Tropical Storm Fay is currently in the midst of its third landfall roughly in the St. Augustine area. It’s packing 60 MPH winds and is tiptoing its way toward the northwest at 2 MPH. Tropical Storm Warnings extend from roughly just south of the Space Coast to the Savannah River. Judging by the above image from Jacksonville’s long-range radar, Fay’s broad circulation has begun to cross the coast once more.
This is the third landfall for Florida. Parts of the state have started measuring their rainfall totals in feet, and flooding is definitely occurring. Fay’s slow movement ensures that it will be sticking around for quite a while; it’s not expected to be out of the state before Saturday.
Impact on Charleston
As you’ve likely noticed, there have been periodically heavy rain showers with some decent east winds at about 15-20 MPH, with gusts at the College of Charleston weather station topping out at 26 MPH yesterday. Surf has been a bit rough, and beach erosion has been occurring. Additionally, because of the prolonged east wind, tides are running a little higher than normal (1-2 feet) and thus downtown flooding is more likely to occur with a downpour. (High tide is expected at 11:40 AM.) Today’s Storm Prediction Center outlook keeps the tornado threat well south of here, so that should not be a problem as we go forward.
Best bets? Keep the umbrella handy and watch out for squalls causing localized downtown flooding during the day. It doesn’t look like Fay is going to do much more than soak us periodically. There’s a chance of higher gusts in squalls, but not a great one at this point.
You can keep an eye on the weather from the College’s station, in the heart of the peninsula.
The National Weather Service in Charleston initiated local statements on Fay at about 7:00 tonight. Weather Underground is a good place to read these statements, as they do some processing to make them mixed case and thus a bit easier to read. The latest statement from NWS Charleston as of this writing came around 9:00 tonight. Read more »
Every year or so, we get a reminder of just how unpredictable tropical systems can be. Tropical Storm Fay is proving to be that storm. It’s done very little to plan at this point; it surged more westward than expected; came onshore weaker than expected, and now it’s done what is usually unthinkable — it’s strengthened over land. Read more »
Serious Business proper was preempted somewhat tonight by a briefing on Charleston Weather for Tropical Storm Fay. I’m planning on doing a few more videos as the storm gets closer; the interactive sessions on Ustream could be potentially useful as we continue to learn more about what Fay is going to do. Blog posts about Fay will continue and be tagged appropriately.
I recorded tonight’s briefing, and it’s now available online (though it may be outdated by tomorrow morning). Read more »
Invest 92L has become Tropical Storm Fay, spinning right over Hispaniola right now tracking to the west at 40 MPH. The current track — which, given the history of this storm, has the potential to be incredibly variable — takes it over Hispaniola and into Cuba, and then out just south of the Keys in the next three days. If it stays over the islands, this is a good thing in terms of strengthening, because the mountains will generally tear the storm apart and prohibit it from becoming too incredibly strong. Indeed, the three-day forecast sees Fay maintaining tropical storm status.
The newest model runs are starting to come in, as well. Most of these, so far at least, agree on a track that recurves it northward into the Gulf of Mexico. This could still be problematic for us if Fay becomes a fairly significant storm; it could bring considerable rain.
However, it’s worth noting that the models just this morning had this thing tracking up the gut into Charleston; it’s still too early to tell. A lot depends on when the northward turn happens. The sooner the turn happens, the higher the probability of rapid strengthening, too. As I say a lot, much akin to a broken record, this is one to watch for the next several days.
Something I’ve always struggled with is my blog’s focus. I tend to zero in on topics for a little while and then drift to something else. It quite fits my semi-neurotic personality — I’m definitely a “phase” kind of guy — but I realize that for the few folks who do read me from time to time that my lack of focus can throw you off. Some people come here for my weather updates; that’s cool and all, but what if I go on a binge of technology posts about FriendFeed and Facebook and leave the weather alone for a while? What if people showed up for me to talk about the Padres when I haven’t mentioned them on here since April? Writing such a blog can be tough on the readers because that noise makes what one might perceive as “the good stuff” that much harder to find.
I’m trying to mitigate some of this issue in the next design by reinforcing a topic-based scheme that should more easily direct folks to what they’re looking for. I’m doing a little of that with my weather section right now, but I’m planning on doing the entire blog in a topic-based navigational scheme come redesign time. The goal is for folks to be able to see on the homepage a quick overview of my posts by topic, versus one giant aggregation that could be all over the place. I’ll still retain the all-over-the-placeness on the blog homepage (equivalent to jaredwsmith.com/blog now), but the homepage should at least help people be directed to what they’re interested in that I might write about.
This will help me be able to produce more content in more topics and give each topic pretty close to equal time. If I go on a binge of personal posts — I’m in something resembling a quarter-life crisis at times, so this is entirely possible — the noise generated from those won’t drown out my weather posts, so those who don’t give two rips about me 
can still find out what kind of damaging winds will inevitably not materialize because I blogged about them. I’m really hoping that this works out the way I intend. There are some avenues I want to explore via the blog that I haven’t really felt like exploring yet because the necessary organizational balance has not been in place. I’m looking forward to those controls coming into play, and I’ll be interested to see how it affects readership down the road.
The morning models are basically unanimous now on recurving Invest 92 northward. Roughly half the models are split on where it recurves; half of them are recurving it before the Bahamas, and half of them are recurving it afterward (with a couple stragglers taking it into the Gulf of Mexico; I’m counting this as an anomaly and not paying much attention to them right now). If it recurves it after the Bahamas, we definitely have a much better chance of feeling the effects in Charleston.
It’s still early yet, but it’s been interesting to see how this situation has been developing. If you look at the different frames on the Colorado State model site, you can see the earlier runs and the progression…pretty neat.
Continue to keep an eye out…
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