Sunday, October 9, 2011

Hopefully Drier

What a wild Saturday! I received calls, e-mails, tweets, and facebook posts wondering if we had a hurricane over us. The answer was no, but with the torrential rainfall, the howling winds, and the rough seas... it sure felt like it.

Sunday should be drier, but any little rainfall will  be quick to flood streets since the ground is already saturated from yesterday's rain. NWS has several advisories in place.

  • FLOOD WATCH PALM BEACH, BROWARD, MIAMI DADE COUNTIES UNTIL 8 PM
  • HAZARDOUS MARINE CONDITIONS, STRONG RIPS AND ROUGH SURF ATLANTIC BEACHES.

Back to the rain. Many areas in South Florida received more rain in two days than we get in one month!
Here are some impressive rainfall totals from Midnight Thursday to Midnight Saturday.


City and amount
W. Kendall                    9.22"
Princeton                      8.62"
Homestead                   7.23"
Homestead AFB            5.80"
Miami Int'l Airport           5.78"
Hollywood                     5.36"
Sweetwater                   5.05"

Many areas received up to five inches. Of course
this heavy rain lead to street flooding all across South Florida.

Will we see more today? The answer is yes, but not as much.


The image below shows us where we can find the most water vapor in the atmosphere. You will notice a comma-shaped cloud pattern over Florida, the area over the Bahamas may be an area of low pressure forming. This should, and I say should, push most of the rain north over the Bahamas and into Central and Northern Florida. The wind should also not be as strong.

Regardless, any little rain that comes over us will be sure to cause street flooding.


So what is NHC saying about the area of disturbed weather over us?

They say that the pressure is slowly falling, and very little change in organization has taken place over the last 24 hours. It should move northwest over the next 2 days between 5-10 mph. NHC is giving it a 30% chance (up from 20% on Saturday) of becoming a tropical or subtropical system.

This means we could still see a chance of rain through Monday, by then most of the rainfall should aim for Georgia.

3 comments:

  1. WOW!!!.....SO WHAT IS THE TOTAL FOR THE LAKE (OKIE) IN WHICH THEY ALWAYS SAY IS TOO LOW. AND THAT IS WHEN THEY TELL US TOO CONSERVE WATER.

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  2. The lake is around 11 feet, the average is around 13 for this time of year. You must remember, the Lake is our secondary source of water, our primary being the Biscayne Aquifer. The problem is, if our source gets too low, sea water contaminates it. To prevent that, Lake Water is pumped in to keep the salt water out. Everything is connected and we should always conserve as best we can.

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  3. There will NEVER be a time when South Florida will not have to conserve water, we have grown in population to exceed the capacities of our natural systems to recover. I have seen estimates as high as 200% over population in South Florida against the natural resources available. Water is just the first resource to show signs of fatigue. We will always need to conserve.

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