Frances Saturday

[Sanibel]

Pretty simple. Frances butted against the wedged ridge and hit a brickwall yesterday. The ridge wrapped around her NW periphery holding her in check. The tropical recurve flow she was in wants to push her poleward, but the zonal CONUS pattern is solid and won't budge. So you have two basically equal forces in a stalemate. The result of this is what you see, so Frances is being held in check.

NHC is stuck on that track across Florida and keeps shifting the storm NW offshore without changing the onshore track. Well, I'll believe them because no matter how hard we've been trying to shift Frances westward she keeps right down the NHC track.


If this persists the rain event some are hyping on this board will materialize. The outer band just arrived here (Beautiful, you should have seen it), but dried up in the west side dry airmass and the sun came out. We are varying between steady breezes and healthy moderate NE gusts in the 20 knot range.


Frances has been trying to rebuild that big eye overnight. It is becoming more defined now. Funny character trait of this cyclone is the shift back and forth between the tight-eye and big one. The dry air shear is still on her from our side on the SW, but the Gulf Stream is slowly boosting her bands as they pass over it. You can pretty much make a direct translation to the whole eye as it positions over it as well.

So, expect the eye to become even more defined as it tracks WNW over the Gulf Stream and intensifies. How much it boosts will be in direct relation to the slackening of the SW shear. Frances has stabilized at 960 and 105mph. This should be an accurate measure for intensification. If the shear drops, expect her to make a run at strengthening over the Gulf Stream regardless of forward speed. 105 knots is realistic, more if conditions really improve.

20 inches is realistic at this forward speed. More if the shear drops and she builds her SW convection...

[Sanibel]

Another dark low-hanging band with a gust and big drops then slacked-off again. A slow mover taking her time building up over us...

[Sanibel]

Hard downpour now...

[x-y-no]

Looking at the WV loop it seems clear the shear has relaxed. She's definitely expanding her envelope to the SW.

If she can get a coherent eye this afternoon, then she should intensify over the Gulf Stream this evening.

[inotherwords]

We're just getting our first bands coming over now, no rain yet and just minor gusts, but I can see some darkness coming from the east. It's fascinating to watch it come in, ten minutes ago we had 100% blue sky.

Sanibel, I always enjoy your posts. I remember you from another board several years ago.

[Sanibel]

Sun and blue sky now. Another dark band to the east. Light breezes...

[loon]

I remember that Sanibel too, I just can't place em......

[inotherwords]

Sanibel, how did your home fare in Charley? I know the island was hammered pretty badly.

[Sanibel]

We fared pretty well. Sustained 125mph + gusts. Had some siding blown-off some dormers and 1/4 of the lanai blown away. Our roof vent to the attic had the cover blown back and we had two large trees blow down lengthwise over the driveway. They took two days to chainsaw out. Our porch fans folded up like retracted flower petals. One blew off and pushed our kitchen window out of its frame through the shutter! Power out 1 week. We were lucky, our lines and poles were protected by the lee side of the condos. The lines they came in on went through wetlands preserves without any high trees to fall on them. Most people took 2 weeks to restore. Otherwise we did better than expected for 14 miles from a category 4 eyewall! If not for his fast forward speed we would have fared worse. Surge ended at our road in front. I saw the debris line. Sand wash pattern on garage floor but no damage to things inside.

Our neighbor on one side had their sheet metal from their roof blown-off. It is still upside-down in their front yard. Their inside was trashed by water damage. The other neighbor was unscratched.

Major tree and vegetation damage here. Condos are continuously piling wrecked furniture, roofs, air conditioners, and carpets on roadside. Clean-up hasn't really started. They have gotten on top of the piles of tree materials. They burned them in special burning pits constructed of concrete blocks made into a 12 by 6 yard pit. An industrial blower is rigged to feed blown air into the pit.

I would say housing damage is strong category 2 and vegetation borderline category 4 with the Australian Pines that predominate taking a 30-50% mortality. Views are changed. The green tunnel main road is now open and sunny with huge piles of 3 foot-thick pines on all sides. Some houses that were behind groves of trees are now out in the open. Perspectives have changed. There are still piles of shattered concrete poles and transformers, insulators and cables smashed and strewn like the day after the storm. Damage increases as you head up island. Usseppa Island in eyewall has 35% structures condemned. Must be razed and rebuilt.

Really strange tracking storms from this landscape...


One thing that shocked me when I got back were houses that had giant 3 foot-thick pines leveled on all four sides sitting in the middle untouched...

[cape_escape]

Sanibel, I'm in Cape Coral, what kind of winds and rain should I expect?

[Sanibel]

Ask me tonight...