Hurricane Charley Question

[Sanibel]

it's also the type of tree

True. We were 14 miles from the eye of a 7 mile wide core. Some trees here had all their limbs snapped off leaving only stubs on the trunk. Exotic trees faired worst. Our Black Olive trees in the driveway had one snap-off 5 feet above the ground. It's trunk was nearly 2 feet thick. All the black olives were destroyed. Local plams just looked roughed-up but OK. Down our street a big Ficus tree blown over with a big root-flat jutting up in the air is frequently shown in Charley footage. Norfolk Pine also lost major branches or snapped-off. An exotic palm (feather palm) in the front had its crown blown-off.

[wxman57]

That's why I would evacuate in any storm surge above 5 feet because at
5 feet or so the street will flood and at 9 feet the water comes into the
house.
Tropical Storm Frances (It was a Tropical Storm when it moved
over Tampa Bay) brought the waters up to the street level and that
is with a TS (that must have been a 4 foot surge or 5 foot surge), a Category 1 would likely flood my house, and a Category 2+,
gut it out or collapse it.

Tropical Storm Surge: 4-6 feet
Category 1 Surge: 6-8 feet
Category 2 Surge: 8-10 feet
Category 3 Surge: 10+ feet (1921 Hurricane Magnitude)
For the western side of tampa bay.

FYI, I ran SLOSH for an average-sized Cat 2 and Cat 3 hurricane moving into Tampa Bay. Tampa Bay, like the MS coast, is a very bad place for a hurricane to hit. It's very surge-prone. An average sized Cat 3 could produce a surge of around 18 feet in the NW part of the bay.



For a Cat 2, the surge is closer to 10-12 ft for an average-sized hurricane:


Now if you're talking about a Katrina (or Ivan, or Rita, or Wilma) sized Cat 3, then the surge may look something more like this in Tampa Bay:

[Tampa Bay Hurricane]

Wow. That would be scary.

[Extremeweatherguy]

well sheared system or not in orlando charley still brought us 70mph winds for us for hours enough for me.

John

The wind was stronger than 70mph in Orlando. At the airport, sustained winds topped out at 77mph with gusts reaching 105mph during the height of the storm. Some outlying areas could have even seen a few higher gusts than that (but they were not officially reported). Up in Winter Park, for example, that was very evident. Some areas of the town seemed to receive "enhanced" damage compared to the surrounding parts of the community, and this is probably due to either wind streaks or very brief mini-tornadoes.