Archive for May 27th, 2012
Beryl About to Move Inland
Tropical Storm Beryl is about to make landfall near Jacksonville at this hour.
Top winds are 70 mph, but the system will slowly lose strength over the next 24 hours, weakening to a tropical depression by Monday evening.
Winds recently gusted to 68 mph near Jacksonville Beach.
The central pressure is 993 mb.
Beryl will bring heavy rain to South Carolina, southern Georgia and Northeast Florida. Rain totals may push 4-8 inches in spots.
There could be a couple of tornadoes overnight to the east of the track.
Surge will be 2-4 feet near and right of landfall. Rip currents will be a problem northward to North Carolina.
Some of the storms around the periphery of Beryl will work into Southeast Alabama tomorrow, but will stay well south of Central Alabama.
The trough that will bring storms to Alabama Tuesday will turn Beryl to the northeast and it will exit back into the Atlantic late Tuesday.
Beryl Edging onto the Florida Coast
Just after 9 pm CDT, Tropical Storm Beryl was edging onto the Northeast Florida coast just east-southeast of Jacksonsville, FL. The Jacksonville NWS radar showed the western edge of the storm moving ashore in the vicinity of the communities of Atlantic Beach, Neptune Beach, Jacksonville Beach, Palm Valley, and Sawgrass.
Some wind and pressure observations from along that section of Florida included the following:
MAYPORT NAS NE40G54 29.51 JACKSONVILLE N29G41 29.63F JAX NAS NW36G60 29.58F JAX CRAIG N30G45 29.53F JAX CECIL NW26G36 29.67F ST AUGUSTINE W24G40 29.49F
Radar estimates of rainfall with the storm so far were in the 3 to 4 inch range in a narrow band southwest of Jacksonville or west of Palatka, FL.
-Brian-
Beryl Now Fully Tropical, Will Cross Coast This Evening
Beryl has gotten better organized, and the National Hurricane Center thinks it has become completely tropical this afternoon, with a warm core. The storm is a little stronger, with top winds of 65 mph, and it could flirt with hurricane intensity (74 mph) before making landfall about 10 p.m. CDT tonight.
The storm is moving west at 10 mph. It is expected to move slowly west northwest overnight. By 7 p.m. tomorrow night, it will be weakening to a tropical depression and will be located midway between Tallahassee and Jacksonville. By then, it will be moving northwest, turning sharply northeast late Monday night ahead of the approaching trough. It will exit the coast near Charleston Tuesday night and could become a tropical storm again on Wednesday as it swipes past Cape Hatteras heading out to open sea.
IMPACTS
Wind: Winds are gusting to tropical storm force now along the coast of Northeast Florida from Daytona to Jacksonville. They will become sustained tropical storm force (39 mph or higher) at times over Southeast Georgia and Northeast Florida as far north as Brunswick and south to near Cape Canaveral.
Rain: 2-4 inches of rain generally along the NE Florida, Georgia and South Carolina coastal areas with 4-8 inch max amounts, generally between Daytona and Savannah.
Tides: 2-4 feet near and north of the landfall point over NE Florida and Georgia, with 1-2 feet into South Carolina. Rip currents are a problem north to North Carolina.
Tornadoes: There is a small chance of tornadoes from Jacksonville to just south of Savannah this evening.
OBSERVATIONS
Here are some observations from Florida:
South Carolina/Georgia observations:
Beryl Showing on Coastal Radar
Just perusing weather radars along the Southeast US coast and Beryl is clearly visible on the NWS radar from Jacksonville, FL. Motion appears to be westward around 10 mph which should bring the center of Beryl into the Northeast Florida coast in the vicinity of Jacksonville later this evening. As you can see in the image below, the outer feeder bands have reached the coastline. Looks like a wet Memorial Day for Southeast Georgia and North Florida with rainfall of 4 to 6inches possible in that area.
Satellite imagery indicated that clouds streaming outward from Beryl had moved about two-thirds of the way across Georgia. Still appears likely that the storm will stall over South Central Georgia before turning back toward the east-northeast on Monday.
-Brian-
“We’ve Been Hit”
Image courtesy of John Brasher, who maintains an excellent blog on the tornado.
May 27, 1973 is a red letter day in Alabama weather history. A late season rash of severe weather impacted Alabama in several waves on that Memorial Day weekend Sunday. An F5 tornado struck the town of Brent during the evening, killing 7 people. This tornado was on the ground for 135 miles, one of the longest tornado tracks in Alabama history. Another tornado killed one man in the northeastern part of Birmingham.
I wrote a 3,500 word story about the Brent Tornado on the MyWARN website. I put it over that because of its length (3,500 words). I think you will enjoy it.
