Our Forecast Keeps Looking Better

24 hours after saying we needed to brace for Irma the forecasts keep getting better for us up here in the Silicon Swamp of central Florida.  Unfortunately, the forecasts have gotten worse for the west coast of the state.  Let me show you a forecast that the local National Weather Service Offices have been offering.  You have to look for it, but on the forecast page for a given city (clicking on the map) it's on bottom of the right side bar.  It's a graphic called the Hourly Weather Forecast.  If you click offshore, it gives a forecast of wave heights, swell period, and a handful of other things.  If you click over land, you'll get something like the graphic forecast for my area.

Wind forecasts are in the second panel down and the bottom panel.  The bottom panel is winds at 20 ft above the ground, the second panel is surface winds and gusts.

In both cases, the peak wind is about 11 AM on Sunday, and correspond to a tropical storm.  The second panel says winds 60 mph, gusting up to 75.  Gusts are specifically excluded in the definition of hurricane, which uses 1 minute wind speed.  According to this, we're not getting a category 1 hurricane, and nowhere near the Category 4 storm that looks to be coming ashore somewhere in the keys and then coming making landfall in the southern end of the state.  
 
Of course, all of this is subject to change.  If the storm comes up farther to the east, we'll get worse conditions, and likewise if it stays off the west coast it will be worse for the Tampa Bay area.  Peninsular Florida isn't very wide - it's around 140 miles at the widest point.  In a path like Irma's, the difference in the uncertainty of the path covers the entire state.  A small difference in path can mean a big difference in the winds a place gets.  The reason that forecast cone gets wider is the historical accuracy of the forecasts: essentially about 100 miles wider per day.  

Meanwhile, there's something about this graphic that strikes me funny; I laughed out loud when I noticed it.  The green line, third panel down, is relative humidity.  You'll notice that our relative humidity actually goes down in the hurricane compared to the night before (shaded gray).  At 82%, it's lower than any value after 9 PM the night before, and the same as 3 AM tomorrow morning. 

I suggest a new state motto:  Florida, where our weather gets better during a hurricane!  Or another possibility, Florida: where the hurricanes are only slightly more humid than a typical night!