JimMIA
There's more to life than mice...
- Joined
- Feb 16, 2005
Greetings from The Cave!!! 
(storm shutters 80% up).
Update on 11 AM advisory - Thursday, August 25
Hurricane Warnings are in effect from Vero Beach south to Florida City (south of Miami), and including Lake Okeechobee. Other watches and warnings cover most of the rest of South Florida. This is not a strong storm in terms of wind, but it is a very wet and slow-moving storm, so the primary danger will be flooding.
The storm has slowed from 7-8 mph to 5 mph, which is bad news both for South Florida and Disney. Our local meterologists are now saying they doubt if Katrina will reach hurricane intensity prior to landfall, but the more it slows, the more opportunity it has to strengthen.
For the Orlando area, the longer the storm delays, the more time for the steering systems to the north to weaken or move out of the way, and therefore the more likelihood of the storm coming close to WDW.
After passing through South Florida, the course is still somewhat uncertain. It will turn to the north, but the timing and extent of the turn are difficult to predict. Some models call for the storm to move out into the central Gulf of Mexico, but others call for it to turn back to the NE and cross back across Florida from north of Tampa to Jacksonville. The official forecast track is a compromise between those models and is not as confident as we usually hear from the NHC, because the weather patters surrounding the storm are changing and it's not known how rapidly they will change.
Effect on WDW
The sooner the storm turns, and the more NE it turns, the worse for WDW. If the storm moves well out into the Gulf, WDW weather may be very nice this weekend; if it turns north and then northeast as seems likely, weather will be pretty wet. Disney is well within the three-day cone, and it is possible (though not likely) Katrina could pass right over the top of WDW. If that happens, Katrina should be a somewhat-weakened tropical storm, and would be primarily a rain event. The storm is moving fairly slowly (7-8 mph), so whatever happens will take a long time to pass.
Orlando is currently in the 40-60% probability area for tropical storm force winds (39 mph+), and if winds reach those levels, air travel may be affected. Also, I don't know what Disney's policy is, but when winds reach those levels here, we pull all of our buses off the roads.
If you are in, or headed to, WDW, you need to watch this storm. It is not a big, bad storm - and probably will not become one - but it is very likely to cause messy weather at the World.
For accurate information without the silly TV hype, turn your TV OFF and go to the National Hurricane Center website at http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/
(storm shutters 80% up). Update on 11 AM advisory - Thursday, August 25
Hurricane Warnings are in effect from Vero Beach south to Florida City (south of Miami), and including Lake Okeechobee. Other watches and warnings cover most of the rest of South Florida. This is not a strong storm in terms of wind, but it is a very wet and slow-moving storm, so the primary danger will be flooding.
The storm has slowed from 7-8 mph to 5 mph, which is bad news both for South Florida and Disney. Our local meterologists are now saying they doubt if Katrina will reach hurricane intensity prior to landfall, but the more it slows, the more opportunity it has to strengthen.
For the Orlando area, the longer the storm delays, the more time for the steering systems to the north to weaken or move out of the way, and therefore the more likelihood of the storm coming close to WDW.
After passing through South Florida, the course is still somewhat uncertain. It will turn to the north, but the timing and extent of the turn are difficult to predict. Some models call for the storm to move out into the central Gulf of Mexico, but others call for it to turn back to the NE and cross back across Florida from north of Tampa to Jacksonville. The official forecast track is a compromise between those models and is not as confident as we usually hear from the NHC, because the weather patters surrounding the storm are changing and it's not known how rapidly they will change.
Effect on WDW
The sooner the storm turns, and the more NE it turns, the worse for WDW. If the storm moves well out into the Gulf, WDW weather may be very nice this weekend; if it turns north and then northeast as seems likely, weather will be pretty wet. Disney is well within the three-day cone, and it is possible (though not likely) Katrina could pass right over the top of WDW. If that happens, Katrina should be a somewhat-weakened tropical storm, and would be primarily a rain event. The storm is moving fairly slowly (7-8 mph), so whatever happens will take a long time to pass.
Orlando is currently in the 40-60% probability area for tropical storm force winds (39 mph+), and if winds reach those levels, air travel may be affected. Also, I don't know what Disney's policy is, but when winds reach those levels here, we pull all of our buses off the roads.
If you are in, or headed to, WDW, you need to watch this storm. It is not a big, bad storm - and probably will not become one - but it is very likely to cause messy weather at the World.
For accurate information without the silly TV hype, turn your TV OFF and go to the National Hurricane Center website at http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/
