Hurricane Ike Threatens South Florida
The latest five-day forecast from the National Hurricane Center takes Hurricane Ike directly into South Florida. Ike is currently a Cat 4 hurricane with winds of 135 mph. A major hurricane hitting South Florida will be an extremely costly storm. It would also require a massive evacuation from South Florida to save lives. We saw a similar mass exodus from Florida in 1999 when Florida residents fled Hurricane Floyd. Fortunately, the five-day forecast is subject to large errors as the NHC expains in the latest Hurricane Ike discussion.
hereafter…Ike is forecast to approach the western
periphery of the ridge and begin to turn west-northwestward. The
big question is when will the turn take place. The track guidance
is in two distinct branches…the GFS…NOGAPS…and UKMET show the
turn occurring over the Bahamas….while the HWRF…GFDL…and
ECMWF take Ike over Cuba or The Straits of Florida. Until it
become clear as to which one of these solutions will prevail…
the official forecast remains between them…close to the
model consensus and the previous advisory.
As a reminder…4 and 5 day forecasts are subject to potentially
large errors in both track and intensity.
If you are tracking Hurricane Ike you can find some local Florida coverage of the storm threat at Sun-Sentinel, Orlando Sentinel, Ken Kaye’s Storm Center, Palm Beach Post, Miami Herald, Local10, CBS4, NBC6 and WSVN.
Permalink | Recent Headlines | News Feeds
