The green shading is supposed to represent “minimal” tropical storm force winds. The arrow is pointing to us. The black line to the right is expected arrival of tropical storm force winds at 8:00 PM. Theoretically, the green shading suggests those winds should already be here but reality on the ground suggests otherwise.
The local forecast is still for winds less than tropical storm force. We shall see.
Anyway, for my area, Milton represents a glancing blow, at worst. I feel for those further up the Florida coast (both of them) for whom circumstances will be much worse. If there’s good news, Milton is forecast to head out to sea once done with Florida, sparing Georgia and the Carolinas unlike Helene.
I spend a good bit of time down here with some friends. Came down to help their elderly parents get ready for the storm. We got very lucky, neighbors lost large chunk of roof, lanais, etc. Here just some minor roof damage and all the other prep held up well. Going to be a busy couple of days helping the older neighbors take down storm shutters, pick up debris, etc.
Hope you are alright. Know you have been through a few of these.
We were and are in Kissimmee for the yearly fall vacation and experienced our first hurricane with the winds and rain. We are in a good place at Vacation Village Parkway.
Helene and now Milton changed our auto train travel from Virginia with four hour delays leaving and arriving then the cancellation of our trip back on the 11th so we staying extra 4 days. This area looks fairly back to normal but many suffering especially on both coast
AL94 is the classic potential development of a tropical wave that emerged off the west coast of Africa. Historically, these storms tend to form in August/September. There have been several this season, which mostly have curved out to sea before reaching the mainland U.S. (“fish storms” unless you’re in Bermuda).
While I’ll be keeping an eye on AL94’s path, I’m equally, if not more concerned, about the yellow blob expected to form off the coast of Central America.
If that tracks into the Gulf of Mexico, Florida may well be a target once again.
For us, fortunately, Milton was a non-event. We did end up with stronger than expected tropical storm force winds but minimal rain. Some of the tornadoes spun off from Milton were relatively close (much closer than the storm center itself) but not that close.
The last direct hit in my area was Wilma in 2005 (a year before I moved to Florida). There have been multiple close calls since, the worst being Irma in 2017, which knocked power out for 36 hours. Keeping my until this season ends November 30th.
Google photos just sent me a reminder from two years ago when my family was vacationing in Costa Rica. On the first day we were hiking the Poás Volcano in the remnants of hurricane Julia. Soaked to the bone, but we made memories.
I know it’s been a good while…
This is the first year we’ve had to evacuate twice. Helene’s center was 100 miles North of us, Milton’s 100 miles to the South. Mother Nature is not known for her subtlety, so we’re taking the hint and getting out as soon as we figure out where to.
Glad y’all made it through okay!
Hi from St Petersburg on west coast of FL. Our 100 yr. old downtown brick house withstood the onslaught.
My question is about mobile data. While our power was out, I couldnt connect to phone data. Then a week later MINT was crediting customers who had to buy data during the storm. So that means some folks could connect to the internet via mobile data, yet I could not. I don’t understand what factors are involved. Thanks for any explanation.
My guess is that you experienced a local outage where cellular towers in your area lost power or network connectivity. Folks in other locations may have not experienced this outage and Mint is doing a nice thing for them by crediting them for extra data purchases.
Thanks! I suspected it was because of damaged cell towers but wasn’t sure how mobile data “works”. We have a huge number of oak trees down. Here’s an example:
As long as the red blob tracks inland (as is forecast) and stays out of the Gulf of Mexico, it appears we’re in the clear for now. The yellow blob isn’t forecast to do anything significant.
The Atlantic hurricane season ends December 1st, so still six more weeks to go.
until this season ends November 30th.
