jm1220

When you’re told to leave and you’re in a flood area when you’re under a warning and well within the uncertainty cone, you leave. Intensity is the hardest thing to forecast in a hurricane and it was supposed to strengthen to landfall. Sorry, if you still refuse to leave I don’t have sympathy for you. And not everyone of course but as others pointed out Cape Coral/Ft Myers aren’t economically poor places. And they’ve boomed in population in the last 25 years. Catastrophe waiting to happen. Curious to see how it rebuilds after, but I’m sure it will given the demand still to move to FL waterfront cities.

They’re in for huge surge in Ft Myers for hours still. When the eye passes, wind will turn west which is still right into the bay. And that’s when the big surge into Charlotte Harbor will start (not as bad as Ft Myers/Cape Coral).

FT Myers is screwed for the back half of the storm too. All that is westerly wind coming into the bay. The images that’ll come in from there tomorrow/after will be horrendous, probably Katrina like.

Yeah honestly-hard to have much sympathy for people in Ft Myers/Cape Coral that stayed. If you’re told to leave and warned for days about the storm and refuse, that’s on you. And if they assumed EMS can come get them now, that’s a hella rude awakening for them too. Those surge maps showed maybe 90% of Cape Coral underwater up to 9 feet. With 200k people there, if even 10% decided to stay, yikes.

Probably a reason why we're not seeing footage from Cape Coral (200k people most of whom are housed next to canals) anymore. They're done.

And it's 12 feet above ground level (if the camera is 12 feet above ground). The actual surge would probably be 15-16 feet or whatever it is above the normal water level.

Eyewall should be at Punta Gorda/Pt Charlotte now.

The bumps east in the last hour or two have made it much more serious in Cape Coral/Ft Myers. Port Charlotte/Punta Gorda may relatively luck out. Cape Coral looks like it has about double the population as Charlotte Harbor. Captiva may be getting into the eye now.

That city's screwed, not sure how else to put it. Over 200,000 people in that area. Yikes.

Yeah, sad to think that all that water going out some place is coming back in at another place. It's really like a mound and like we're seeing, something like a tsunami.

We'll probably see some land confirmations soon for the stronger northern eye wall. Headed for Venice and Sarasota as you said. Thankfully for them the surge won't be too bad. Charlotte Harbor and Cape Coral though....

Yep, presentation looks like it should be cover of a textbook. That EWRC yesterday was at the worst possible time clearly. Eye probably has the stadium effect. Captiva may be about to get into the eye.

I don't think it's considered landfall until much of the eye is ashore. But a noticeable tick east again.

Much of FL is swamp land so it won't weaken as fast as if it was headed into a mountainous area, but it won't stay cat 4 or 5 for very long since perfect conditions are needed for that. If it speeds up it might stay as a hurricane across the peninsula though. Unfortunately for Charlotte Harbor looks like a worst case track/scenario here. Cape Coral near the edge of the eyewall too and will experience hours of steep water rise. Naples is a good bit further away from the eye and seeing steep rises.

Sanibel/Captiva look to be in the eyewall now. That same water rise will be in Charlotte Harbor shortly.

The surge will come in very rapidly with the eyewall coming onshore. The much higher wind will pile in the water. Soon that same surge is probably coming for Cape Coral as their wind increases/changes direction to more onshore.

Definitely a bit of east movement now. Cape Coral may not be out of the woods getting into the eyewall.

The water would only really come back in like a surge if the wind switches direction to piling the water back in. Unfortunately for places like Charlotte Harbor, that’s where that mound of water is going, along with wherever the east eyewall hits. Tampa will still have a lot of problems from the 20” rain that might be falling there.

Seeing a bit of a move east recently and the eastern eyewall look a little healthier probably helped by friction. This is about to go WAY downhill from Captiva on north.

NE eyewall getting really close to Captiva. Conditions probably going way downhill there. We’ll see soon if that “frictional drag in” theory rings true for SW FL and it turns more NE.

Yes, almost due N movement with a tick east from time to time. Maybe the frictional effects will drag the center or at least eyewall onshore. But that Venice to Punta Gorda area is in huge trouble. Maybe Sarasota if it keeps the due N movement. I wonder if St Pete will have problems later with the N/NE reverse storm surge?

Should be noted too that those surge heights are WITHOUT waves added on top.

Yep-wow. They’re in trouble. Hopefully for them it ticks left. Guess the hordes moving to FL in the last 15 years have to go somewhere.

The slow movement might increase the impact of the winds but the fact so much property is a few feet above sea level is what’s going to be really devastating in these places. Entire towns are literally built around canals in these places, and they’ll be under 15 feet of water.

Ft Myers might not be so bad. It’s the area from Sanibel to maybe Sarasota that’s in line to get wrecked along with any bays/harbors that will funnel water in. Thousands and thousands of homes on tiny canals in that stretch only a few feet above sea level along with plenty of built up beachfront property.