Storm Buff that I am, here’s some more on Frances and friends.
Frances is looking, according to forecast models, to go up through Alabama now, not even close to NE GA as originally forecasted … so how much rain will we get? It’s debateable from this distance, with Frances still not even over the coastline yet in Florida. But the forecasts have moved her further and further away from our area … rather something dissapointing, as I love tropical rainstorms, most likely what she’d be by the time she’d be near north GA.
God seems to have spared S. Florida from worse damage via strong winds, in reducing the speed of the hurricane’s winds and forward movement, but that exact thing will bring more rain damage to the areas she lingers over, so trade-off, slower hurricane more rain. Faster hurricane more wind.
I say the above since they say her slow movement is causing the ocean waters to churn up colder water under her, so the warmth of the Gulf Stream isn’t an issue, she has no warmth to feed off of, though photos show her improving maybe collecting herself to intensify. The Gulf Stream is a warm “stream” of water off the east coast of the US where a hurricane can pause for great refreshment before banging into the coast. It’s a wonderful area usually, with sea life abundant there, due to the warmth. Maybe the waters under her aren’t so cold after all, but that’s all speculation! 🙂
I have a stake in all this … my mother is in S. Florida, her husband and my brother with her, and also my Uncle lives down there. We have good friends that live nearer to Melbourne, so they are in the thick of it right now. And then also, we used to live down there. We were married in 1992 the weekend Hurricane Andrew happened. I lived in S. Florida from 1979-1996, and Mr. Andrew was the only major hurricane to hit the place, and we missed him due to evacuation, just married, blah, blah, blah, we missed all the great fun of a hurricane party. Now they aren’t all they are cracked up to be, if the eye hits near-by … it’s just the way of things in Florida, to ride it out. But our one real hurricane just wasn’t worth chancing, being just married and all.
So I now live vicariously through internet coverage of hurricanes hitting the East Coast. We don’t have TV signals, so web is all there is. Good stuff though!
Look at her now. Frances is closer, intensifying again. Poised on the coast, crawling towards Florida ever so slowly. I love these infered photos, they are really cool looking, for lack of better descriptive terminology … 😉
Here’s another view of the Atlantic:
Interesting, isn’t it …
Now this one you can see lots of activity on, a large view of the Atlantic Ocean … see TS Ivan over on the lower right … I’ve been eyeing him for a few days now, since before Accuweather said anything about the activity there … so he’s my special buddy. He’s improving nicely, intensifying. Not that we need another Hurricane coming at the lower US, it’s possible he’ll threaten as such.