The SE Coast Of Florida & Hurricanes

[cyclonaut]

Hookemfins,David actually didnt touch the Florida coast til he was north of Palm Peach County.

Otowntiger,Frances & Jeanne made landfall on the Treasure Coast up in Martin/St.Lucie County area.

[JPmia]

Well, they finally made the FL Turnpike One-Way "Contra-Flow" from Ft. Pierce to Orlando public for worst-case scenario evacs from SE FL. What I didn't know is that they had the plan in place for a couple of years now. Regardless, I agree many of us down here are in for a rude awakening when another storm such as the 1947 or 1926 hurricanes comes. Floridians during the early part of the 1900s were much more capable of adjusting to hurricane hits because they most likely experienced one before. However, now we just have so many people down here that nobody knows what will happen when we get our "typical" amount of strong storm hits. Though, something tells me that S FL will recover just like we always have in the past 100 years of our history.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/ ... 8393.story

[hookemfins]

Hookemfins,David actually didnt touch the Florida coast til he was north of Palm Peach County.

David came ashore in Palm Beach County and south of Lake Ockeechobee. Still along the SE coast.

[cyclonaut]

Hookemfins;

This is from Wikipedia;

Hurricane David formed from a tropical wave in the mid-Atlantic about 800 miles east of the Windward Islands on August 25, 1979. David headed west-northwest, gradually strengthening as it did. The hurricane became a monstrous Category 5 south of Hispaniola, reaching peak intensity with maximum sustained winds of 172 miles per hour and 924 millibars of pressure. David weakened little before making landfall on Hispaniola. The eye passed almost directly over Santo Domingo, capital of the Dominican Republic with over a million people. The storm slogged over the island and emerged off Cuba as a weak hurricane. David restrengthened into a Category 2 on the Saffir-Simpson scale and trudged up the Florida coast, whipping the shoreline with hurricane-force winds. David finally made landfall just north of Savannah as a Category 1 . David is believed to have been responsible for 2,060 deaths, making it one of the deadliest hurricanes of the modern era.

Then read this portion of the NHC preliminary report on David & states that David changed course & made landfall north of Palm Beach.

[img]ftp://ftp.nhc.noaa.gov/pub/storm_archives/atlantic/prelimat/atl1979/david/prelim02.gif[/img]

& then in this portion it again says north of Palm Beach.It then even mention the cities affected by the eye of David..None were in Palm Beach.

[img]ftp://ftp.nhc.noaa.gov/pub/storm_archives/atlantic/prelimat/atl1979/david/prelim04.gif[/img]
The 2 sources above differ on exactly where David made landfall in the U.S. but they both have one important thing in common...Neither mention landfall in Palm Beach County.

[Brent]

I believe David's Western Eyewall went over West Palm Beach... they had gusts around 100 mph during that time if I remember correctly.

[clfenwi]

USA Today says:

After sweeping across the Caribbean Sea with 150 mph winds that killed more than 1,000 people on Dominica and in the Dominican Republic, Hurricane David threatened Florida at the beginning of the Labor Day weekend, forcing evacuations along the Florida coast. David struck a glancing blow to Florida, just north of the Gold Coast, tore across Cape Canaveral and back out to sea. It came ashore near Savannah, Ga., on Tuesday and then chewed its way up the East Coast, downing trees and power lines well into New England.

[cyclonaut]

Maybe so Brent but it didnt make "landfall" & I don't know how accurate that is because the highest wind measured @ Palm Beach Airport was only 58 MPH..

[cyclonaut]

[skufful]

A good historical tracking web site: http://weather.terrapin.com/hurricane/index.jsp
Shows landfall in Savannah. I know that for sure because I saw the eye go over my house. It may have hit florida earlier, but it did go over savannah.

[Brent]

37 26.30 -79.60 09/03/12Z 85 973 HURRICANE-2(25-30 miles east of Boca Raton, FL)
38 27.20 -80.20 09/03/18Z 85 972 HURRICANE-2(Over Sewall's Point, FL, landfall of Frances and Jeanne)

EXTREMELY close... the eyewall was pretty much ashore from Palm Beach County all the way into GA and SC.

[Derek Ortt]

landfall means the geometric center of the eye crossing the coast.

However, the western portions of the eye itself did cross the south Florida coast. Not enough for a landfall, but the eye did come onshore. I have heard these reports from an older met grad student at UM

[Brent]

landfall means the geometric center of the eye crossing the coast.

However, the western portions of the eye itself did cross the south Florida coast. Not enough for a landfall, but the eye did come onshore. I have heard these reports from an older met grad student at UM

I know that... kinda like Alex last year. The center of the eye didn't actually make landfall but it's considered a landfall in the books.

[Foladar]

I am quite fine down here in Homestead, Andrew was enough. No more for another 50 years please.

[SouthernWx]

The 2 sources above differ on exactly where David made landfall in the U.S. but they both have one important thing in common...Neither mention landfall in Palm Beach County.

Take it from someone who was tracking David on radar as it happened...the eye DID make landfall in northern Palm Beach county, Florida; in the Jupiter, Tequesta, and Juno Beach areas....they were inside the eye. Winds gusted 90-100 mph in the west eyewall at places such as Johnathan Dickinson state park, Jupiter light, and Stuart (there was also a couple unofficial reports from then West Palm Beach area of 100+ mph gusts).

David's eye crossed onto the coast near Juno Beach (Palm Beach county) and moved right up the coast to the Melbourne-Cocoa area; half the eye over land and half over water....why it didn't weaken any. All of those coastal communities (i.e.- Jupiter, Stuart, Hobe Sound, Ft Pierce, Vero Beach, Cocoa, Melbourne, etc), both along the barrier island and on the mainland were inside the eye for a time.

As David approached Cape Canaveral, the hurricane turned more toward the north and moved offshore, passing a short distance east of such cities as Titusville, New Smyrna Beach, Daytona, St Augustine, and Jacksonville -- before once again striking land just south of Savannah, Georgia. Winds in the Savannah Beach to Hilton Head area gusted to 90-100 mph or more...while winds in downtown Savannah were sustained at 70 mph or so with gusts to 85-90 mph (the Savannah airport/ KSAV where the "official" sustained wind of 58 mph was recorded is just west of the city).

PW

[cyclonaut]

If this is so than I stand corrected..This so called landfall happened right on the boundary between of what is considered SE Fla & what is not..Though this was the hurricane that got me hooked on hurricanes,I was only 9 & did not know much about hurricanes @ the time.During the years that have passed all I have heard was that David made a official landfall north of where some are saying now.

None the less this area has seen much less of those east & SE approaching hurricanes than in decades past.

[simplyme]

This whole thread is interesting, but completely irrelevant.

I'm not sure there's ever been a time when Mother Nature has sat back and said "Hmmm, I haven't hit this area in a while, lets toss them a natural disaster". She has, and will continue to, act in a completely irrational manner, tossing no hurricanes at one state one year, and 4 within a few weeks the next, some even getting 2 at virtually the same landfall location. Weather is what it is. We can do our best to track and predict it, but ultimately, it's completely out of our control, and that, along with it's immense amount of power, is likely what keeps us all so fascinated.

And, on a different topic within this thread... Tropical Storms can do as much as, or more, damage then hurricanes. Alison in Texas a few years back is a prime example. The entire city was under huge amounts of flooding.

[cyclonaut]

This whole thread is interesting, but completely irrelevant.

I'm not sure there's ever been a time when Mother Nature has sat back and said "Hmmm, I haven't hit this area in a while, lets toss them a natural disaster". She has, and will continue to, act in a completely irrational manner, tossing no hurricanes at one state one year, and 4 within a few weeks the next, some even getting 2 at virtually the same landfall location. Weather is what it is. We can do our best to track and predict it, but ultimately, it's completely out of our control, and that, along with it's immense amount of power, is likely what keeps us all so fascinated.

And, on a different topic within this thread... Tropical Storms can do as much as, or more, damage then hurricanes. Alison in Texas a few years back is a prime example. The entire city was under huge amounts of flooding.

That was not the point I was trying to make but if I learned anything from this thread is that people will make up their own conclusions on a given individual's point of view.

[TreasureIslandFLGal]

It's inevitable that a big storm will eventually hit the SE coast. Just like it is inevitable that the Tampa Bay region will get hit. It's been almost 80 years since the Tampa Region has seen a direct hit. You woul dthink we are way overdue as well. "Overdue" means nothing to Mother Nature however. She works at her own pace.
Scary thing was that when Charley was forecasted to hit direct on us, right up until about 10 am when it became obvious that it would turn (only 2 hours away ahd it not turned) there was still 43% of the population in mandatory evacuation areas that had not evacuated. Doesn't that give you pause for thought???!!! -good thing it didn't hit here afterall. Our local EOC was saying the casualties could have easily been in the thousands.

[Blown Away]

Hookemfins,David actually didnt touch the Florida coast til he was north of Palm Peach County.

Otowntiger,Frances & Jeanne made landfall on the Treasure Coast up in Martin/St.Lucie County area.

I stood in the eye of David in Jupiter and I was not in the ocean, sunny hardly a cloud in the sky! Maybe the exact center did not touch the coast, but close enough to say landfall in my book!

[SouthernWx]

This whole thread is interesting, but completely irrelevant.

I'm not sure there's ever been a time when Mother Nature has sat back and said "Hmmm, I haven't hit this area in a while, lets toss them a natural disaster". She has, and will continue to, act in a completely irrational manner

Sorry, but I respecfully (and vehemently) disagree. Hurricane climatology is very important, and does provide a general idea of a coastal location's odds/ return period of a tropical storm/ hurricane/ major hurricane/ et all.

If you live in West Palm Beach or Key Largo, Florida....it's very important you know the past hurricane history of your area, and realize it has ramifications for your future. To disregard the historical past hurricanes which have struck a particular coastline would be very foolish; just as foolish as living in Oklahoma or north central Alabama and disregarding tornado history.

Hurricane climatology isn't something which "happened a long time ago but will never happen again". Anyone living in a vunerable coastal area who truly believes that way about past hurricanes in their area is only fooling themselves....and putting themselves and their loved ones in grave danger.

While I cannot sit here and tell you a major hurricane will strike downtown Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach, or the Florida Keys and Key West later this season.....I have great confidence they will all be struck head-on by a powerful hurricane during the next two to three decades; perhaps more than once. My vast knowledge of Florida's hurricane climatology combined with a similar knowledge of major U.S. landfalling hurricane cycles gives me that confidence.

PW

My Hurricanes 05' website
http://community-2.webtv.net/SouthernWx61/Hurricane