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August 20, 2008

Fay stalls, drowns Florida

Greg Kahn/Naples Daily News

You can say what you want about the way the news media hype tropical systems that never really grow into "dangerous" hurricanes. But Fay is a good example of why we can't afford to ignore the little storms.

Although it never achieved hurricane status, slow-moving Tropical Storm Fay is dropping a tremendous amount of rain on the state of Florida. She has already caused at least one death in the state, sparked tornadoes, caused severe flooding and produced record rains. And there's more to come. 

I just checked Cocoa Beach, just south of the Kennedy Space Center. I count more than 21 inches of rain since Tuesday morning. I don't care where you are, or how well you think you can handle a "small" storm like this one - 21 inches of rain is dangerous and capable of causing tremendous damage. Add winds of TS strength and you're going to wish you lived somewhere else.

Agnes (in 1972) was a hurricane only briefly. And Isabel (in 2003) was knocked down to tropical storm status immediately after making landfall in North Carolina. But both caused tremendous damage and deaths.

Here are some more rainfall totals from East Central Florida.

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE OFFICE MELBOURNE   16.83"
MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT 13.32"
VIERA   18.42"
WINDOVER FARMS 24.80"
FORT PIERCE 11.26"
SCRIPPS SPACE COAST REPORT FROM SEBASTIAN- PUBLIC -   18.50" 

Here's a rainfall estimate map, based on radar data. And it's still coming down. Here's the word from the hurricane center:

FAY IS EXPECTED TO PRODUCE ADDITIONAL RAINFALL ACCUMULATIONS OF 5 TO 10 INCHES OVER EAST-CENTRAL AND NORTHEASTERN FLORIDA...WITH 3 TO 6 INCHES OVER SOUTHEASTERN GEORGIA. ISOLATED STORM TOTAL AMOUNTS OF 30 INCHES ARE POSSIBLE IN FLORIDA.

Posted by Frank Roylance at 4:40 PM | | Comments (5)
Categories: Hurricanes
        

Comments

And don't forget TS Allison in Houston. The flooding from that was incredible.

Let is snow, let it snow, let is snow!

RAIN IS AWESOME.

I live in Brevard County and work in healthcare, we decided to use Fay as a test for this years hurricane plan, mainly because we knew it was just a little TS and we wouldnt need to actually implement our plan. WRONG. 24 inches of rain later our town now resembles an ocean with islands scattered throughout. Plus its still raining.

Trish,
Up here in Bay county, we've been waiting on Fay all day long. The winds have picked up, had some drizzle, but she is taking her good ol' time getting here. Sure hope she speeds up her act and gets out!

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About Frank Roylance
This site is the Maryland Weather archive. The current Maryland Weather blog can be found here.
Frank Roylance is a reporter for The Baltimore Sun. He came to Baltimore from New Bedford, Mass. in 1980 to join the old Evening Sun. He moved to the morning Sun when the papers merged in 1992, and has spent most of his time since covering science, including astronomy and the weather. One of The Baltimore Sun's first online Web logs, the Weather Blog debuted in October 2004. In June 2006 Frank also began writing comments on local weather and stargazing for The Baltimore Sun's print Weather Page. Frank also answers readers’ weather queries for the newspaper and the blog. Frank Roylance retired in October 2011. Maryland Weather is now being updated by members of The Baltimore Sun staff
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