After a brief move across west-central Cuba overnight, Tropical Storm Fay is starting to make her move off the northern coast of the island into the Florida Straights. The latest hurricane hunter reports indicate that the winds are starting to come up slightly and as of the 8:00 AM EDT advisory were up to 60mph from 50mph at 5am this morning. Fay continues to look a bit lop-sided on the satellite pics this morning. All of the deep convection is displaced to the east and northeast of the center thanks to dry air and a bit of upper level shear to the west of the storm. Now that the center is moving back over open, warm water a brief period will open up for Fay to strengthen. With upper level conditions still favorable, it is likely that Fay will become a Category 1 Hurricane before making landfall on the Florida west coast sometime tomorrow.

(GOES INFRARED SATELLITE - IMAGE COURTESY: NOAA/NHC)

THE TRACK FORECAST:

With the western side weaker, I don’t anticipate any rapid intensification like we saw with Hurricane Charley back in 2004. However, if Fay can rebuild a solid internal core, the intensity would gradually begin to build as the eyewall became more established. Even if Fay remains a moderate to strong tropical storm, she is going to dump lots of heavy rain on South Florida over the next 36 hours. Hurricane watches along with Tropical Storm watches/warning are already posted there and I anticipate those will slowly be moved northward as the storm wobbles NNW.

(Tropical Forecast Model Plots- Image Courtes: SFWMD)

The forecast track has come into somewhat better alignment this morning, tightly clustered on a landfall somewhere near or south of the Tampa/St. Petersburg area, very near where Charley made landfall in Port Charlotte, Fl back in 2004. If Fay can stay over the warm waters and off the coast, she may reach Landfall as a Cat 1 storm, but as she moves inland it won’t take long before she falls back to a Tropical Storm.

LOWCOUNTRY IMPACTS: 

The exact impacts here on our stretch of the coast is still unwritten…until we see exactly where Fay makes landfall and the forecast track inland. If you look at the NHC official track, it brings the center of T.S. Fay just west of the Lowcountry on Thursday. This would put us on the eastern side of the storm, and open up the possibility of isolated severe weather with tornadoes and heavy rain the biggest threat. I have seen a bit more of an eastward trend in the model runs this morning and that will have to be watched closely.

(NHC Official Forecast Track - Image Courtesy: Weather Underground)

More to come after the late morning model runs are in house….just get ready for rain and wind mid to late week.

Chad Watson
Live 5 Meteorologist

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