cuba saw significant flooding and, is just now getting power back in some areas after nearly the entire island was plunged into darkness. now this morning, is ethan s world toward tampa, residents woke up to this eerie sight. nearly all the water had receded out of tampa bay. the storm pulled all the water from the shore as it s winds whipped around, counterclockwise, before shoving it back towards land hours later. around the same time, the natural hurricane center increased their predictions for how much storm surge ian will bring. the revised estimates stand 12 to 18 feet along the coast, from inglewood to benin a beach. you can see here in the purple section on this map. you have seen waters rise to record-breaking levels throughout the day. that s naples. naples, florida, the water road six feet above the normal high tide, nearly submerging cars. in fort myers beach the storm surge has driven the water 8 to 20 feet, flooding homes, leaving some residents trapped. one fam
November 27, 2023 Like sports referees, meteorologists can sometimes become an object of ridicule. Even if they get the weather right, being the harbinger of
average, storms are moving a bit more slowly. even more important that we haven t touched on, the fact that warmer air holds more water vapor. when a storm comes along, as they always do, there is more water vapor for that storm to dump on us than it was 50 or hundred years ago. although you mentioned that any given hurricane is not the result of climate change, we are able to put numbers on just how much worse climate change made a specific hurricane. with hurricane harvey, it is estimated that nearly 40% of the rain that fell during harvey, and in some places it was over 50 inches of rain, could not have occurred if that same hurricane had happened 100 years ago as it easily could have. it was estimated even worse that more areas flooded and more economic damage has occurred because you might be used to 20 inches or 30 inches and be prepared for that, but once you get into the 40 and 50-inch range, that s when the
we ve talked with tourists who are here to go to the, theme parks. they re obviously hunkering down in hotels. we talk to people who have gone to shelters who live here. the threat is for tornadoes. tornado watches in the area. all of this before and has even hit us, or iris, i should say, because we appear to be dodging the direct path of the storm at this point. but already outside of the direct path we see a dozen printed potential tornadoes touched down in florida. there have been small airplanes tossed around. all of that, again, i cannot stress it enough, outside of the direct path. obviously there are people who have lost power in large numbers, people who may not have good cell phone communication on the west coast of florida. we re not going to get a full scope. people are locked down, as well. i don t think we will know the full scope of the damage for hours, if not days, from some of these areas. but they should give you an idea of how bad it can get.
experienced. where does this rank in terms of the hurricanes you ve monitored and seen? we have had a lot of impactful hurricanes over the last couple of years. but this one is really striking several densely populated centers. the storm surge came ashore down here, around fort myers, in naples. now the wind and flood potential is impacting tampa, orlando, jackson jacksonville, essentially the i-4 corridor. what accounts for a storm like this moving as slowly as this one is? we basically the steering currents, the atmosphere will push it along. if the steering currents slow down or there is not enough wind in the upper at upper atmosphere to push it along, it kind of slows down for the crawl, as is the case with this one. and we expect it will really strengthen once out over water