Tropical Storm Ian models go from west to east in Sunday update | Tracking the Tropics

some important developments during the day today JB and Folks at home the trend has been back East if you remember yesterday if you were paying attention I'm sure you were all the models had trended West towards the Panhandle now the models have trended back East a lot of them at least back towards the Tampa Bay area and even if this isn't a direct hit directly into Tampa Bay and it just stays you know 30 50 miles offshore we still would see very significant storm surge and significant impacts so let's go through some of the maps for you and we'll hit everything that we can first of all winds are up to 60 miles an hour now just uh last update winds were 45. now 60. the pressure is dropping rapidly so this is all of a sudden getting its act together what it did today it was kind of laid the groundwork kind of like building a house it it put the beams up right it put the structure up so the organization was was uh was definitely um put into put into commission during the day today and now the thunderstorms are building on that organization and you can see that big blow up of thunderstorms right near the center right there which is why the pressure is dropping rapidly moving Northwest at around 12 miles an hour now here's the official forecast track from the National Hurricane Center and it's going to move Northwest and take more of a turn to the north notice how quickly it becomes a cat one a cat two and eventually a cat three and it only goes over a very small portion of Cuba so Cuba is not likely to do much of anything to weaken this system it'll emerge into the very warm Waters of the Southern Gulf after moving through some of the really hot Waters of the Northwest Caribbean and by Tuesday at 2 p.m it's forecast to be a major hurricane a major hurricane as it had three Cat four or cat five here's the official forecast track once it gets into the eastern part of the Gulf of Mexico it does get to category 4 status now do notice that that happens uh Tuesday Wednesday morning and then by two Wednesday afternoon National Hurricane Center weakens it to a cat three off the West Coast of Florida reason why they are weakening it is because it does run into wind shear so that's kind of a little bit of a little bit of a Saving Grace here is that there's going to be some pretty decent wind shear in the Gulf Mexico from about Tampa northward here is the latest track from the national Hurricane Center as it heads further north towards the Big Bend area it's a big bend area of course it's the Tampa Bay area right here we are squarely in the cone and this has been shifted further east closer to Cedar Key if you remember earlier today it was right over here and then it's been shifted further to the east which makes sense lines up with the new computer data and by the way I think the 11 o'clock track will probably be further east I think they're going to shift it East but we'll see what happens you never know exactly but but you know it wouldn't be surprised if it was closer to the Cedar Key area which would put the Nature Coast right near the center of the storm and force a lot of the storm surge on shore on the Nature Coast but also into Pinellas County and parts of Tampa Bay as well all right so let's show you the model comparison now if you've been following this you know exactly which model has been in which Camp the European model has been further east and it still is the American model has been further west but last run it was back here now it's considerably further east than the latest model run notice the European is still exactly where it's been four days very consistent model for a few days and when you have consistency in Amala it does lend some Credence to it you give it a little bit more a confidence but there's the American model and it's really not that far offshore here we are Thursday at around noon the European model has already moved directly into the Tampa Bay area and the American model is just about 70-ish miles to the west of that and with the European model and the American model do is they then kind of slow it down a little bit and then move it directly north both models move directly north so the American model is close enough now to bring hurricane Force Gus to the coastline of places like Pinellas County so it is close enough now to deliver a pretty strong below if it does in fact move that close one of the reasons we expect rapid intensification National Hurricane Center forecasting that it could increase its winds by 40 miles an hour plus in a matter of 24 hours is because it's going to be moving over extremely warm water in the Northwestern Caribbean and the southern Gulf we call this ocean heat content and there's nowhere else on our side of the world where it is as hot as it is in the Northwest Caribbean and the southern Gulf right near the loop current you can see it right there here are the latest spaghetti plots and you'll notice that there are especially these right here you can see the orange ones that's the consensus of the model so even though you see a bunch of models here there are more models that are not on this plot right here like for instance the European Center for forecast forecasting doesn't actually allow uh their line to be on this but when you factor it in it pushes the consensus further east so that is the consensus now right near the coast of the Tampa Bay area so I want to show you the shift from yesterday to today I'll step out of the picture for a second so this is the super Ensemble so it's basically just about every model that we can put our hands on and when you see the yellow colors that's the heat map so the heat map showing where most of the models are and yesterday most of the models were at least a few hundred miles to the west of the West Coast a few hundred miles to the west of Tampa Bay area today the consensus of the models are not much further west they're they're very close to the coast so there's been a pretty significant shift to the east now it doesn't mean it can't shift back remember we've shifted we've done this windshield wiper shift uh back and forth several times already over the past couple of days and there's no reason why it can't shift back again so there's no reason for us to ride this emotional roller coaster the best thing we can do is just make sure we're prepared we have everything we we need to have in our Hurricane Safety kit we've gone over the plan with our family so that we're ready just in case evacuations are ordered and it's conceivable that it could happen let me show you one of the reasons why take a look right here at what the simulated satellite is forecast to look like by one of our computer models by Wednesday afternoon the clear crisp eye clearly this is a classic hurricane if it does evolve into this and it really does look like a monster sitting off of our Coast so even if it were to do this and some of the computer models are showing this it kind of like parallels the coast and doesn't move Inland some show it moving Inland but even if it does that it's still going to throw a lot of storm surge into our area part of the reason is because the wave heights are going to be so big and part of the reason is because the forward motion of the counterclockwise flow and on the Eastern side it kind of shoves the water towards our coast and we have a very shallow slope anybody who's been out on a boat around here knows that you go 30 miles offshore and you're still in 80 feet of water you go uh you know 15 20 miles offshore and you're still in 60 feet of water so take a look right there the pink and the purple indicating 40 plus foot waves just off of our coast and obviously they don't come on Shore that large they break up as they move on Shore but let me show you what I'm most concerned about here because even if and this is the American model right here even if the storm is as far off the coast watch as we kind of dive down with this counterclockwise flow it shoves that water into shallow water it's got nowhere to go but up and of course with this wind out of the Southwest or west it pushes the water right into Tampa Bay and so you end up with water that's being shoved into a very small space and it has nowhere to go but up it gets pushed into the nooks and crannies and you could end up with significant storm surge even if you don't have a direct hit in the Tampa Bay area so that is what we're most concerned about all right with that said I know we have a lot of questions to get to there are more maps I can show you and I'll get through them but in the meantime I'm going to toss it back to jbm and walk back to the desk so I can start answering we do have a lot of questions coming in folks out of the Facebook live comment section for those of you who have been with us here before and tracking the tropics you know how it works you have to say hey Jeff or hashtag ajb with your comment and we'll animate them on screen it's as simple as that and we're going to start in our Facebook live comment section we're getting some very important information out Valentina hashtag ajb school closings heard some schools are closed already until Friday my kids schools have not had that notification education and Hillsboro schools Monday Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday have been canceled now Pinellas Schools uh still there's some school cancellations go to wfla.com the WFLA app we will post all school closings and additional closings you're probably going to want to know about our airport so many questions that come in about our airports right all closures and cancellations on wfla.com the WFLA app let's get to this question from Don hashtag kjb how far east watching from Spring Hill I have kids in Land of Lakes so talking about Pasco County so we've been talking here and Jeff you've been illustrating quite clearly about this uh this nudging East with what we have with the model data how far east people really want to especially do well one thing I can say is there's a couple things going on here uh first of all as the storm moves close to the coast it is likely to weaken now we haven't seen that with a lot of hurricanes in the Gulf over the past several years A lot of them have rapidly intensified as they reach land but there's good reason to believe because of wind shear in the atmosphere that we are going to see uh weakening in fact I can actually advance to show you the wind shear so you can get an idea of um there it is right there so there's no wind shear over the over the over the storm right now then it moves northward still no wind shear until it gets into the southeast Gulf wind look at all that red it runs into wind shear so watch the National Hurricane Center weakens the storm from a four to a two over the course of about 24 to 36 hours that's a lot of weakening in a very short period of time so the answer to your question is what's good about it is weakening storms they generally can't force their wind very far inland yes you'll have power outages yes you'll have trees down but it'll be nothing compared to the wind at the beach because weakening storms can't carry that momentum as far inland so if you're Inland yes this would be the kind of threat where yes there'd be trees down power lines down you know if you're not in a solid structured home you might want to think about you know if this moves in this direction finding a home that's that's more solid for you to go to a shelter but again we're more concerned right now about the coast Inland impacts would be isolated tornadoes which we are going to see on the Eastern side of the storm we're likely to see I'd say uh 10 inches plus of rain in in I think a number of areas uh but wind a lot more concerned about about what happens on the coast and I'll tell you it's it's because just simply you can see it on the computer models too because I've been looking at some of them where the wind is really strong close to the coast and then it dies out quickly as you head further Inland yeah we've got a lot of questions coming in I'll try to be less verbose no it's okay it's okay we want thorough explanations of course uh hashtag hey Jeff heyjb that's the way that we pluck the comments and that when I'm looking this way it's because I'm looking at a screen here in your stream Center uh looking at of course your questions and comments coming in uh some breaking news in just in seconds ago uh USF the University of South Florida canceling classes Monday through Thursday due to Tropical Storm Ian what will be hurricane Ian and as we get uh to that notion here let's get to this comment Elaine wants to know hashtag hey Jeff so it's not a cat one that's true yet is there a chance we have a cat one in my morning 11 o'clock I think so no I don't think it'll be at 11 o'clock I think it'll be by morning but I say that because and I say that with confidence because I can't believe how much the pressure has dropped just over the past several hours so it it today it's been putting together it's like I described it before like building a house you gotta build the foundation you gotta you gotta put up the beams and once you have that up you can slap everything else down that's what the storm's been doing today it's been putting up its infrastructure if you will organizing and now we're seeing the fruits of that labor and unfortunately it's rapid uh decrease in pressure and it's going to be rapid intensification National Hurricane Center set it earlier today in their headline they said rapid intensification expected tonight and boy did they have it right it's starting to happen right now and there's no reason that it it it it wouldn't be happening we have extremely warm water temperatures the warmest pretty much anywhere anywhere near us and low wind shear and um unfortunately all the all the ingredients are there for very very intense storm we are getting some fascinating questions and comments about the Euro and the GFS that we will get to in just a moment I want to talk about the GFS in Europe but let's get to Thomas's question first hashtag kjb will this spawn a lot of tornadoes it's a good question you know every storm is different some storms produce a lot of tornadoes other ones don't it's too hard to to know the answer that question it will produce some tornadoes and and the place where it's going to produce the most tornadoes the Eastern side the dirty side of the storm we are going to be on that side of the storm so uh so we are going to be on the tornadic side of the storm most likely of course things could change it could still shift and we're not here to and I just want to emphasize we're not here to scare anyone I just want everybody to understand I just want everybody to understand that this is there is a lot of potential here for significant damage and um I would say also inconvenience uh because it's not just getting through the storm right it's not just Sheltering in place making sure you're away from Windows staying inside until the storm passes it's what you have to deal with afterwards power outages trees in the road you know difficulty getting places um that's I just want everybody to be prepared for that so this is not to scare anyone it's just to say you know let's be realistic about this and let's make sure we are prepared for what could be kind of an extended inconvenience and possibly worse than that okay it's important to stay weather aware with what we're talking about here uh let's get to uh Richard uh hashtag HF what are we talking about wind speed wise for the Bay Area yeah you know it's tough to say well I I will be honest with you and tell you what I saw uh so far today so the European model which is bringing the storm uh onshore uh directly uh into Pinellas County let's say uh in the Tampa Bay area it brings those strong winds especially into Pinellas County and it brings Gus over 90 you know close to 100 miles an hour or so uh just west of that even higher over the water winds tend to to to drop rapidly as soon as they hit land and friction which is good news um and the but even the American model which shows the storm fairly far offshore does show hurricane force wind gusts along the coast of Pinellas County as well so of course it depends on where you live uh but um you know it's not inconceivable that if we see a near-directed or a direct hit that we're going to see those gusts over 100 miles an hour one more one more question before we get to the GFS and the Euro and I know that there's a lot of folks that want to uh want to hear more about the GFS in the Euro because those are two such important models that we follow here when it comes to forecasting tropical development uh I want to address there's so many commenters of course and this is with every stream that we do people asking about specific you know municipalities Land of Lakes Sarasota want to know about Venice want to know about Tampa wanting to know about Gainesville Jacksonville Miami Pensacola Destin I can go on and on and on but the number one that I'm seeing in this stream which I find fascinating and I don't know why if we just have a lot of viewers joining us from Lakeland tonight right in the middle of Polk County and for those of you joining us outside the viewing area Lakeland really kind of the middle spot between Tampa and Orlando Marina wants to know um what's up what do we say about Lakeland Florida you know it's a good question and I think we're probably seeing this partly because Charlie went through Polk County and was very destructive and of course Irma was very destructive also in Polk County it's interesting because Pinellas County and Hillsborough County have been spared some of the biggest storms lately but it's been Polk County and Inland areas that have seen the worst of it so obviously the further east this storm comes the more that there's the threat for some wind damage in in Polk County right now the models even the European model don't quite show and in fact you know what I'm going to go back to the Europe being JB that people asking about the European and GFS and also does you're always welcome to go back to the wall too if you need to do any Show and Tell I don't think so I can do it right here so this is the model comparison and the green is the American model the GFS model and the red is the European model and I want to show you what both of the models do Beyond just you know the fact that the American model is further west but has trended significantly East in its latest update the European model has stayed steadfast for days it has been insisting on this particular track I see JB nodding his head there you've seen it every single time the European has not budged um but but and now the Gia is the GFS budging the GFS is in fact budging so I'm gonna what I'm going to do is let me just I'm going to back up here because I want to do one thing really quick which will help to kind of illustrate the point luckily I have a computer up right here and let me just quickly just show show the question you know Shanna was asking ajb is the GFS catching up with the Euro and it is and that's a great question it is but take a look now at the uh at the graphic let's put it up full if we can okay let's go full well either way it doesn't really matter but but notice how the European makes landfall but both of them and the GFS comes closest to Pinellas County but then it starts to move north and the European does the same thing it doesn't go far inland just so something is pulling it back North again after it moves Inland so let's say you're in Lakeland or Orlando for instance well that's good news for you if that turns out to be the case right because the storm doesn't move straight across the state like Charlie did in fact a lot of the models show it kind of pulling East and then pulling back North again okay so that I think is an important um thing to mention although we of course can't be sure that that's what's going to happen yeah fascinating yeah I mean it really is and following the GFS and the Euro and also seeing our commenters uh being so focused on what the GFS and the Euro were doing almost hour by hour it's been fascinating of course let's get to this one it just came in from Gene in our comment section and it is hashtag kjb and it says let's see here I'm in Venice my first storm what are your thoughts let me let me quickly before you talk about Venice I just want to talk about how many uh new you know Floridians that we have in the state Jeff there's clearly a lot of folks that have moved here to the Tampa Bay area in the last two years during the pandemic post pandemic a lot of folks who have never been through a storm before go to wfa.com they've got a lot of resources there but really you just got to be prepared have your kit ready know an evacuation strategy if you know of course the storm is directly going to impact where you are and also to stay weather aware we'll keep you posted here on track of the tropics but as far as Venice to the commenter gene uh what do we say right so you know obviously it's less likely that in a place like Venice you would see a direct hit from this it's not out of the realm the possibilities you were on the extreme right hand side of the cone so you're still in the cone in Venice um but but if a storm were to make landfall in Tampa Bay proper Venice would still experience several feet of storm surge if not more than that and that's the unfortunate thing about our Coast it is so susceptible to storm surge there was a storm in 1993 it was the super storm uh which hit the United States and It produced like 20 something inches of snow in Birmingham it wasn't a hurricane obviously it was during the winter time but that wasn't even a hurricane It produced seven feet of storm surge in Pinellas County and about 12 feet of storm surge along the coastline in Hernando County so if a winter storm can produce that much storm surge it goes to show you just how vulnerable our Coast is so even places like Venice you might be a decent distance away from the core of the storm but you're you're not uh totally out of the woods when it comes to storm surge in fact it could be fairly substantial even there let's get to this one from die Jean in the comments section and it reads as follows again I'm trying to pluck them out in real time folks so you can continue to ask these questions and we'll just grab them that Gene hashtag kjb I heard about Andrew before my time that it was devastating or us here in Pinellas okay of course Pinellas being the uh the the West most County really in the Tampa Bay area so Pinellas obviously I mean you're I loved your storm surge graphic I mean that that yeah I can actually so why don't I why don't I just fast forward to that so you can see I had not seen that yet so that's a very that's the perfect way to describe with a 3D model what we're talking about as far as storm surge Pinellas Hillsboro um counties um really if you're in one of those counties or if you're not if you're just in the Tampa Bay area or if you just like learning about weather I think it's this one right here this is the one you're talking about yep okay so let's put this in motion this is Tuesday and we you see the colors those are wave heights it's not storm surge wave heights which are two totally different things but obviously the higher your waves the more roughed up your water is the better chance you have for big storm surge so you can see the waves offshore with the storm are 30 to 40 feet some higher than that actually this is the American model so this is the one that's furthest west the storm surge would be would be worse if this was the European model I was showing but to be on the conservative side right now I'm showing right here yeah I'm showing the American model right so the storm because this has every storm has a counterclockwise flow uh once The Storm Is Passing us and to our North it forces in this Westerly southwesterly wind now the reason why I say we are basically the most vulnerable place to storm surge in the United States is because we have this big Bay which has got this big mouth which can accept all of this water from the Gulf of Mexico and once the water gets in there it gets shoved into a narrower narrower narrower and narrower Cove and essentially all into all the nooks and crannies of the bay it has nowhere to go the water it has to go up it is its only option because it's being forced into the bay it can't it can't evacuate out at least during the time when there's this West or Southwest wind and so you can see the the the the impacts of that and the land mass here right there with St Pete and CNP that is Pinellas County that's Pinellas County on the left but it's not just Pinellas it goes way up into Hillsborough so you know in the Pinellas side it's Saint Pete it's Shore Acres it's it's clear water on on the Eastern side at Safety Harbor at Oldsmar and then Eastward towards downtown Tampa mcdill and Eastward of there from you know from Ybor City down to Gibsonton Apollo Beach Ruskin so on and so forth let's get to the I I've not seen this graphic yet so it's it's obviously it's extremely um I made it just now well that's that's very nicely done very nicely done to my it's my battery made here Jeff beardelli chief meteorologist here WFLA Lindsay wants to know if you can not me I'm not the meteorologist I'm the guy hitting the buttons uh Jeff if you can explain pressure because you noted at the beginning of our live stream and really we were in countdown and you said wow that pressure dropped yeah so can you explain exactly what that means and why that's significant right so this is difficult but I will try to do it the best we can essentially Rising air causes thunderstorms to form Rising air is is what causes clouds and rain so and you can see that when you walk outside in the summertime in Florida right you look up in the sky and it almost looks like the sky is boiling right those cumulus clouds okay so we know that rain forms through Rising air the more Rising air you have the more strong a storm could get it also because of that Rising here and you don't feel it because it's very subtle but it actually pushes the atmosphere upward so it reduces the pressure on your shoulders now high pressure the opposite of that right high pressure crushes the clouds because it's sinking here and if you really were sensitive you could feel the high pressure pushing down on your shoulders so when low pressure when the pressure Falls rapidly and it becomes lower and lower and lower it means you have a rapidly Rising air in the atmosphere and eventually this is what happens storms start to organize around the center you get this rapid fall of pressure in the center of the storm and you end up with this classic hurricane shape this is a simulated satellite this is clouds UH 60 hours into the future basically that's the way that's the way it would look Wednesday afternoon into Wednesday evening which is a very imposing uh view but I show this to you because I want you to understand what we're going to be looking at come Tuesday and Wednesday uh so that we're prepared just in case it decides to take more of a jog to the east and you see there that the bad side that's a very good explanation you can see there the dark Reds that is signifying that the bad side of the storm is again the east side of the storm so clearly the Tampa Bay area on the east side I want to again address our commenters we're getting so many comments about specific towns and while we could spend a lot of time you know talking about specific towns we're not going to be able to help you at this stage in the process of where we are because I mean maybe on a county level we have a better idea as to how Hernando county is going to be versus let's say Sarasota County we have a kind of an inkling there but even then there's so much shifting and nudging wobbling that can exist between now and you know Tuesday Wednesday Thursday so let's again let's remind our audience there's going to be a lot of live streams this week on whatever app website or social media platform that you're watching on right now and as we get closer to Ian's arrival we will have a better ability to be able to answer questions about Pinellas Park about about Hudson about all the towns that I'm seeing in our comment section I'm seeing them I'm not ignoring you it's just because we we have to get to questions that we have the best ability to answer at this stage of where we are uh with Ian uh this one is fascinating though uh cello Bennett wants to know hashtag kjb is it better to be in an apartment on the second floor or to be in a one-story home I'm gonna cheat with my response I'm going to let you respond to this question but I'm going to respond by just saying uh the answer is neither just get away from the storm that's that's the that's the easy way to put it but if you are look if you have to evacuate you have to evacuate and you have to have a plan and you have to make sure that you can get out to an area that is going to be safe for you and your family but as far as the structures go here yeah I mean it's all dependent upon how old the apartment building is do you have shutters um is the home does the home have a new roof is it an old roof is it secured you know so that's all there's no answer to your question other than to be in the most secure structure that you can be during the storm so you know the building will probably be okay as long as it's not right on the water and even if it is right in the water it'd probably be fine but will the apartments be okay uh you know are the windows protected are there shutters these are these are difficult second floor is not very high up um and if you're right on the beach and we get 10 feet of storm surge even the second floor could be potentially have water and it's not out of the question that parts of the Bay Area especially closer to where the core hits could see 10 feet of storm surge it's not that would not even be close to an exaggeration this is why you see so many homes on the beach elevated and you see them their first levels off the ground as much as possible it's for this exact reason and this exact scenario Amanda Grimes hashtag ajb what about flights I'm in Pittsburgh I'm supposed to come for a nursing disaster team well thank you for what you do Amanda we appreciate it as far as flights canceling we're already seeing school cancellations when do we start going to start to see airport impacts Jeff well the airport impacts aren't going to stop aren't going to happen here until Tuesday right with the Airlines and airports decide to do that's beyond you know my understanding uh but we're not going to actually see impacts here until Tuesday you know I have a map actually showing that so let me try to fast forward to it because it tells you kind of exactly what time we expect to see the tropical storm force winds just give me a second or two actually sometimes the easier thing for me to do is just just kind of roll back here so just give me a second everybody yeah and in the meantime right away it's going to be pretty quick I'll stay here with you live folks as Jeff kind of cues up the graphics here okay here we are there you go there it is right there and just back so uh you notice that the onset of tropical storm force winds looks to be Wednesday at 8 A.M around Venice in Sarasota see that Wednesday 8 AM line and then there's the Wednesday 8pm line which has it through places like Newport Richie uh so that's for sustained tropical storm force winds but we would see gusts to Tropical Storm force in southern parts of our area by as early as Tuesday night so things would deteriorate gradually during the day on Tuesday we would begin seeing those squally bands across our area uh later Tuesday into Tuesday night and then the onset of what would be true tropical storm force and potentially eventually hurricane force winds would be during the day on Wednesday from south to North across the bay area this um graphic also brings a question to mind that I will ask because it's important chances it stalls and just freezes in place it's not likely to stop for very long it could slow down as it's trying to redirect its path northward as of right now the models aren't showing a stall they're showing a brief stall a Slowdown until they can start riding north again of course we don't want them to even slow down we'd like it to move as fast as possible but um what's what's going on here JP is um What's Happening Here is this there's this big trough of low pressure in the in the up a big dip in the jet stream around the great lakes and so the storm is feeling that pull but it doesn't make it in time so the storm is moving North the the jet stream is coming by like this the storm feels it starts to move and then the jet stream flies by and leaves it behind and now it's got to try to find its way again I don't know if that was a pretty decent explanation of what's Happening Here and I could show it on graphic too but um you know it's like but but that's not even set in stone yet what I mean by that is maybe we'll catch it right maybe it will move faster that's still possible we've got it oh and one more thing I should mention too sure because there's store uh because there's a lot of wind shear let me show it to you if I haven't showed it yet um we do really think that this is going to be notice how it's a four in the in the southwest uh Southeastern Gulf of Mexico and it hits that wall of red and all of a sudden it becomes a two well let me let me bring this up because I want to bring up this question Brianna is asking hashtag KGB what category is it supposed to be when it hits and makes landfall that that's exactly where I was going so I'm glad thank you for that uh question Brianna so if it hits Sarasota County or Manatee County or anywhere from Tampa Bay South it's going to be a major hurricane probably because it's not going to have time to run into that wall of wind shear that you see up there it's more likely to maintain its major status if it hits north of that north of Newport Richie north of you know Hernando Citrus into Cedar Key or west of that then it's going to dramatically weaken so it's likely not to be a major hurricane anymore it could be a two and it's not out of the question for it to be a one but remember in Katrina Katrina was a five when it was over the water for days and it spun up this tremendous storm surge it's a huge storm in terms of its girth and it was very powerful it brought onshore 28 feet of storm surge because it was so powerful but when it actually made landfills a three it was a very much a weaker hurricane but it takes a lot more time for the storm surge to go down so even though it had weakened so much the storm surge didn't have time to react and it was still CAT5 type storm surge so don't be thrown off guard by oh well it's predicted now to weaken into a two or one so it's not going to be a big deal it's still going to have the storm surge that it built up as a three or four over the Gulf of Mexico let's get to uh this question well let me let me just explain there are people that are now watching this from the Panhandle Jeff yes and are now hearing us talk about things shifting a little bit nudging east right and people are like oh okay so wait is it is it is it not what is going what they they want to know so Danielle is asking Ashley kjb is the panhandle is Tallahassee is it good well those are almost two separate questions because most of the Panhandle obviously is west of Tallahassee Tallahassee uh you're still in in what is pretty close to the center of the cone in fact I can show you that so we'll show you the latest forecast track from the National Hurricane team we're gonna get another one by the way at 11 o'clock and I think they are going to shift it a bit further to the east uh but there is the forecast track and Tallahassee is basically just north of Saint Mark's just right around that area so you're pretty close to the center there however Panama City are now on the Fairly pretty far western side of this of this cone and Pensacola you're out of the out of the cone doesn't mean you're not going to experience weather the storm is Big right so it you know if it goes straight down the middle you know hundreds of miles on either side of the center of the storm you still experience tropical storm Force gusts at least but so Tallahassee not out of the woods um no one really out of the woods necessarily but he's coming less likely that this storm is headed towards let's say Pensacola let's get to this one from hey can you bring up the spaghettis can you bring the spaghetti for a second I can do anything because this question comes up every every uh maybe once or twice a hurricane season and I want to explain this to our audience uh uh Joni's asking hashtag hey Jeff uh why are those two models uh Way Out West and I don't know if you can see it on or can you see it on this graphic but there's two outlier models maybe put it full so we can yeah let's let's go full oh you're talking about the the one the one the bottom left yes that go all the way over the Yucatan I you know I'd have to look to see why they are such those are the um Canadian versions of the Canadian it's not every Canadian though you see it's a c e m n and then c-e-m-i and then there's then if you look in the middle of the track there's another cmci they're just different versions of it um and some of them are just older versions of of a Canadian model but the one I want you to concentrate on right here is the tvcn track and it's hard to see here but um look at the Orange that's the consensus of the models got it so that is that's the consensus that's the average and if you notice that yes the average of the averages yeah and you know I have a one more graphic which I think maybe the it's the next one so this is really going to help you to see the difference can you put this full JB and I can certainly okay all right so that yesterday and when everybody was kind of celebrating this shift to the west and I'll tell you I was very skeptical of it for sure it didn't make any sense um you can see those are basically all the models we call this a super Ensemble so it's basically all the models now the models are in the the darker Shades that you know the the bigger the thicker lines and then all their ensembles so all the the children of these these models are in the the more narrow uh lines the thinner lines you'll notice the heat map there if you look at where the green and yellow shading is yesterday it's just south of Panama City West of Tampa right so it's pretty far out in the Gulf of Mexico then if you look on the right side today's models and this was earlier today not even these ones that are coming out now uh you can clearly see that the heat is shifted very close to the Tampa Bay area and south of Saint Marks so JB can you see that that shift is it apparent to you because it is to me it's a lot of stuff I know but and you can also see that today's models are in closer consensus whereas yesterday it was spread a little bit more and you can tell that by the blue the blue circle the blue kind of oval around it how wide it was yesterday and how less wide it is today um so it shows a meeting of the minds if you will and it also shows a a shift to the east where the Heat you know those brighter yellows are closer to uh the West Coast interesting yeah very interesting uh again and spaghetti models give us data that help us form a consensus and also shows too how the models are in agreement and how they're not in agreement where exactly they're disagreeing and usually they are agreeing for a certain point and then they begin to Fan out that's usually how it goes you know you know Jasmine uh this is just we don't we don't really talk about the we're always looking ahead and we're talking about the current moment right now Jasmine I would love to report that the uh the tropical storm Ian is you know somewhere on the moon it is not unfortunately it is south of Cuba right now let me ask you this question as we take Jasmine's question as to where Ian is right now has the turn begun well it's it's moving Northwest it's going to move more North so yes it's it's already starting you can see you can see the past history of it right it was moving west south of Jamaica that's Jamaica that little island up there and then today uh you know a while ago several hours ago it started to quickly move uh northward North northwestward really not northward yet but the next step is that it's going to move more North Northwest and then eventually northward so yes um the answer is the the the turn has begun and that's where it's located right now you know I somebody did ask if it's possible to be a hurricane at 11. I'm going to say probably not but I don't think we can rule it out considering how fast the pressure is dropped so it's it's not out of the realm of possibility it's an inevitability it's going to be hurricane Ian whether it's tonight tomorrow morning lunchtime tomorrow it's just it's gonna change to a hurricane and that just because the wind speeds have gone up to category one status on the staffer Simpson scale that's just the the way that it works folks and we knew this for eight days right JB I mean we've been talking about this for literally it's amazing to think that our technology has come so far that we could tell you with great confidence that we were going to have a hurricane and a strong one in the Gulf of Mexico in the early part of this week and sure enough fast forward eight now sometimes we tell you we just don't know we're not sure where this is going to go we don't know if it's going to be a threat this time we knew with great confidence so that we started ringing the alarm Bells literally a week ago if you've been following us we've been talking about this for a while and without hesitation on our part because this was very well agreed upon and forecast by the models and by the way there was nothing there there was no there there you couldn't even find the clouds associated was going to become this disturbance which was going to become this hurricane and yet we were able to see this 10 days ahead of time yeah yeah the models amazing the models were giving us hints very very very very strong hints yeah very strong hints as to what was going to happen in in the future um let's get this one in here Kim has been very patient hashtag ajb do we need to worry about driving tomorrow no absolutely not Yeah tomorrow's fine and even the beginning of even Tuesday I would say the first half of the day you're fine how about this one from Shelby even the end of the hashtag hey Jeff let's talk about this again the geographical size of a storm is important so and it's not very small right now it's very small right now it's compact right right but it gets bigger as time goes on so how big okay well so this is well you know it just depends on how on which model you believe right but uh let's see if we can make this good no but that's actually I don't I don't know this yet so the the GFS has it which model has it getting bigger the Jesus and the reason why it has getting larger because it stays over the water for a longer period of time so that so so much of that is is controlled by by how long it's it's over the water now of course the GFS is now closer to the coast and because of that um it it has a little bit less time to to get stronger but it comes on Shore before it hits or comes close to the coast before it hits uh all that windshire in the northern Gulf so it could come closer to us a little bit stronger but in answer to your question it's it's it's it's we're uncertain as to how big the storm is going to be it's not going to be the size of Katrina it's likely not going to be as small as Charlie so I I don't know if you can remember storms and how big they are but uh Charlie was a teeny tiny storm which packed a wall up in near its Center but didn't do much outside of like 30 or 40 miles uh this storm is going to be bigger than Charlie but um but not not a monster like Katrina was let's um just kind of reset here for our audience and your hurricane head Corners we are going to do another 10 minutes roughly 10 minutes that work for you yeah you got 10 minutes answering your questions and our meteorologist q a powered by handyman Roofing here from your hurricane headquarters we're live at WFLA News Channel 8 with Max Defender 8 chief meteorologist Jeff beardelli joining us in the Stream Center to break down everything that we know about tropical storm Ian and to answer your questions live we're going to continue to do so uh for the next 10 minutes I want to talk to our audience about where I'm getting these questions from we are live on a lot of different Facebook pages uh but because it's Sunday night we don't have an army of people in The Newsroom they're getting some well-deserved rests ahead of what's to come I am just focused in tonight on the WFLA Facebook page so if you're on other Facebook pages and you're frustrated hey why hasn't JB taken my question yet if it's not on the WFLA Facebook page um I'm just hyper focused on that page right now uh just trying to get as many questions on screen as possible and will do so next with John hashtag ajb when should I decide when to put up shutters in the old Mars that's a great question yep it's a great question uh we get that question so often yep and it's the perfect question you should be thinking about that the answer to the question is you should definitely not be thinking about it until we kind of you know kind of we pulled the trigger uh I would say it depends on what kind of shutters you have I I used to own an old house and when I lived in Palm Beach West Palm Beach and I used to have to put the shut up shutters up manually on a ladder because it was an old old house and I had to if you have automatic it works it's work if you have automatic shutters you can do that what in less than an hour right so I would wait longer if you have shutters that you have to put up one by one by one with a ladder then you have to give serious consideration to trying to do that later tomorrow okay but I would not pull the trigger until you hear from me or one of the people on my weather team that you should be doing it because you don't want to waste your time on it and it really depends on where you're you're an Oldsmar so old's Mars near the water and it's also close to the coast not that far away so you might want to think about it uh starting tomorrow if you if it still looks like this is heading in our in our general direction especially if it decides to take that European model track um but again it really depends upon what kind of shutters you have oh Chuck I see your comment I'm adding this comment to the queue I have a lot of comments coming up in the cube but let's just talk about some other air let's really briefly Jeff just we've been talking so much about Tampa Bay yeah we know there are other commenters and we mentioned the Panhandle but let's talk about two other sections of the state I'll just get this out of the way Miami isn't necessarily in the forecast cone right now South Florida looks to be okay but other areas let's let's start with this one from Shanna hashtag ajb what about Northeast Florida what about what about Jacksonville I mean if that if it hugs East and goes across the peninsula Jacksonville could see impacts right next weekend and it would be probably tropical storm force winds um it would be a weakening storm when it gets to your area um and I don't Envision it being a huge impact in terms of wind but that doesn't mean you be out of the woods in terms of uh tornadoes or heavy rain um I saw uh one of the let me just let me show you this this is more for the Tampa Bay area but the reason why I'm going to show you it is because I want to show you what the potential is if it were to make a direct uh impact here I'll go full screen here okay it's going to take me a second to find it ah here it is okay so this is to give you an idea of how much rain is possible and this is the European model which is much closer to the coast right it's it's actually makes landfall in Tampa so where you see the the pink shading that's 16 plus inches of rain again this would be if it takes a direct path into or very close to a Pinellas County and and our Coastline same thing on the Nature Coast up to 16 inches of rain just offshore that's 20 to 24 plus inches of rain um again so you're asking how much rain's going to be in Jacksonville well you can clearly see from this map right here that it's at least seven plus inches about as far north as you can see there so yeah I mean rainfall could be a problem for you isolated tornado is always a problem on the Eastern side I'd be a little less worried about uh damaging winds uh in Jacksonville but yes power outages of course trees down yes of course it's possible there but it's it's a lot less of a worry for Jacksonville a lot more of a worry for the West Coast let's um I see Vanessa's comment we're gonna and add this one to the queue um let's but let's get to another section of the state let's get to Sophie uh hashtag ajb will the storm go through Orlando or is there a chance it goes through Orlando there is some chance there is some chance the latest European model and even the American model shows it moving Northeast the European model actually shows that making landfall in the Tampa Bay area and then curving directly north and just kind of like paralleling US 19 up uh up on the Nature Coast is basically what it shows maybe just further Inland than that maybe the Suncoast so the models have kind of shied away from showing it cutting straight across like Charlie did so at the moment at least it seems more likely that it would take more of a Northerly track if it would have come on short that doesn't mean we can rule out Orlando but it seems more likely to be north of of Orlando but again that that could that genuinely could change and we remember Hurricane Charlie to the last minute looked like it was coming through the Tampa Bay area and then all it did was shift its angle a couple of degrees and it took it took it South 50 miles and that that's that's the way that our coastline is set up all you have to do is just all it has to be is a slight shift like that and all of a sudden it's a completely different part of the custom that's why those wobbles can be extremely important to monitor uh Billy uh hashtag JB when will we start feeling the impact uh in Tampa now of course the worst of the storm is close to the eye but those outer bands the earliest that we're going to start to see gray skies and rain start tomato Tuesday but this graphic actually the one that's up right now shows the arrival of tropical storm Force wins because Wednesday morning Manatee County Sarasota County and it's Wednesday evening on the nature coasts which means it's Wednesday afternoon this would be kind of solid tropical storm force winds not just those you know infrequent gusts that you know you get a Squall that comes by you get a gust and then you're okay for three hours this is more The prominent you know robust and and sustained tropical storm force winds uh would get into the southern part of the Bay Area Wednesday morning northern part of the Bay Area Wednesday afternoon and evening then let's just then get to the This Again Vanessa when can we expect the worst of this storm to hit us now look speed of the system can still change and we'll and likely will change there's going to be some shift as far as the storm's arrival but right now the worst Tampa Bay is what it exactly the worst of it looks to be on I'd say Wednesday starting in the afternoon through Wednesday night okay okay um we've got another couple of comments I'm gonna I'm gonna put you on the spot here for a second put you on the spot for a minute sure yeah Jeff's cool we're gonna put Jeff on the spot a little bit with our with Shea and KK uh Shea hash the kjb from the start of Ian which model has been the most accurate and then we're gonna go from Shea dude I'm not kidding it's KK hashtag kjb hashtag HF which model would you say is the most accurate so yes putting on the spot GFS Euro what are we talking about uh the euro Euro has been the most accurate the Euro showed kind of slower development today and I don't think anyone really believed it everybody was kind of like why is the European model so weak for so long why isn't it showing rapid intensification right away turned out it was right what happened was is it needed to reorganize itself we knew that conditions were perfect for it to develop it should have happened yet last night or this morning we should have seen it intensifying much quicker much earlier uh that's what most people thought meteorologists um it seemed a little curious as to why the European model was so slow in developing it well the European model turned out to be right and as a result of that partly the storm is going further east which is I think why the other models are starting to react to what the European model's been saying for so long so it's not only a function of the steering in in the Great Lakes and and in the eastern part of the country it's a function of the inner workings and inner mechanics of the storms organization and and and and what kind of wins it follows right if a storm is weak then the thunderstorms are not very high in the atmosphere so it gets steered by the low-level winds once when the storm gets really strong it Taps into the upper levels where the winds from a different direction well the European got it right said no this is not going to be a fast developing storm today so because of that um it's going to go further east and that's exactly what uh has been happening I'm getting a t-shirt that says trust the Euro I'm just gonna get that t-shirt I think we need the T-shirt years ago you would have been right 99 of the time but uh lately the the American models giving it a run for its money although so far In This Storm the uh the European's been better we don't know maybe that won't continue another few minutes here on track in the tropics our Sunday night Edition powered by handyman Roofing Amanda hashtag hey Jeff should I cut down my trees in the front yard well I don't know where you are Amanda uh but I would say that if you think you're going to be in a path of the storm maybe a good idea if you can do it uh and safely do it before it starts getting windy obviously and if you can do it safely it might be a good idea may not be easy to get tree pruning tomorrow considering everybody else is going to be trying to do the same thing um but uh but if you can do it and you can do it safely I would say it might not be a bad idea if you think you're going to be near the strong winds I love how sometimes we get words of wisdom not even just the question just words of wisdom from I can just tell Floridians who have been through storms before in our comment section we've got June and Moss hashtag Hey JB I want to know if you agree with with June and here Jeff she says storms like these are such a game of endurance weight and yeah I gotta just so I I was in South Florida uh as a as a chief meteorologist uh many years ago when uh both Matthew hit and when um Irma hit and both of those times uh it looked like the the center of the cone was pointed directly at Miami directly at Fort Lauderdale directly at West Palm Beach and what a disaster that would have been and I have to tell you even as as a meteorologist and I you know uh someone one of my fellow meteorologists used to call me catatonic in terms of my uh emotions because I'm not a very emotional person so I don't get worried but I will tell you when I saw those two storms pointed directly at I-95 and right up the coast it was a little scary there but lo and behold at the last minute within 24 to 48 hours the storm veered off in a different direction so what I always say is and I but I felt better about it because I prepared ahead of time my wife knew what she was supposed to do we have what we needed to have ready in case we needed to go and then I felt better about the situation and yes it veered off and it's annoying to get all your stuff together and spend all that money and all that time but in the end it's better because if in fact it does come your way you're ready to go you know so that's important yeah yeah that's very very interesting I I think that this is a good opportunity for us then to talk about how important it is to especially especially for new Floridians and or new the folks that are new to the Tampa Bay area to not be panicking to to not be highly stressed because it's important to stay to be prepared and to be weather aware but being you want to be in the right frame of mind and you want to be um you want to be the better that you are up here the more safe that you and your family are going to be so it's so important that we're reminding our audience that while it's important to stay prepared and it's important to stay weather aware it's also important to just not panic when a storm is I mean the storm is still south of Cuba at this point but even if it comes directly at us one thing I can promise you is you're going to be fine as long as you listen to me and as long as you listen to us you're going to be just fine um you're going to be safe and as long as you take the precautions you need to it's as simple as that it really is where I worry just a little bit more is what happens afterward right because it becomes really inconvenient and really stressful when some people are without power for days if not weeks and I can tell you that on a track um that some of the bottles are painting for us we some of us could be without power for days or weeks right so it's a little early to know who's gonna who's gonna be and if it's really gonna be weeks or days but that's to me the toughest thing so you need to have the supplies you need to get through a week the water you need the first aid that you need the food that you need because it may because if truly it is a direct hit power lines are down trees are down it's hard to get places you don't have power you may not have water that you will likely have water but you may not you may have water that you need to boil you may not be able to boil it like it's right it becomes complicated in many ways um you may not have air conditioning um so what I say is you're going to be just fine if you just listen to what I say and what we say here at WFLA you're going to be okay it's it's it's what happens afterward and trying to and invite it was the viewer that just said endurance it's not just endurance up to the storm it's especially endurance after the storm and let me as we're talking about after the storm it's important to remind our audience that things have changed technology wise over the decades and you can stay connected if you lose power because if you have mobile batteries and you're able to get a cellular signal you can watch us here on tracking the tropics and we don't just after a storm is done we don't we don't just you know pack it up and go home we stay with you live to talk about things like where supplies might be and where you can go and when you could expect power back in certain areas of the you know impact area so it's important that you have your phone charged that you also of course have your mobile batteries charged because we will be here with you in the palm of your hand you might not have access to broadcast television you might not have access to WFLA but you have access to us here in the palm of your hand

Channel: WFLA News Channel 8

Views: 510,028

Keywords: wflatampa, wflanews, wflatampanews

Id: QVS9V_o6lso

Length: 55min 7sec (3307 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 26 2022