Here’s the part of the Florida coast where Hurricane Idalia arrived recently:
Notice that the area where the hurricane was predicted to make landfall, and actually did make landfall, is covered in wildlife refuges. In other words, no humans would ordinarily be resident in this area. What does it look like for pilots? There are two airports with weather stations: Tallahassee (KTLH) and Perry-Foley (KFPY):
How ugly did it get at Ron DeSantis’s house?
KTLH 301308Z AUTO 34028G40KT 2SM +RA BR FEW015 BKN036 OVC065 24/23 A2936 RMK AO2 PK WND 34040/1308Winds 28 gusting 40 knots, 2 miles of visibility in heavy rain and mist, a broken layer of clouds at 3,600′ above the runway. That was around 9:08 am (1308 GMT).
What about around Perry-Foley, which is much closer to the water?
KFPY 301335Z AUTO 27033G48KT 2 1/2SM RA 25/24 A2904 RMK AO2 LTG DSNT SW T02450238
KFPY 301315Z AUTO 26037G51KT 2SM RA 25/24 A2894 RMK AO2 LTG DSNT NE T02480241
KFPY 301255Z AUTO 28050G74KT 1SM +VCTSRA 25/24 A2865 RMK AO2 LTG DSNT N AND NE P0071 T02470240
KFPY 301235Z AUTO 31044G68KT 1SM +VCTSRA 25/24 A2834 RMK AO2 LTG DSNT NE AND S P0063 T02460240
KFPY 301215Z AUTO 01054G74KT 1SM +TSRA OVC008 25/24 A2828 RMK AO2 LTG DSNT N AND NE P0029 T02470240
KFPY 301155Z AUTO 02043G62KT 1 1/4SM +RA OVC008 25/24 A2860 RMK AO2 LTG DSNT NE AND E P0046 6//// 7//// T02510240
KFPY 301135Z AUTO 04034G56KT 2 1/2SM VCTSRA OVC011 25/24 A2887 RMK AO2 P0029 T02510240
KFPY 301055Z AUTO 06030G42KT 1 3/4SM +RA SCT007 OVC013 A2913 RMK AO2 P0024
KFPY 301035Z AUTO 05024G36KT 4SM RA BKN008 OVC013 25/24 A2919 RMK AO2 P0008 T02520240
KFPY 301015Z AUTO 04019G29KT 3SM RA OVC008 25/24 A2927 RMK AO2 P0004 T02500240About 2.5 hours of frightening wind, which peaked at 54 knots gusting 74. There was a heavy thunderstorm with rain and skies overcast at 800′ above the runway. “LTG DSNT” means “lightning distant”.
Cedar Key, Florida is a small collection of islands tenuously connected to the mainland with charming wooden buildings (i.e., dilapidated) that look like they could be blown away in a fresh breeze. Cedar Key was widely highlighted in hysterical media stories as likely to be wiped out by Idalia’s storm surge. Yet people refused to take a day for sightseeing in Orlando! “‘We Should Have Gotten Off the Island’: Cedar Key Residents Survived Idalia’s Wrath” (New York Times):
Hours after the waters of the Gulf of Mexico swept through her house, Donna Knight emerged in a windbreaker and boots to try to get her Chevy SUV to higher ground.
“It came through — the whole ocean,” she said, describing a night of howling wind, frightening bangs and flying debris as Hurricane Idalia blew through Cedar Key, a conglomeration of tiny islands connected by bridges that juts three miles into the Gulf.
By noon on Wednesday, the center of the Category 3 storm had passed, and she and her 19-year-old son knew they had survived. “We should have gotten off the island,” she said.
Officials had estimated before Idalia made landfall that perhaps 100 people were riding out the storm on Cedar Key. It was unclear how many had left the island immediately afterward.
Not a great advertisement for the Florida K-12 system…
Ms. Knight, 62, a 20-year Cedar Key resident, had every intention of heeding the mandatory evacuation order ahead of Idalia, she said. “My bags were packed.” She just needed gas and groceries, and would join her husband and mother-in-law near Orlando.
But her son didn’t want to go. “I wasn’t going to leave him by himself,” she said.
This was the absolutely the most obvious place from which to evacuate and yet 100 people (out of 700 total population; the NYT fails to provide context) decided to stay (a “mandatory” evacuation order in Florida is not backed up by COVID lockdown police tactics).
How was it in Palm Beach County, you may ask? A little windy. Hot as hell if hell were also super humid (2-3 degrees above the historical average; 3-4 degrees below the historical record). Scattered thunderstorms (common in the summer anyway). I ended up on a bug-free boardwalk in the Everglades at the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge, a 145,000-acre swamp. I’ve been on about 15 boardwalks in the Everglades and never been bothered by mosquitoes or other flying predators. This is one of the big mysteries of Florida!
Related:
- A Robinson R44 goes home to Boca Raton (from the Panhandle) (includes pictures of Cedar Key)
Gainesville only got up to 20mph winds. We need photos of Greenspun in Cedar Key eating Tony’s Seafood.
“I’ve been on about 15 boardwalks in the Everglades and never been bothered by mosquitoes or other flying predators.”
It deserves a full investigation by the Inquisition.
I get eaten alive, have rash like marks from the no seeums. I no longer go outdoor s dawn and dusk. You obviously don’t react to bites.
Re Cedar Key ..what about the label Key don’t people get. It is supposed to get flooded in a hurricane.
We live on shore, evacuated as per recommendation, but, water did not reach driveway.
Jan: I do react to bites! I would come back bloody from walks in New England in the summer. I am bothered by no-see-ums near sunset after summer rains here in our own neighborhood (Abacoa, Jupiter). When we lived in the Boston suburbs, I would go through a can of DEET-based bug spray every two weeks just for dog walks.
electric tennis racket – like fly swatter gets rid of no-see-ums completely. Home Depot and other stores sell them
Forget DEET, only a pact with Satan can offer insect protection in The Everglades.
FPL is amazing. They are staffed for and prepared to quickly fix the damage after the inevitable failures. Like the (old?) Dell business model.
It’s weird that the beaches in Lee and Collier counties still are not fully restored and operational after Ian, given the importance of tourism and snowbirds to the economy. Two of the four parking areas at Delnor-Wiggins Pass State Park are still closed.
At least in Florida, essential resources are not diverted for spiritual purposes, like keeping the resort hotels and golf courses green, unlike in Lahaina, where M. Kaleo Manuel of the Department of Land and Natural Resources Commission on Water Resource Management allowed the hydrants to go dry during the recent global warming caused fire.
PhilH: What remains to be done for the beaches in Lee/Collier? Parking lots and bathrooms? The beach itself is more or less as it was, no?
The hidden story is the engineering marvel of the boardwalk!
The creation of that likely started in some government office which eventually translated into equipment and workers working through the Everglades to build this boardwalk. Just setting the pilings alone in the Everglade could be an individual blog post.