Florida

Tropical Storm Rita Heads to Keys

Tropical Storm Rita, likely to become a category 1 or category 2 hurricane by the time it reaches Key West tomorrow, is projected to move into the Gulf of Mexico, where it will find plenty of hot water to build strength. Meteorological alarmist Jeff Masters offers this advice: The entire stretch of coast from 500 miles south of Brownsville, Texas to Mobile, Alabama is at risk -- no one can say with any confidence where Rita will hit this far in advance. Texas and Louisiana are at the highest ... (read more)

2005/09/19

Keep an Eye out for Hurricane Philippe

There's a new tropical depression forming in the Caribbean at latitude 13.0 north, longitude 55.0 west. Tropical Depression 17 has the potential to become Hurricane Philippe around the time it nears the islands of the Lesser Antilles on Monday, according to Jeff Masters: TD 17 is here, and will likely be the first major hurricane of September. This storm will be with us for the next two weeks, since it is moving slowly and has a large area of ocean ahead of it. The storm is in a an environment ... (read more)

2005/09/17

Ophelia has moved away from Florida and taken all of our storm clouds, leaving behind a picture-perfect Saturday in Jacksonville. I played softball this morning, pulling muscles in my back I didn't even know I had. The storm's latest projected track appears to foretell a Tuesday landfall in North Carolina as a category 2 hurricane, according to Jeff Masters: As usual, all this is subject to a high degree of uncertainty. South Carolina is still at high risk, and Georgia still at some risk. ... (read more)

2005/09/10

Tropical Storm Ophelia is hanging out off Florida's east coast, awaiting further orders from God. Yesterday's projected path was due west across Florida into the Gulf of Mexico. Today it's predicted to wiggle towards South Carolina, but Jeff Masters believes it will head northeast for a few days, do-se-do, alaman right, and come back to the U.S.: After heading east for a few days, all the models except the GFS agree that Ophelia will eventually loop back and hit the U.S. as a hurricane, perhaps ... (read more)

2005/09/08

I awoke this morning to 40 mph winds from an outer band of Tropical Storm Ophelia, which Jeff Masters of Weather Underground expects to become stronger: TD 16 gathered enough strength last night to be given a name -- Ophelia. Ophelia will be a name we will hear a lot of over the coming week. She is going to cause plenty of trouble, and will be moving slowly enough that we'll still be talking about her a week from now. ... With so much time over warm water, and the shear likely to decrease once ... (read more)

2005/09/07

The Road Trip blog in St. Augustine reports that several gas stations in the area ran out of fuel this weekend: ... both gas stations in my neighborhood were out of fuel today. One (a Chevron affiliate) was completely out and another (a BP outlet) was out of regular. In fact, half the gas stations between here and Jacksonville on US 1 were dry Saturday night. I haven't seen this myself, paying around $3 per gallon when I fueled up on Thursday. The Florida Times-Union reports current prices in ... (read more)

2005/09/05

Katrina.Com Owner Responds to Storm

A web designer whose personal site has been published for years at katrina.com has turned it into a Hurricane Katrina relief site in response to the huge traffic from victims, their loved ones, and others seeking information on the disaster. Katrina Blankenship told ComputerWorld that the site has received 400,000 hits the past week, a twenty-fold increase on the normal monthly traffic. ... it wasn't until Monday morning -- when she saw her e-mail in-box full of messages -- that Blankenship ... (read more)

2005/09/05

Reading this Katrina weblog entry reminded me that Hurricane Andrew in 1992 was one of only three category 5 hurricanes to make landfall in the U.S. in the last century. My wife M.C. Moewe covered that monster storm for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. She interrupted a Disney World vacation with her parents, driving to South Florida in time to experience the eyewall passing overhead in the company of local police. For most of the three-hour trip, her car was the only one heading south. Covering ... (read more)

2005/08/29

Katherine Harris Sways Florida Voters

U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris announced her Florida Senate bid on Hannity & Colmes last week in one of the most bizarre interviews I've ever seen a politician give on television. She's sitting awkwardly in three-quarters profile, sways back and forth, and keeps moving her facial muscles around as if she's forgotten how to keep them still. Harris spokesman Adam Goodman has attempted to explain her conduct as fatigue from a long first day of campaigning. "She was just a little tired," he told a ... (read more)

2005/08/17

Dennis the Menace

Floridian blogger Jim Mathies is riding out Hurricane Dennis from a coastal town close to where the eye of the storm is coming ashore. This is the strongest storm to ever hit the Florida panhandle, and you have to worry about the people there when you read his increasingly tense updates. Here's what he wrote an hour ago: Things are starting to get ugly now. The wind has picked up to a constant roar and has shifted North. The water in the air is so thick I can bearly see across the street. I ... (read more)

2005/07/10

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