Along the Gulf Coast

The track of TS Fay has come into somewhat better focus over the last day. There remains a fair bit of uncertainty, but for now it appears the threat to our neck of the swamp is a little less compared to this time yesterday.

At 8 AM Sunday, Fay was a tropical storm with max winds of 50 MPH located along the southern coast of Cuba. Movement is to the west-northwest at 13 MPH. Aircraft are sampling the storm, but since the center is rather close to land, sampling the center is difficult.

The forecast calls for Fay to slow its forward speed and begin a turn toward the northwest during the day today as the western flank of the high pressure ridge to the north (over FL) erodes. Obviously where this turn begins has implications for Florida. The current NHC forecast has the turn occurring such that Fay essentially crosses Key West. An earlier or sharper turn brings the storm closer to us, however on this track Fay would spend less time over water, so a relatively weaker storm would result. If the turn occurs farther west, the track would also be farther west, but Fay would probably be a stronger storm resulting from more time over water.

The forecast model solution envelope does have some reliable models tracking Fay along the eastern side of Florida. Keep in mind that the typical track errors for these models make a rather large difference as to whether the storm heads up the eastern or western side of the state. There are some models that are also west of the official forecast, and we've got a couple "ghost of Charlie" solutions moving Fay northeast across the state, entering around Ft Myers and exiting north of Daytona. Fay is expected to be weaker than Charlie, so while the tracks might end up similar, the impacts of Fay should be less. The official forecast has Fay turning soon, so we should have an idea sometime today how the forecast is evolving.

Watches and warnings have been issued for Florida this morning. Mandatory evacuation of visitors from the Keys begins this morning. On the east coast, TS watches are in effect as far north as Jupiter. As time goes on, these will likely be extended north into our area, however the type of warning remains an open question. If a hurricane warning is issued for this area, you can expect all of the typical actions (evacuations, causeway and school closings). If Fay follows the forecast, I'm not sure a hurricane warning will be needed, however, with the unexpected right-turn of Charley relatively fresh in everyone's mind, I expect one will be issued following the "better safe than sorry" paradigm. Of course, if that Charlie-like across the state track (in near Ft Myers, out at Daytona) verifies, then those warnings would be more likely.