A nice soaking for the area the next couple days with eyes still on another major system for the middle of next week. Rainfall tonight will be heaviest over Southeast Georgia where 1-3" of rain will fall with locally higher amounts, especially near Fargo, Homerville, Waycross & Blackshear. While heavy at times early this evening, rainfall amounts across metro Jax & Northeast Florida will be less -- on the avg. a quarter of an inch to three-quarters of an inch with a few 1"+ amounts. One area in Northeast to Florida that could get heavier rain tonight will be near & north of I-10 where amounts could reach 1-2", locally 2"+. The large rain area is being triggered by a strong warm front & upper level disturbance. The huge rain area will serve to limit the northward progress of the warm front until late tonight/early Fri. when the disturbance will move away, the rain diminishes. From the Tallahassee N.W.S.: RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TALLAHASSEE FL
820 PM EST THU FEB 21 2008
...RECORD DAILY MAXIMUM RAINFALL SET AT TALLAHASSEE...
RAINFALL MEASURED AT THE TALLAHASSEE REGIONAL AIRPORT THROUGH
815 PM WAS 4.14 INCHES WHICH ESTABLISHES A NEW DAILY RAINFALL
RECORD FOR FEBRUARY 21ST AT TALLAHASSEE. THE PREVIOUS RECORD WAS3.90 INCHES SET BACK IN 1894. RAIN WAS STILL FALLING AT THE AIRPORT AND THIS AMOUNT WILL CONTINUE TO INCREASE.
This system has a 1-2 punch & punch #2 will be Fri. night. Friday itself will be a warm, humid, breezy day with enough afternoon heating/instability for some widely scattered afternoon thunderstorms, a few of which could be strong with gusty winds & brief heavy rain. But the main "action" should set up very late in the day from near Lake City to Woodbine & points northwest (Waycross, Fargo, Homerville, Nahunta, Blackshear & nearby areas) where thunderstorms should develop or move into & continue into the evening. This will be the area with the highest severe potential along with very heavy rain with as much as 1-3" of additional rainfall & -- as storms "train" across the area -- I wouldn't be surprised to see some amounts of 4"+! The shower & storm area should then slowly sink south & east while individual cells move quickly northeast. The rain will continue along
& ahead of a weak cool front into Sat....ending from northwest to southeast midday through the afternoon Sat. with additional rainfall over most of Northeast Florida averaging 0.5-1.5".
On the north side of this system it's a winter storm full of snow & ice from Northeast Oklahoma to New England including Tulsa, St. Louis, Louisville, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, D.C., Philly, NYC & Boston. Air travel is sure to be affected & slow Fri. for at least the Eastern half of the country.
A large & intense storm system is still on the horizon for next week moving across the country from west to east with another round of rough wintry weather on its west side & spring-like heavy rain & severe storms on the east side. This system will spread rain back into the First Coast by Tue. night into Wed. followed by a pretty strong shot of cold.
I received a photo of Wed. night's lunar eclipse from a viewer (Saturn was also visible) -- Bill Neylan, Keystone Heights, FL.
This from NOAA today:
Increased Hurricane Losses Due to More People, Wealth Along Coastlines, Not Stronger Storms, New Study Says
A team of scientists have found that the economic damages from hurricanes have increased in the U.S. over time due to greater population, infrastructure, and wealth on the U.S. coastlines, and not to any spike in the number or intensity of hurricanes.
“We found that although some decades were quieter and less damaging in the U.S. and others had more land-falling hurricanes and more damage, the economic costs of land-falling hurricanes have steadily increased over time,” said Chris Landsea, one of the researchers as well as the science and operations officer at NOAA’s National Hurricane Center in Miami. “There is nothing in the U.S. hurricane damage record that indicates global warming has caused a significant increase in destruction along our coasts.”
In a newly published paper in Natural Hazards Review, the researchers also found that economic hurricane damage in the U.S. has been doubling every 10 to 15 years. If more people continue to move to the hurricane-prone coastline, future economic hurricane losses may be far greater than previously thought.
“Unless action is taken to address the growing concentration of people and property in coastal hurricane areas, the damage will increase by a great deal as more people and infrastructure inhabit these coastal locations,” said Landsea.
The Natural Hazards Review paper, “Normalized Hurricane Damage in the United States: 1900-2005,” was written by Roger A. Pielke Jr. (University of Colorado), Joel Gratz (ICAT Managers, Inc.), Chris Landsea, Douglas Collins (Tillinghast-Towers Perrin), Mark A. Saunders (University College London), and Rade Musulin (Aon Re Australia).
The team used two different approaches, which gave similar results, to estimate the economic damages of historical hurricanes if they were to strike today, building upon the work published originally by Landsea and Pielke in 1998, and by Collins and Lowe in 2001. Both methods used changes in inflation and wealth at the national level. The first method utilized population increases at the county coastal level, while the second used changes in housing units at the county coastal level.
The results illustrate the effects of the tremendous pace of growth in vulnerable hurricane areas. If the 1926 Great Miami Hurricane were to hit today, the study estimated it would cause the largest losses at $140 billion to $157 billion, with Hurricane Katrina second on the list at $81 billion.
The team concludes that potential damage from storms – currently about $10 billion yearly - is growing at a rate that may place severe burdens on exposed communities, and that avoiding huge losses will require a change in the rate of population growth in coastal areas, major improvements in construction standards, or other mitigation actions.
