#140 Postby Weatherboy1 » Sat Oct 22, 2005 6:30 am
well, I put off the decision as long as possible to see exactly how much time Wilma was going to spend over the Yucatan (and therefore, how weak she'd get), whether her exact track would change, etc. But here in Jupiter, I'll be putting the shutters up for the first time on the house we moved into in November 2004. Much more of a pain than our last place because this house is two stories, not one, and has more windows. Ugh. My thinking is that while SHIPS weaknes Wilma a lot before landfall, the GFDL really doesn't, the NHC seems to be thinking this will be a Cat 2 or strong 1 when it reaches SW FL and since it will be moving fast, it won't weaken much over land before exiting the coast. And the point of exit appears to be only 20 miles or so north of Jupiter. Moreover, in this fast-moving storm, being on the SW side of the circulation is bad -- since Wilma will likely be moving 20 mph or so and accelerating to the NE, the storm movement should increase the wind impact. After all, not only will you have potentially 80 mph or so SW winds ... you also have 20 mph of storm movement to add to them. And there's always the possibility she strenghtens more over the SE Gulf where waters aren't as warm as in the NW Carib, but warm enough to add 10, 15 or 20 mph to the storm if she moves slowly enough.
Bottom line: Better safe than sorry.
0 likes
