The dry air from the upper level low has arrived, while wind shear and land interaction impact the storm. The storm is, at least for now, weakening. Tellingly, the Hurricane Watch for South Florida has *not* been upgraded to a Warning.
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Models, which have now benefited from 2 surveillance missions from the G-IV jet sampling the environment on 3 sides of Eta, have joined the anticipatory Euro which was calling for a hard-left out of Cuba. While that turn has yet to happen, Eta is slowing — a sign of imminent turn
As a result, NHC has pushed their forecast track south yet again — now showing the center passing 94 miles away from Miami and making landfall as a robust tropical (or subtropical) storm in the Lower Keys very late tonight. On the map, blue depicts the Tropical Storm Warning
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Courtesy of @INSMET_CMP_CMG we can see Eta’s structure on Cuban weather radar. No eye-like feature and severely eroded on the south and southwest side due to the dry air from the upper low. But the northern “dirty” side is a doozy. And that’s the side all of us will deal with
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@INSMET_CMP_CMG With max winds trending down and the dry air entrainment, it’s tough to see how, despite warm waters, Eta comes back to surpass the intensity (65 mph) it had on approach to Cuba. There will be some relaxing of the wind shear, but …
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@INSMET_CMP_CMG There isn’t a single intensity model that calls for Eta to become a hurricane in the next 24 hours, by which time it would be in the Gulf of Mexico. About a third of the models make Eta a hurricane in about 3 days in the Gulf or while threatening Florida’s west coast.
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@INSMET_CMP_CMG My forecast for metro South Florida remains the same:
Excessive rainfall likely adding up to 10+ inches through Mon. A Flood Watch is posted.
Winds gusting 50-70 mph late Sun through early Mon. A Tropical Storm Warning is posted.
Storm surge of 2-4 ft.
Isolated tornadoes.
@INSMET_CMP_CMG If you prefer this in one cohesive post, it’s now on FB here:
I’ve been answering everyone individually but let’s do a shutters post for all. Shutters are generally required for winds in excess of 105 mph, which are the ones that can lift non-aerodynamic objects like roof tiles and such. Eta is forecast to be a 70 MPH tropical storm
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Now, that’s not to say that there isn’t an outside chance that it will become a Cat 1 hurricane and — this is important — *sustain* that intensity through Monday. So, let’s consider a reasonable worst case scenario. Conveniently, @NWSMiami does that for us.
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@NWSMiami This is considered a scenario that has a 10% chance of occurring. It shows hurricane winds for coastal #Miami-Dade east of I-95 or US-1 and the Upper Keys. There’s a 90% chance that it won’t happen, and anything stronger isn’t in the cards according to the experts.
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Tropical Storm Warning posted for South Florida and the Keys.
Forecast track for Eta as a robust tropical or subtropical storm nudged northward to the Upper Keys and south Miami-Dade with the latest NHC advisory. The Euro and Japanese models only holdouts showing FL Straits
The intensity forecast from NHC has remained unchanged over the last several advisories. It is more aggressive than the model forecasts, which, eyeballing it, average to a ~50 MPH max wind storm. However, given the track adjustment, chances for storm-force winds increased.
Major changes in the last 12 hours: A new center of circulation has formed in the depression, and 45 mile per hour (75 km / hr) winds were detected in what is now classified as Tropical Storm #Laura.
This new vortex location, no less than 70 miles south of where the National Hurricane Center (NHC) had estimated it was located, puts the Leeward Islands, Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic in play.
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Tropical Storm Warnings will likely be issued at 11 AM for everyone, with the possible exception of the Dominican Republic where they may start with a Storm Watch first. In other words, it is now much more likely that storm winds will be felt…
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Florida and the U.S. both set new records for #COVID cases today. Higher than March, higher than April. The highest it’s been. Yet I have a *select* few followers from South Florida who call me a fear-mongerer for sharing these facts. Let’s review their arguments:
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Dumbfounded. Stunned. Astonished. @AngieNBC6@SteveMacNBC6 and I are on conference readying today’s @nbc6 weathercasts and we’re overwhelmed by the sheer number of crazy heat records falling like flies here. This is July weather in April. First, here are current heat indexes.
90°+ days in 2020 up to this date = new record of 8 (previously 6)
75°+ nights in 2020 up to the date = new record of 17 (previously 16)
Earliest hottest weather of the year record has been set 3 times
Earliest 4 straight nights at 78°+ = new record by over 2 weeks (2017)
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19 heat records in 8 days collectively for #Miami, Fort Lauderdale and #KeyWest
Ratio of record heat to record cold in #Miami so far this year is 21-0
I stopped counting but up to February Fort Lauderdale had 120 record hot temperatures without a single cold record since 2015.
I don’t know if it’s being forced to watch the frequency at which deeper and more widespread saltwater inundation is impacting some neighborhoods in South Florida, or if it’s the inner demons released when teenagers like #Greta admonish adults, but this fall ...
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I’ve had an inordinate number of, um, skeptics (I’m trying to be kind) bending themselves into pretzels trying to contradict what we in #miami and Fort Lauderdale are plainly seeing with our own eyes:
the cities are under siege from the surging seas.
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They throw around all their expertly-gathered (#sarcasm) alternative facts, like “what do you expect when you build on a swamp?” Let me enlighten you:
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