We told you it's a team effort, right?
So we've got some help with
our meteorological team here.
Grace Thornton in from Austin, TX,
also tracking Hurricane Edalia,
Good morning to you. Welcome.
And what are we tracking at this hour? Grace,
Good morning, everyone.
We are taking a look at some current wind
reports from the National Weather Service.
You can see that most of these
are trending anywhere from the
lower 40s to the upper 40s,
but we have already seen some wind
gusts upwards of 50 and nearing
around 60 mph around the area.
You know, since we've been tracking
winds all day today and even through what
will be going into the night tonight,
here's a look at what we can see for
peak wind gusts all throughout the day.
Today you can see Saint Petersburg at
53 mph and we're going to continue
to track those winds over the next
several hours because what's really
interesting about this forecast or
what we're kind of waiting for in
this forecast is that wind shift that
will be increasing our chances for
storm surge over the next couple of
hours well into our Wednesday morning.
So we can see right now current
winds Saint Petersburg,
you can actually kind of see that shift
kind of start with these winds as we
head through the next several hours
that is going to be much more obvious.
You can see wind gusts over the next
12 hours here on our Saint Pete,
kind of the next couple hours here.
You can see that as we head towards
the 4:00 AM and 6:00 AM hours,
even through 8:00 AM,
that's when that wind shift is
going to start and you will see that
actually our winds look like they're,
you know,
slowing down a little bit and they
will be a little bit.
There's going to be some gusts in there,
you know,
within 50 mile per hour ranges as well.
And technically a tropical storm
force wind is above 39 mph.
So we will be within that range.
And when that wind shift happens is when
we're going to be seeing that storm surge.
So the main thing for the storm surge
or kind of the greatest intensity
of it is going to be up towards that
Big Bend area and the nature coast.
So this area actually hasn't seen
a hurricane like this or what
will be a landfalling hurricane,
either category three or category
4IN since 1950.
We've been looking back,
or at least I have since I've
been here tonight.
The last time Cedar Key or an area like
this really saw something move through.
The area,
especially towards the Panhandle,
was likely Hurricane Michael,
which was just a few years ago in 2018.
I spent the past two years in
Panama City Beach.
Now you're still dealing with tons of fallout
from that storm just so many years ago.
Here's a look at storm surge kind
of down towards that Cedar Key area.
That's kind of been a buzzword.
I feel like we're a buzz place
or location that a lot of people
have been talking about,
especially on social media
for a potential landfall.
But as we have updated you guys tonight,
that shift in the forecast models
has actually gone a little bit West.
And then as we kind of shift
back down towards our DMA or our
viewing area for 10 Tampa Bay,
the Crystal River River area is what
kind of stands out for an area closest
to to Tampa that will be dealing
with significant and potentially
life threatening storm surge.
So you can see Palm St.
Dixie Shores Dr.
and well in inland you can see anywhere
from 6 + 9 plus you'll have to go all
the way through North Meadowcrest Blvd.
To be out of that storm surge threat,
here we are, you know,
kind of gaining on the South.
You can see that, you know,
we're not seeing much in the way of at
least a storm surge forecast for our area.
There are going to be pockets though,
especially for the Saint Petersburg
as well as the Tampa area
along the immediate coastline,
anywhere from one to three,
maybe even more feet than that.
They are possible and also it's
possible that we could even build
on those feet because of the king
tides that we are experiencing,
seeing it tonight to do to
the blue full moon,
we've already seen a full moon
earlier this August and this is
our second one of the month as
we gear towards September here.
So peak storm surge,
let's just go back over this once again.
So the Tampa area 4 to 6 and even
6 to 9 for those northern areas
towards Citrus County and then
increasing as we head towards
that Big Bend area right there.
So zooming in 6 to 9,
four to six and we're continuing to track a
category 2 storm inching on category three.
We have seen the NOAA,
Hurricane Hunters,
those reckons missions that they go
out on every day pretty much when
we're tracking a storm like this,
they went out there,
you know just a few hours ago,
reported back near category three,
definitely category 3 pressure,
but the winds have not gotten there just yet.
We're still tracking 110 mile per hour winds.
We're looking for 111.
I know that's just one mile per hour shy.
However,
that also counts as we kind of
head towards the night tonight.
Wednesday morning is when we're
looking for that landfall.
That could potentially be a category
four as we're still tracking
that rapid intensification that
we've been seeing all day today.
As we head through the next
several days though,
this will continue to track across
the Georgia area and then up
through South Carolina and even
clipping the southern parts of North
Carolina and then heading out to
the Southern Atlantic once again.
I'm going to leave you with
a current loop of the radar.
You can see that the eye of the
storm is actually just sitting
really almost parallel and now
even north of the Tampa Bay area,
but continues to spin well
offshore of our area.
So right now, we're continuing to
track rainfall across the area and
continuing to track the potential for
any of the tornado issues that could
be spinning up within those rain bands.
We'll send it back to you guys. All
right. Thanks so much.
As we're tracking this storm this morning.
Again, that is Grace Thornton who's
joining us to help us track this
storm from her sister station in.
Yes, sure does.
We've had our meteorologist around
the clock tracking this storm for you.