Hurricane Donna redux? A tiny shift to the west, and you have your nightmare scenario. I went through Donna as a six-year old in one of those old asbestos shingle-sided Florida cracker houses setting on concrete pylons. Exciting times...although I'm sure our Mom and Dad thought we were all gonna die...

Of course, in those days, no one really had a clue where the storms were headed, so it was more difficult to know if you should run or shelter in place.

Lol... Drudge:

HURRICANE FEARS BUILD...

Storm Watch..

UPDATE: Computer Models...

UPDATE: TRACK MAP...

Isaac's Storm......a book was written with that title about the terrible storm that hit Galveston and killed thousands. About the same time of the year, too.

Heard on radio that floridians should have preps done before the weekend.

The last nightmare storm in Tampa was 1921 - Category 4 came ashore in Dunedin in late October:

http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atla....

There was another storm that looked like the latest NHC track, in 1945

http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atla....

A track a bit further south and west is horrendous:

http://weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atla....

Mo, one that rakes the coast (e.g. the last link) is FAR WORSE as it will pile water up into the bay. The Dunedin storm is bad news, but not as bad as one that comes up just off the coast due to the surge dynamics.

Agreed, Karl, especially if its moving slowly.

I knew a guy years ago who remembered the 1921 storm from his childhood. Davis Island, South Tampa and downtown Tampa were underwater. The surge went straight up the Hillsborough River and drowned neighborhoods on both sides.

You don't see any homes built before 1921 in the Tampa Bay area. There's a reason for that.

That last track (in the links above) was the Labor Day Storm that hit the keys in 1935. Killed a lot of people.

Yep.

Like I said the year Charlie was out there I modeled this and came up with a 20+ foot surge up Tampa Bay from a raking hit by a Cat 3. That puts the entire downtown area under ~10' of water and of course it doesn't stop there....

How badly did Dunedin fare in all of these storms?

I doubt there was much IN Dunedin in 1921, creditcalmass, but I'll bet there was NOTHING there in 1922.

Keys are in the cone. I just hope Cuber tears the teeth out of this thing before it gets across the FLA Straits...

D-Max has not even fully kicked in yet... but hello hot towers (green to white).

8-31

dakine...what website is that if you don't mind

Here's a great collection of all sorts of charts:

http://www.tropicwx.com/

And another good one: http://spaghettimodels.com/

Morning synoptic update -- the models have bent right a bit, and I see the upper air pattern that supports that, but I believe the dynamical guidance is biased to the right a bit on balance. At present I don't see the path that hits me (or points westward) but the "rake the west coast" path is still on the board as a possible solution, although it is a BIT less likely this morning than it was yesterday.

In short I agree with a mild rightward bias in the path expectations from where I was yesterday, but not by a lot. As far as being reasonably-sure where this thing is going, I'm not as of yet, but it appears that some of the far outliers are diminishing in probability, particularly the far-left solutions (e.g. not recurving at all and going into the Yucatan.)

If you're in the Keys and South part of Florida you damn well better be getting ready now because by the time the path of this thing is clear you're likely to have 48 hours before this thing ****s up your day.

00Z GFS... south FLA landfall on Monday...

00Z Canadian bombs it out and takes it to the Carolinas.

NOGAPS rakes it right up the east coast all the way to Maine. But it is the NOGAPS, so take it for what it's worth.

Model consensus takes it across the keys and right up the west coast.

Max sustained winds are holding at 45 mph this morning, and central pressure has dropped to 1004mb.

Isaac has stacked nicely in the last 24 hours - convergence near the surface:


Upper level divergence aligns with surface convergence... a stacked, organized storm.

Position and intensity forecast from NHC:
INIT 22/0900Z 15.5N 57.3W 40 KT 45 MPH
12H 22/1800Z 15.9N 59.7W 45 KT 50 MPH
24H 23/0600Z 16.3N 62.8W 55 KT 65 MPH
36H 23/1800Z 16.8N 65.7W 65 KT 75 MPH
48H 24/0600Z 17.3N 68.4W 75 KT 85 MPH
72H 25/0600Z 18.8N 73.2W 65 KT 75 MPH...OVER WATER
96H 26/0600Z 21.8N 77.1W 65 KT 75 MPH...OVER WATER
120H 27/0600Z 24.8N 80.0W 80 KT 90 MPH

I'll try to do every-12-hour (twice a day) updates on this from a "wide-angle" perspective from here on out -- this storm looks like a mother****er, and the more work that I do on it the more-convinced I become that someone in the US is going to get ****ed in the ass by it.

Land...are you a meteorologist?