|
Hurricane Michelle menaces Florida
The storm's northward track may take it into South Florida. But a "trough'' of low pressure could nudge it farther east.
 |
[NASA/AP photo]
This is a satellite image taken at 10:59 p.m. Friday, showing Hurricane Michelle. The storm 1killed eight people and forced thousands from their homes in Honduras, Nicaragua and Jamaica. |
By DAVID BALLINGRUD
© St. Petersburg Times,
published November 3, 2001
Hurricane Michelle is growing more powerful by the hour and is closing in on Cuba and Florida.
To make a direct landfall in the Sunshine State, however, Michelle will have to dodge a push to the east by a low-pressure system approaching from Texas.
It's a race, of sorts, and the stakes are high in South Florida, where strong winds and heavy rains could be felt as early as Monday.
Billy Wagner, emergency management director in the Florida Keys, said state campgrounds in the Keys will be closed at noon today, and that he will decide soon whether to fully or partly evacuate the low-lying island chain. At 10 p.m. Friday, Michelle's well-formed eye was near 18.8 degrees N latitude and 84.0 degrees W longitude, or about 220 miles south-southwest of the western tip of Cuba. It was moving slowly northward at about 6 mph. It had sustained winds near 110 mph and was expected to strengthen into a major hurricane later Friday night.
Relying on a cluster of sophisticated computer models, which consider everything from current weather conditions to historical patterns, forecasters say they are confident Michelle will follow a generally northward track through today, then turn to the east.
Exactly when it will turn, and how sharply it will turn, are less certain, however.
One computer model brings the storm's center on a northward track into South Florida. Another turns the storm sharply to the east, across central Cuba.
The Hurricane Center's official forecast splits the difference, showing the storm's center passing through the Straits of Florida on a northeasterly track, missing the U.S. mainland but still threatening it with high winds and rain.
Michelle is expected to dump between 3 and 6 inches of rain on the southern portion of the state, but up to 24 inches could fall under the most extreme predictions, forecasters said. Flooding would be a problem because of the heavy rains some areas received throughout the summer.
Michelle will make her turn to the east with the arrival of a "trough" of low pressure moving through the Gulf of Mexico, pushing counter-clockwise-moving winds before it. It is these winds that will nudge Michelle to the east. The models disagree only on how strong the nudge will be, or how quickly and how much the storm will turn.
"The difference is subtle," said hurricane specialist James Franklin, ". . . yet it could make all the difference in the world" in South Florida.
"We're watching that trough carefully," said Richard Knabb, the science and operations officer for the National Hurricane Center.
Special balloons carrying weather instruments are being launched four times a day above the Gulf of Mexico, he said, to track the movement of the trough.
"By Sunday it should be well on its way across the gulf, and we will have a much better handle on how it will affect Michelle," Knabb said.
Through the summer, most storms are born as waves of heat energy moving off the coast of Africa. As they cross the Atlantic, they evolve into tropical depressions, then storms, sometimes hurricanes. But as the cooler weather of autumn arrives, tropical storms suddenly start appearing on Florida's doorstep: the western Caribbean Sea or the Gulf of Mexico. The time to prepare shrinks dramatically.
Though the computer models do not show Michelle heading toward the Tampa Bay area, it would be a mistake to ignore it, said Knabb.
"Our advice for people in the central part of the state is to pay attention to this storm. Don't go away for the weekend someplace and forget about it."
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush canceled a weeklong trade mission to Spain. "This is a severe storm," he said. "It is strengthening as we speak. All indications are that we need to be prepared. The first effort needs to be done by individual Floridians."
In Miami-Dade County, Emergency Operations Director Chuck Lanza said flooding is likely even though pumps have been at work for days sending water from the area's numerous drainage canals into the sea.
"Any rain event right now in this community, with the levels of water where they are, would be a significant event," Lanza said.
As Michelle turns its attention to Cuba, the U.S. and the Bahamas, it leaves Central America digging out from five days of rains that killed 12 people in the region, left 26 missing and forced more than 115,000 to flee their homes.
Rescuers finally reached tens of thousands left homeless by floods in Honduras, but the storm threatened similar flooding in Jamaica, Cuba and the Cayman Islands.
- Information from Times staff writer Alisa Ulferts and Times wires was used in this report.
Related stories
|
