Hurricane Idalia - Cat 4, 130 MPH winds

[neverfstop]

I know we do the hurricane drill and always make a big deal about it.... Do we have anybody from that area?  Looks to impact most of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina. 

This one seems particularly dangerous as it's positioning is basically pushing all the storm surge up into the "bend" of Florida to exacerbate the flooding.


www.nytimes.com/live/2023/08/30/us/hurricane-idalia-florida

[lessel]

I'm not in that area but I spent a ton of time as a kid there. Compared to other parts of the Florida coast it's less populated and less visited. It has a fair amount of protected coast and wildlife management areas. The Steinhatchee and Fish Creek area seem to be taking the worst of the center of the storm. That area has little towns, old buildings and houses, rural stretches, and like RV campground type spots. It's an area that's popular for scalloping this time of year... not super touristy by any stretch though. Doesn't have white sandy beaches... more woodsy and swampy. My family would visit the area a lot for scalloping and fishing. Cedar Key is a bit south and gets most of the tourist visits for that area... it's got a cute artsy downtown area that's a draw. It's a gnarly storm so it's going to do damage well beyond the immediate area where it makes landfall though. I've got a sliver of optimism that some of the protected coast and swampy areas will take the worst of the storm, but I dunno. What's there strikes me as pretty vulnerable to getting pretty wiped out. I absolutely love that part of Florida... from about Alligator Point to Cedar Key is probably my favorite area of Florida... it's just more raw and less developed. It's a really special area and I hope the communities pull through.

[Gato]

I was all worried about this one, but in a stroke of luck, Idalia was replacing her eyewall just as she made landfall. This means her winds were temporarily much lower, and then landfall interrupted the growth of the wind field and strengthening that happens after eyewall replacement. So we’ll see how things go tonight through the Carolinas, and of course some people will have gotten the worst of this storm, but overall I think Florida got pretty lucky.

Of course, DeSantis will take credit if everything is pretty orderly and clean up goes well. 😖

[neverfstop]

it also hit at low tide on a full moon, which should have pulled the maximum amount of water out of the coast
Thankfully, it's also moving pretty fast and not parked over an area.