bombs), which really dropped the pressure near the center (a result of the ideal gas law). The pressure away from the center stayed roughly the same, so the pressure gradient suddenly tightened again and the wind increased. The observed pressure drop of 11 mb in 90 minutes this evening is extreme outside of tornadoes (what I study for a living - tornadoes can have surface pressure drops of up to 100mb in a few minutes).

Dennis is getting strong enough there should be an eyewall replacement cycle (like MIB mentioned) sometime tomorrow. If we're lucky, the storm will be on the low side of the cycle at landfall. If we're unlucky, it will be near the peak of intensity in the cycle. There's little way to predict ahead of time when such cycles will take place, just that they probably will.

MIB, JASooner thanks for your answers. Outsports not only houses a discussion board but a veritable "Ask Jeeves" classroom as well.

Could still strengthen to a 4. That would make it the first time a 4 has hit the US in July. Also, Jim Cantori has been looking pretty hot in his black T's as well....

My family got slammed in Vero Beach twice last year. Lost most of their roof, several windows, and a couple of doors and sustained substantial interior damage from the leaks and holes in the ceilings. Finally got a new roof about three weeks ago (tin roof this time), and the house has been gutted, dried, and sealed to get rid of the mold. It will still be another three or four months before the repairs will be complete and they will be able to return home. My aunt's home flooded - salt water and raw sewage - and her insurance company isn't paying for repairs. She's filed a lawsuit and will be out of her home for at least another year until the litigation is over and repairs can be done.

I visited my folks and sisters in Vero between Frances and Jeanne and then again after Jeanne. Town looked like hell. I keep reading about people who are holing up in their homes to ride out Dennis. Crazy mo-fos if you ask me.

Watching Jim Cantore on the Weather Channel and Anderson Cooper on CNN (two of my favorite fellas on the tube) is bringing back memories of worry and sadness, and even though Dennis is nowhere near my family, I have that empty feeling in my stomach again. My parents and sisters stayed in a shelter for both hurricanes last summer. There came a point before each storm hit when their cell phones no longer worked, and it wasn't until a day or two after each storm that I was able to contact them again. Longest days of my life. You know, though, before the storms I spoke with the folks once or twice a month. Sometimes not even that much. Since, well since then I speak to them almost every day, and we've never been closer. Funny how things work out sometimes.

Interesting article about Jim Cantore linked above. Seems like a helluva guy.

Could this be Emily? If this graphic's accurate, look out southern Florida? eek!

Fortunately, Dennis was about 3 hours into an eyewall replacement cycle when it hit the coast, so it was at a relatively weak stage. Sounds like max sustained winds were only in the 100-110 mph range based on preliminary reports. Also, the storm had a relatively small inner core that came ashore at a relatively rural spot, so we managed to get a pretty good outcome. Unbelievable there may be another storm on the way. This is more like early September than early July!

Do you think FEMA has a program to help me with my hangover on Sunday from the party on Saturday after Dennis passed? eek!

Keywestguy, glad you are okay down there bud. Hey I want to ask you, is there any hurricane fatigue going on down there and in Florida in general, what with all the hurricanes you guys have had to deal with, and the strong possibility that its going to be a long season this year? Any people that you know of relocating out of Florida? Just curious.

It looks ominous, but it is WAY too early to tell where this is going....

If hurricanes were democratic, Emily would hit the Carolinas or Texas. Florida and Alabama have endured far too much. Its time that someone else pick up their part of this burden.

Not saying that I wish these on anyone, however.

Georgia has been hammered by this one too, albeit from a rain perspective. We got 5 inches from Cindy, and had just begun to dry out. Dennis has easily dumped 12+ inches in about 24 hours. My creek is at a level that I did not even see last year during the hurricanes. My poor neighbor (who's house is at the lowest point in the neighborhood) is now a LAKE. I am not exaggerating.

We got very lucky in North Alabama. Just a few larger size Pecan limbs were knocked off (of course, this is nothing new with a Pecan tree). The drive in to work this morning was pretty bad with some bad wind gusts blowing my high profile vehicle around.

Apparently, they are reopening Orange Beach, AL very soon and our crews can go back to work. This is a great sign indicating that the damage wasn't as severe.

Here ya go, KWG. Follow the general arc on this thing, and looks like you'll be getting another round of bad weather...maybe Tuesday next week.

It's now officially Tropical Storm Emily.

Tuesday? I'd say on that track it would be in the Keys Sunday. I for one am SICK of hurricanes hitting Florida on the weekend! If we have to put up with this nonsense we should at least get to miss work! I'd say Mother Nature is STILL pissed off at Florida over the selection of GWP for pres. Looks like nature is right again! I wonder if Karl Rove has something to do with this as a diversion of the proof of him being the criminal in the Plume case?

So far all the computer models show Emily staying well south of Cuba. I know it's too far out to know, but any sign of good news is well appreciated.

There was something mentioned somewhere about Emily not being able to strengthen because Dennis took the energy out of the path....this is from the latest NHC Discussion:

Tropical systems often cause an upwelling of colder ocean water, which in turn results in lower sea surface temperatures. However, this only lasts for a short period of time, as the strong sun eventually negates this effect. Therefore, this upwelling would only be good if a tropical system followed a predecessor by a couple days or so. After that, the water returns to its warm condition.

Those forecast paths might be good news for you, but not for me.

Could this one be headed for Tejas? When was the last time God's Republic was struck by a hurricane? I can't seem to recall one.

Houston got hit in 83 I think...South Texas has been hit a few times recently, tho...

Texas was actually struck by a category IV hurricane in 1999, but it hit in the most nearly uninhabited place on the entire Gulf Coast--the Padre Island National Seashore, with the vast area of the King Ranch behind it. The nearest town was Falfurrias which is a good 75 miles from the shore, so--not much damage. Had it struck Corpus or Padre Island/Brownsville, it would have been catastrophic.

[ October 20, 2005, 05:44 PM: Message edited by: m1 ]

The worst hurricane ever to hit the United States was the infamous 1900 one.

Unnamed at that time, here is some info on it:

http://www.1900storm.com/

Hurricane Claudette made landfall on the Texas coast in 2003. Tropical Storm Grace also affected the Texas coast that year. Of course, Ivan also made landfall as a tropical storm near the Louisiana/Texas border last year. I can't seem to exactly recall which side of the border the center of circulation hit though.

An excellent book on the 1900 Galveston hurricane: "Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History" by Erik Larson.

Ivan made landfall in Pensacola. You might be thinking of Hermine. I believe she made landfall on the Texas Louisiana border.

Ah, yes, but he did the ole loop de loop and eventually made a second landfall. It was a big joke in my atmospheric science class because my professor had already missed several days of class going after Frances and Ivan's first landfall (doing research with instrument towers), and we all wanted him to go for Ivan's second landfall so we could have it easy for a couple more days.

Link to Ivan's Track