Happy Memorial Day!
This week is Hurricane Preparedness Week.
Each day I'll give a little information about hurricanes and I'll also give a link to a statement by the local NWS office about hurricane preparedness. Today's topic is storm surge. (Wikipedia)
Storm surge is one of the deadliest aspects, if not the deadliest, of hurricanes. Storm surge is " THE WATER THAT IS PUSHED TOWARD THE SHORELINE BY THE WINDS ASSOCIATED WITH A HURRICANE. THE ADVANCING SURGE COMBINES WITH THE NORMAL TIDE TO PRODUCE A HURRICANE STORM TIDE. STORM TIDES CAN INCREASE THE MEAN WATER LEVEL BY 15 FEET OR MORE IN MAJOR HURRICANES. POUNDING WIND DRIVEN WAVES CAN DRAMATICALLY INCREASE THE IMPACT OF THE RISING WATER. " Quoted from NWS Ruskin's hurricane preparedness guide, day 1.
Also, my previous forecast of rain chances slowly going down this week seems to be wrong. Instead it looks like we'll have chances similiar to last week:
Brooksville
Tampa
Lakeland
NOAA has just released their Atlantic hurricane season outlook, as well as their Pacific hurricane season outlook. Their Atlantic forecast calls for a average season, with forecasters saying there is a 70 percent chance of having nine to 14 named storms, of which four to seven could become hurricanes, including one to three major hurricanes, while the Pacific forecast is calling for a below-normal to normal season.
The Pacific outlook calls for a 40 percent probability of a below normal season, a 40 percent probability of a near normal season and a 20 percent probably of an above normal season.
Hurricane Paloma has strengthened into a Cat 4 hurricane and is expected to make landfall and move across Cuba sometime between late Saturday and early Sunday. Cuba is still trying to recover from Hurricanes Ike and Gustav, the combined damage total from the two storms came up to 9.4 billion dollars.
Forecasters expect Paloma to weaken into a tropical storm after striking Cuba and then steer south of Florida through the Bahamas and into the Atlantic.
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