Tag: Miami

Unintended Consequences Google Style

As long as I’m here, I thought it might be fun to be a guest lecturer for my folks condo’s computer club. A few years ago I spoke to the camera club.

This is an active community. There’s a club for nearly everything.

The meeting was set for 1:00 PM, but as is the Florida tradition, everyone came early.

The computer club meets in the clubhouse. It’s the air conditioned town square for this complex. The club has its own room with banks of computers and monitors. They are wired so each can be independent or they all can watch what’s going on at the head of the table. It’s pretty clever and put together on a shoestring budget.

My talk was about blogs. What the hell – I have some expertise. Many of the participants had heard the word, but had no idea what it was. These are computing neophytes.

I spoke and demonstrated and answered questions. It was pretty nice. They are really anxious to learn.

Someone asked about finding old friends. Actually, the question was asked a few times in different ways and I realized to the people in this room, this was a big deal

I used my folks as an example, entering my father’s name into Google. Then I entered my parent’s phone number and watched Google cough up the address.

I was a hit.

We talked about how couples will check each other out online before the first date. Google has spawned the act of googling.

Then a woman threw out her daughter’s name. It was a little unusual, so she spelled it and I entered it letter by letter. Within a few seconds Google displayed a page full of results.

The woman looked on her screen, recognized her daughter’s name and another, the daughter’s boyfriend. Meanwhile, I was reading ahead. Each of the six or seven entries on the page referred to the couple’s arrest in Miami on smuggling charges!

If this poor woman knew, she wasn’t letting on. I changed the page quickly, hoping the rest of the group wouldn’t catch on.

Good grief! That’s not what I want to get when I Google a name. I was turned tomato red.

I stayed a few minutes more then beat a hasty retreat. I’m not sure how long they’ll remember that nice young man, Harold’s son, who spoke to their group. I will never forget meeting the mother of a smuggler at the condo’s computer club.

Hurricane Wilma And South Florida

Helaine and I were asleep when the phone rang at 6:30 AM PDT. It was my friend Wendie, who lives and works in the Miami area.

Wendie left her house early Sunday evening and headed to a hotel. She expected her family would join her, though they never did. Everyone has checked in and is OK.

As someone who’s been through her share of hurricanes, Wendie has the proper perspective to make a qualitative comparative judgment. Wilma was the worst.

Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. Certainly, after years of being battered, each succeeding storm leaves you somewhat worse for wear. There’s no doubt Wendie was terrorized by Hurricane Wilma.

Reports from her neighbors tell her she has lost her porch. There might be more structural damage, but there’s no way to know right now.

Ask me how glad I am we made sure my parents got out early? Ask me how happy my parents are?

They’ve already been on the phone with neighbors who tell them there’s no power (same with Wendie) and many trees are down. One neighbor had a tree hit her window.

Hurricane Center Disappointment

The Miami Herald has undertaken a multipart study of the National Hurricane Center and related tropical prediction facilities run by NOAA. I have just read whatever is already on line and I am shocked… maybe sickened is a better word.

Many things I thought were well taken care of, are not.

Equipment doesn’t work or isn’t designed correctly. Budgets are (in my opinion) improperly allocated. What should be considered incredibly important is allowed to take a back seat.

I know some people at NHC. They are impressive. But, predicting tropical weather is complex. A full data set is incredibly important.

Katrina was a forecasting success, but there have been so many forecasting errors. Forecast errors are costly in dollars and lives.

Here’s a good starting off point, but this story is divided into a bunch of pages and will continue through this week.

What Katrina’s Forecasters Are Thinking

I’m writing this from the Mohegan Sun Hotel in Eastern Connecticut. Tomorrow I’ll be emceeing a program for Norwich Free Academy. It starts so early, the only way to make it work was to stay on site.

What a spectacular hotel. It is attached to a spectacular casino, which would be a great place for me to go… but they don’t have poker anymore.

More on all of this tomorrow. Tonight there are bigger fish to fry in the form of Hurricane Katrina.

I’ve got WWL-TV streaming here on the computer. This is much better than watching coverage on the cable networks.

The cable networks are more polished and hard hitting. This local New Orleans station is providing the kind of news people there need.

Carl Arredondo, who I remember from The Weather Channel, is their chief meteorologist. He’s pretty solid.

I just watched another met do a fascinating explanation of the radar display. There’s no time for this except on New Orleans TV where tonight, there’s nothing but time!

I know what the forecasters are thinking… the local guys and the PhD’s at the Hurricane Center. Am I right? Did I miss anything?

Forecasters have spent the last few days scaring the living… well, you know… scaring people. Now they have a moral dilemma.

If the forecast comes true, people get hurt (maybe die) and property loss is great. If they’re wrong, they become the goat. “Why did you make us leave? For this?”

Snow forecasts are similar, but the downside to this is so much greater. This really is a life and death forecast. And, accuracy of track to the degree people want and a good intensity forecast are beyond the current state of the art.

We can be close. We cannot get it exactly right – ever, except maybe by accident.

Tonight I spoke with a friend in the Miami area. She had been through Hurricane Katrina last week when Katrina was a ‘minimal hurricane’. She only got her power back today. She still has no phone service.

New Orleans will be hit so much harder.

She also said, fill up the car tonight. Gasoline prices will skyrocket tomorrow. I’m afraid she’s right on that forecast.

Katrina Shifts West Again

Earlier this afternoon, before the Hurricane Center issued its 5:00 PM update on Katrina, I sent an instant message to my friend Bob at FSU. I told him I was putting up a dollar that Katrina’s forecast would be shifted left.

It was.

I had the exact same feeling tonight… and NHC moved it again.

Maybe feeling is the wrong word, because this isn’t intuition or guesswork. I could see signs. The storm was refusing to make the predicted right turn. In fact, it was traveling south of west.

To the north there was some sort of convergence. Feeder bands from the hurricane were meeting something moving from the north. Clouds were showing up bright white – a sign they were developing vertically.

Whatever it was to the north, it would impede that right turn forecast at the Hurricane Center.

I’m sure I’ve said this before, but it’s worth repeating. The best hurricane information is often contained in the forecaster’s technical discussion. These really were meant to be ‘internal use only’ documents, but you can’t do that when you work for the government.

In these the lead forecaster discusses what has gone into the latest forecast package. I’m sure it’s very helpful at NHC after the hurricane season is over or whenever post mortems are done.

I’ll attach tonight’s at the end of this message so you can get a feel for yourself. This one was written by Dr. Lixion Avila, one of NHC’s hurricane specialists. Four of the six specialists are Ph D’s. This is specialized work.

Sometimes, I sense, things are thrown in with the understanding that it’s more than meteorologists reading.

KATRINA IS FORECAST TO MOVE DIRECTLY OVER THE WARM

LOOP CURRENT OF THE GULF OF MEXICO…WHICH IS LIKE ADDING HIGH

OCTANE FUEL TO THE FIRE

No one trained in weather needed that line. Some surface water in the Northern Gulf of Mexico is 90&#17+. Without a doubt, this is a dangerous storm and getting more dangerous by the minute.

My biggest fear is Katrina will head west of New Orleans and strike the coast there. A Category 4 storm (which is the forecast) in that location would be devastating. For a variety of reasons, New Orleans is incredibly vulnerable and a strike like that would be the worst of all possible scenarios!

IT IS WORTH NOTING THAT THE GUIDANCE SPREAD HAS DECREASED AND MOST OF THE RELIABLE NUMERICAL MODEL TRACKS ARE NOW CLUSTERED BETWEEN THE EASTERN COAST OF LOUISIANA AND THE COAST OF MISSISSIPPI. THIS CLUSTERING INCREASES THE CONFIDENCE IN THE FORECAST.

Man, I hope he’s right. So far, this storm has been poorly forecast&#185. And, recently, each succeeding forecast has moved the path farther left… farther to the west.

Today alone, the center of the forecast path for landfall has moved a few hundred miles.

More on Katrina later. We have a few days with this storm at sea before the real trouble begins.

&#185 – By poorly forecast, I don’t mean NHC did a bad job. I mean the ability to forecast this particular storm was beyond the capabilities of science at the moment. Something’s there that no one can get a handle on. That we don’t know exactly why it went wrong is as troubling as it going wrong… maybe more.

Continue reading “Katrina Shifts West Again”

Katrina Goes South

The Hurricane Center says, don’t fixate on the center line. How can you not?

Katrina made land around Hallandale Beach in Southern Broward County. Then, instead of heading west, it headed southwest. It’s now in Central Dade County – in the swamp I believe.

I’ll watch the news out of Florida tomorrow, and I expect to see angry people… unprepared people… because this tracked south of the line.

My guess, based on radar imagery, is we’ll see 10″+ rain from around Miami Beach. Maybe more.

Katrina Comes Calling

I woke up and turned on the computer. The Miami radar showed Katrina closer than I expected. I think people in Florida are surprised it’s this close this soon. A friend in South Florida says the Hurricane Center’s personnel are on TV ‘tap dancing’.

I called my folks. “Put down the hurricane shutters,” I said. Hours later, the shutters were still up.

None of the neighbors had theirs down, my mom told me.

The shutters are down now. The wind is beginning to blow. The heaviest rain and wind are still to come.

Most likely they will not need the shutters, just as most likely I won’t need my seat belt on the drive home tonight.

They are currently with phone service but without electricity. The no electricity thing is the part they didn’t want to go through again.

Katrina On Radar

I have been looking at the Miami NWS Nexrad‘s image of Katrina&#185. Very interesting.

It doesn’t have distinct hurricane features yet. There’s no eye, as such. Still, I am seeing what looks like a center of circulation. It is becoming circular after its previous blob shape.

I think of all the observational tools, radar is best at this point. Satellites are interesting, but radar is so much closer to real time and rapidly updated.

&#185 – Right now, that’s just whatever’s on the Miami radar. It was Katrina when this entry was originally posted.

On To The Weekend

First things first. My tooth pain has greatly subsided. There’s still swelling on the gum, but I’m hoping that’s from the injections. The tooth is in my drawer, where it now belongs.

Let me add, though I took a sick day from work Thursday, Friday was already scheduled as a vacation day. Bad timing on my part.

We once had an employee at the station who tried to explain to my boss that since she was sick on her vacation day, it should count as a sick day. That’s chutzpah.

I was well enough to head to the shoreline for a planned family celebration. I’ve been told to keep my mouth shut on what was being celebrated, but we went to Lenny’s in Branford.

I was petrified to go! I’d run into Lenny’s daughter while having my hair cut and she told me how the place had been remodeled. Didn’t she understand? The charm of Lenny’s was that it looked like it was built out of whatever was stored in someone’s garage.

I’m glad to say the main dining room has been remodeled… the particle board removed from the walls… but it’s lost none of its charm. That’s a tall order. It looks nice – really, not just compared to its older self.

We weren’t going to Lenny’s for the ambiance. We were going for fried shrimp for the girls and the shore dinner for me.

Even with only one half of my mouth operating, it was great! The lobster, the mussels, the corn – excellent. Why you only get two clams is beyond me, but that ‘s what the dinner calls for. My only ‘customization’ was getting a bowl of Rhode Island clam chowder&#185 instead of a cup.

Through dinner and the rest of the evening I was a little woozy. It wasn’t enough to stop me, but I certainly was in no condition to operate heavy equipment. Helaine drove and I was grateful to be her passenger.

When we got home, I napped. I couldn’t sleep all night because there was a test to be taken for my Oceanography class.

I took the test around 3:00 AM. This should be an interesting grade because I wasn’t really able to concentrate on reading the text necessary to answer the questions. I had the attention span of a toy poodle.

Back to bed at 4:00.

By the time I woke up this morning, I had gotten over 16 hours of sleep in the last 24. On the other hand, I was feeling better, which was good because I had long standing plans for a friend to visit.

I’ve known Bob since my first professional day in radio, early fall 1969. Bob was a disk jockey at WSAR in Fall River, MA, where I started.

When I first me him he was Skippy Ross, then Skip Tyler, now (for over thirty years) Bob Lacey. With his partner Sheri Lynch, Bob presides over a very successful, syndicated morning radio show. It’s a show considered ‘woman friendly.’

Bob had left Charlotte, NC Thursday afternoon and had been hanging around New England since Thursday evening. Though I’d tried getting him on his cell phone a few times, he was unreachable.

By early this morning there was a discussion whether Bob was actually going to show or not. It was starting to look like ‘not’ had won when the phone rang.

He showed up an hour later and we hopped in the convertible on what had turned into a spectacular spring day. The sky was blue, temperature warm, humidity about right. We were heading toward the shoreline.

Bob had actually grown up around New Haven and knows those parts of the area that haven’t changed over the last 40 years – which is most of it!

First stop was lunch. We went to a place call “The Place” in Guilford. “The Place” is one of a kind.

You sit outside (in the open or under a tent-like cover) on old tree stumps. The food (lobster, clams, chicken and the like) are cooked out of door on a long wood fired grill. When your order is ready, the grill it cooked on is brought to your table.

The owner, Vaughn, kvetched about the weather. I would think to a place like this good weather means good business and a May like we had means… well, it wasn’t a good sign.

Bob had a lobster and I had clams. I’m sorry to be positive about everything, but it was great.

Next up we drove down the Turnpike into Old Lyme and then headed randomly into an area called “Miami Beach.” We drove down Hartford Avenue and I was astounded – 21 years in Connecticut and I’d never been to this cool, vest pocket, beach community.

A friendly cop showed us where we could park and we were off. This is a really nice beach. As Connecticut’s Long Island Sound beaches go, it is broad and white. There are plenty of stones which makes barefoot walking a little tougher.

Of course Bob and I were dressed totally wrong for a day at the beach – both wearing long pants.

We moved off the beach itself and into an open air beachfront bar. Bob had a beer and I a Diet Coke ($5+$2 tip). Reggae music was wafting in and it was perfect on this idyllic day.

Like “The Place,” I have to wonder how open air establishments like this make it in the ratified air of a short season Connecticut summer, and with total dependence on good weather. Every season has got to be make or break. I thought about that as I sipped my Coke.

We didn’t have long. Bob had dinner plans with some friends he’s known longer than me. We continued east to Mohegan Sun, the closer of the two Connecticut mega casinos.

Bob was stunned. It is a very impressive place. And, the shopping area with its upscale shops connecting the old and new casinos is elegantly glitzy.

Bob wanted to play craps, though he hadn’t played in years. I pulled $60 out of my pocket and quickly turned it into $15 – good going. Bob had similar luck, but on a lesser scale.

We headed for the car and headed back home.

Bob will be back in Connecticut in the middle of August. We’re hoping to see the Red Sox and visit WSAR’s studio. Truth is, hanging with a friend is the important part. The rest is just icing on the cake.

&#185 – I had never heard of Rhode Island clam chowder until I moved to Connecticut. Manhattan is red, New England is creamy and Rhode Island is a clear broth. When properly spiced, it’s great and nowhere as heavy as New England. As for Manhattan clam chowder – please! Who’s eating that?

Writing While Traveling

Over the past few years I’ve documented my vacation trips by writing about them here on the web. Usually, when I’m writing about life on the road, hits on this website go up&#185. Still, I have wondered whether it was really an exercise in futility, taking time away from my vacation?

Today I decided it was all worthwhile, and all because of the short emails I’ve gotten every day (as have a half dozen others) from my friend Wendie. She has left Miami for a quick vacation to Iceland!

Who would have thought to vacation in Iceland? Not me. But I have been reading Wendie’s notes with interest – looking forward to each one.

good morning to all.

it has snowed here overnight and the city is covered in a blanket of white….

hopefully it will not keep up.. i want to spend the morning putzing around downtown

a bit.. we leave for the airport at 1:30 pm…

yesterday was another amazing day… the golden circle tour…

geysers, waterfalls, craters, you name it.. this island is a volcanic wonderland.

the weather was windy.. but at least there was no precipitation…

another fabulous dinner.. at another fabulous restaurant.. i guess when

you spend 4 months of the year in almost total darkness, you learn how to cook.

and.. another cab driver who spends time each year in florida … this time orlando.

i’ll be home later tonight…

love to all,

w

They’re not long, but I’ve gotten a feel for her trip. Prices are high. Food is good. Sights are spectacular. It snows.

It’s like being there, without needing gloves. I’m glad she wrote. I’m probably not alone in feeling that.

&#185 – They go up in a dependable fashion, though not by great numbers. As it turns out, only about 1/3 of daily readers come to the home page first. Most of my readers have searched for something online (using Google, for instance) and go to an ‘inside’ page.

California Here We Come

With snow on the way for tomorrow and chilly temperatures still in the forecast, we are excited about our upcoming vacation to California. We’ll be spending time in Los Angeles and then Palm Springs (someplace we’ve never been).

Many times, I have heard people talk about going on vacation and not wanting to do touristy things. Not us – the tackier and more touristy, the better!

We’ll be going to Universal and walking the beach behind the beautiful homes in Malibu. I’ll take my camera and shoot thousands of shots. We had hoped to see three TV shows but it looks like we’ll be 0 for 3 in that regard.

The OC, which is a show that doesn’t have a studio audience is shooting in Miami. So, no matter how much help I had from highly placed friends, that isn’t happening. Same thing with Jay Leno. Here’s a guy who’s a workaholic… probably does the show 50 weeks a year. Gone. The show will be dark. Bad timing on our part.

We had also hoped for Ellen Degeneres, but again, circumstances got in the way. Actually, Helaine tried months ago, hoping that our out-of-town address would get us in. We never heard from them. Today a well placed friend tried on our behalf, only to be told there were no VIP seats (he requested VIP treatment – not me). Oh well.

We do have reservations for dinner at some ‘happening’ restaurants, and I’ll write more about them while we’re there.

One of the fun things about a California vacation is the chance to see friends who live there and aren’t at close range too often. One of the friends I’ll be seeing is someone I’ve known for nearly 50 years (that was sobering just to write). We’re having lunch our first full day in. The other two have been friends with each other, and me, for nearly 40 years.

My Cousin Michael lives in Southern California with his family and we’re looking forward to spending time with them in Orange County. Stef wants to go to Laguna and other beach communities. Me too. Helaine three.

I would like to live in Los Angeles. I’ve felt that way for a long time. In my business, I’m probably too old… too ‘not hunky.’ I know a lot of people say LA’s phony… and that’s probably true. It also represents the pinnacle in the entertainment industry. For TV, Sinatra would have sung “LA, LA.”

For us, the California lifestyle is very foreign… which makes it fun to play in it for a while. Whether it would lose its luster if I had to deal with it every day is another story.

The trick to California living is realizing it’s not a place to be unless you’re well to do. Southern California is not a good place to be in the middle class – even the upper middle class. Los Angeles is meant to be lived properly with a lot of money. It is definitely a classist society.

For ten days we’ll make believe we belong and hope no one catches on.

Television’s Quandary

I have spent a good part of this late evening playing poker and watching coverage on Hurricane Frances. Frances did come on shore, not far from Stuart, early Sunday morning.

This storm has been poorly forecast for the last few days.

Listen, I make forecast mistakes all the time – I am not claiming perfection by any means. On the other hand, I have seen a number of calls from the Hurricane Center which seemed to discard what was actually happening at the time. I have thrown up my hands in wonderment.

It’s really tough to take when there is a large staff of meteorologists consulting on each forecast, as there is at the Hurricane Center.

There is nothing else I want to see on television. Yet even with wall-to-wall coverage on cable news, and the ability to watch Channel 10 from Miami on our HD channel, there is too much filler and too little meat.

If anyone does get props, it would have to be CNN. They have done the best job from what I’ve seen. And, as much as I dislike the idea of reporters in the middle of weather that no one should be in, John Zarella has been excellent, as has their meteorologist, Rob Marciano.

The problem, of course, is at most times it’s impossible to get reports from the areas where the weather is the worst. You can’t transmit to satellites when the rain is heavy. You also can’t put the dish up to transmit when the wind is strong enough to rip it off the truck!

I believe this is more hurricane coverage than has ever been available. With the build-up to Frances, and the pictures from Charley, it was inevitable.

Frances is not the strongest hurricane, but its duration will be what’s remembered. There won’t be the destruction of homes that there was with Charley, but there will be lots of beach erosion and the kind of damage that happens when structures submit – as opposed to being instantaneously destroyed.

I will be curious to see the damage near Lake Okeechobee. It is my guess that structures aren’t quite as substantial, both because of its distance from the coast and the income of its inhabitants. Even with less wind, they will be creamed.

If this is a moderate hurricane, who would ever want to ‘weather out’ a strong one?

Watching Coverage On My Computer

For the past hour, or so, I have been watching, and listening, to hurricane coverage on my computer. WFOR, the CBS station in Miami is streaming a very watchable picture. I am impressed.

This is something I touched on a few weeks ago when ABC announced their World News Now Internet service. This definitely has the potential to compete with over-the-air television. It also presents a real opportunity for Internet broadcasting now.

This is something I’ll get into into in more detail later.

Tonight’s Last Look At Frances

One last look… one final peek at the computer guidance before bedtime. It is troubling.

The gfdl is continuing to call for the track of Hurricane Frances to move just north of West Palm Beach and then over Lake Okeechobee, through the center of the state, and into the Gulf of Mexico via Tampa Bay. This is well south of the official Hurricane Center forecast.

The cross state portion of the trip should take nearly 24 hours. Even that number doesn’t take into account all the hours of tumult, just the hours the eye is over land.

Miami radar is continuing to show the eye over the Bahamas. It still doesn’t look like it’s moving to me. That’s a bad sign. Slow moving storms mean more rain. If the storm is capable of 2-3″ of rain per hour, the enemy becomes time. More hours equal more rain.

On this radar screen&#185 the eye should look like the hole on the end of a drinking straw. Instead it looks like a manhole cover – huge.

That eye would really have to shrink… and quickly… for the storm to intensify. The gfdl thinks it will. There is plenty of warm, open water west of its current position. I won’t even venture a guess. I think this storm is beginning to become very unpredictable.

The gfdl anticipate landfall for the eye late Saturday evening. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it still offshore Sunday at daybreak.

Moving slowly like this hurricane Frances doesn’t have to be a Category 3 or 4 storm to do real damage. It will wear its opponents down over time.

&#185 – The link is ‘live’, meaning clicking gets you the latest view which is not necessarily going to resemble what I’m seeing at 3:43 AM EDT.

Frances As A Spectator Sport

The names used for hurricanes are on a rotation. Every seven years the names repeat. There is, however, one exception. When a storm becomes ‘notorious,’ it is retired. That’s where Frances is headed.

As of this evening it was about twice the size and significantly stronger than Hurricane Andrew was at this stage of the game. That’s not to say Frances will be another Andrew – but there is that potential.

AT 11 PM EDT…0300Z…A HURRICANE WATCH HAS BEEN ISSUED FOR THE

FLORIDA EAST COAST FROM FLORIDA CITY NORTHWARD TO FLAGLER BEACH…

INCLUDING LAKE OKEECHOBEE. SOME OR ALL OF THE HURRICANE WATCH AREA

WILL LIKELY BE UPGRADED TO A HURRICANE WARNING THURSDAY MORNING. A

HURRICANE WATCH MEANS THAT HURRICANE CONDITIONS ARE POSSIBLE WITHIN

THE WATCH AREA…GENERALLY WITHIN 36 HOURS.

A few weeks ago while watching Hurricane Charley, I remarked about the steady stream of data available. There is less from Frances because of its track. As far as I know there are no weather radars available on the Internet from Haiti, Dominican Republic, Turks and Caicos or The Bahamas. There are also few, or no, surface observations nearby.

The information is a little more abstract. It needs to be analyzed more carefully and digested. It is not self evident, like looking at Charley on the Key West radar.

There are weather buoys, drifting in Frances’ vicinity. There are also sporadic readings from hurricane hunter planes. And, of course, there is satellite imagery (though the highest resolution images are only available during daylight hours). These are good, but more would be better.

Hour by hour, computer run by computer run, Frances’ destination seems to be locking in on the Florida East Coast. If I had to venture a guess today, I’d say what I said yesterday – somewhere around Jupiter or Hobe Sound.

That’s no guarantee. No place from Homestead to Savannah would surprise me.

If I were anywhere in Florida tonight, I’d be making sure I was prepared. Even with Frances’ strength, most people inland will be forced to weather the storm in their homes. On the coast it will be a totally different story.

Wherever Frances lands, communication will stop. TV and telephone will be limited. Power will be spotty. In some communities, power will be shut off before the storm as a safety precaution.

Most people who live in South Florida have never felt the impact of any direct hurricane hit – much less a category 4 storm. It will be a sobering experience.

My parents live down there, in Palm Beach County. Of course, I worry for them. Their condo has storm shutters and is reasonably well built. The thing it has most going for it is its inland location. I won’t give them specific advice until we get closer.

My friend Wendie lives in the Miami area. Her office and home are close to the Intracoastal Waterway. That is more worrisome.

In a few of the later computer models, Hurricane Frances slows down while approaching the Florida coast. That could mean an extended period of torrential rain and very strong, damaging wind (possibly not hurricane strength if the storm is far enough off shore).

The are really no good scenarios left.