Tropical Storm Andrea forms

I am not a meteorologist, but I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night.

Tropical Storm Andrea, the first named storm of the 2013 season, has formed west of the Florida peninsula.

Tropical storm warnings have been issued for the west coast of Florida. This storm will primarily be a rain maker, with rainfall estimates of 3-10+ inches forecast for southwest Florida. The center of circulation will cross Florida from roughly Tampa to Jacksonville over the next couple of days.

This is a lopsided storm. There is a lot of convection (storms and rain) on the east side, with a lot of dry upper air preventing development on the west side.

Isolated tornadoes ( which I hate because we can't predict when they will occur) are possible on Thursday as the storm gets closer to the west coast of Florida.

The East Coast may also be affected after the storm crosses Florida. The storm is expected to interact with a frontal system that may cause it to track up the coast. The result? A coastal storm and nor'easter.

I wrote this as a summary of a lot of weather information I study. Does this type of information interest anyone?

A good site for getting emergency update information is:

http://www.emergencyemail.org/Default.asp

You can sign up for free alerts, and then customize what kind of information you want. A wide range from weather to homeland security is available. I have never to my knowledge been spammed from this site.

[scrubjaysnest]

We use the NHC site (nhc.noaa.gov) for storms like this. For general forecasts we use ( forecast.weather.gov). Our new fish camp is 4.5 miles from the coast and as of 8am it is looking like it will come ashore in Dixie or Taylor county Fl. Since we are in Taylor county we will have to go check things out at high tide with the 2 - 4 foot storm surge they are calling for. Looks like a nice rainy day ahead.

One good thing is that the center of circulation will landfall near low tide later today. Really heavy band of storms approaching the west coast now. Biggest threat other than 3-5 inches of rain will be quickly spinning up of tornadoes due to low level shear.

Some storm damage photos, there were a few tornadoes reported overnight.

https://www.rebelmouse.com/tsandrea/

We live in Sun City Center where one tornado hit. I did not even wake up. Trailmanor is parked in the drive way. No damage.

[scrubjaysnest]

It came a shore about 30 miles south of us about an hour or so after high tide. No storm surge to speak of, winds were hardly noticed. Did get about 4 inches of rain. Have to make a hardware store run today so will make the trip to Steinhatchee and check out the old campground while there.