|
|
||
|
Last Update 08/27/04 |
Tropical Storm Bonnie Chase LogDisclaimer: The North Florida Chapter of the AMS does not sponsor or condone storm chasing. However, we understand that many of our members may be interested in partaking in such events and will host reports from any such events that may occur. On August 11-12, 2004, Tropical Storm Bonnie headed towards and made landfall along the coast of the Florida Panhandle near St. Marks, about 20 miles southeast of Tallahassee. A group of three North Florida chapter members - Chris Bennett, Clark Evans, and Jeff Taylor - "chased" the storm to St. George Island, about 75 miles southwest of Tallahassee, the projected landfall point for the storm, and where the Weather Channel was set up for a live shot. A good time was had by all, despite the lack of sleep. Follow along in their journey with the Tropical Storm Bonnie chase log, kept by Clark and as presented below. Pictures and potentially video will be available in the near future.
State Road 65 is capital-B-Boring. It might break my record of note seeing a car on a stretch of highway, which currently stands at about 30 miles along I-10 one weekend early morning (~2-3am). Update (10:02p) – alas, no such luck. Three cars in a mile about 10 miles out of Sumatra. No cell phone reception here for anyone, nor can we get the Weather Radio to work here either. It’s Survivor time, but I’ll let Chris and Jeff battle it out while I eat the food. In all fairness, I can deprecate myself too – as I just did pulling out my “Cornholio” reference to a clip that randomly played on the radio a minute ago. 10:30pm 8.11.04 We’ve got an unexpected 4th companion on the trip – a tree frog. He randomly hopped on to the screen a minute ago. We’ve just hit 98 – very foggy, but otherwise clear. The scent of the ocean is very much in the air. Anything to be said for introducing new tree frogs into the St. George area ecosystem? Should be interesting to see if they let us across the bridge...more soon. Update: bridge is open thus far, we’ll see if we get all the way across. Don’t expect any problems, though. Update 2: we’re on! TWC, here we come. 2:20am 8.12.04 Here on a very quiet St. George Island. Made it to the TWC live shoot just after they finished. Looked into getting a room at the Buccaneer Inn - $106 a night is way too much. They are staying at the St. George Inn, which is closed right now otherwise, so we’re sticking it out by car (after also giving Apalachicola & the St. Marks Plantation Inn some thought). Parked here at the public beach for now. Headed down shortly after 12 to the water and were followed by some dude here surfing. He’s staying in one of the little “homes” on the playground, though he wanted to hang around us for a little while. Weird, to say the least. Took a couple of measurements and made some videos as well. Temps are running about 82, winds about 10-15kt, dewpoint around 75. No major gusts yet and only now is it starting to cloud up. Waiting on a 2a set of advisories to figure out what to do/where to go from here. Saw a few cool things, though. A thunderstorm well off to the SE – between here and Tampa, really – lit up the skies for awhile, which we hope we have on tape. The Perseid Meteor Shower lit up the skies as well, with meteors shooting off from all different directions. And, we shot some outtakes on the video for awhile...we’ll see what happens to those from here. Afterward, we just shot the breeze for awhile before deciding to call it a night a few minutes ago. We’ll probably turn in around 3 and get up a bit before 6, assuming we all get some sleep, to start to catch the live shots for TWC again in the morning. Should be an interesting one...expecting the beginnings in a few hours here with the worst mid-morning. More later on in the day... 5:35am 8.12.04 Went to the west end of the island for a short nap due to some rather suspicious drivers in the center part of the beach. Woke about 4:45a with the first band of rain, then called in to Bill (Cottrill; FSU Weather Station manager) and later Shane (Young, FSU grad student) for some data. Seems as though the storm has officially weakened – they dropped the hurricane warnings – but that the storm, unofficially, is blowing up yet again. About to set up for some TV shots of our own, as are the TWC guys, now that we’re back at their location on the center part of the beach. We’re here for the long haul, lack of sleep (just an hour and a half) not withstanding. 8:15am 8.12.04 Just finished up breakfast at the one place open on the island: all you can eat for $7. Not bad. TWC continues to do live shots on a continual basis; no word yet if they’ll take us up on our offer for a live shot, though! Interesting rain band about an hour out looks to be the main feature headed our way, then the center probably after noon. No new outtakes...yet. Getting some good video and continual rain, but no one around here seems to be worried. Not too much to be worried about, I must say. We’ll see if that changes. Going on ~24hr continuous awake; the drive back should be fun. Epilogue Bonnie came within a couple of miles of St. George before turning to the right and making landfall about 60 miles to our east, a product of the coastline. The highest wind gust recorded was 31mph, and no, we didn't end up on the Weather Channel, though it was very cool to have the opportunity to meet up with Stephanie and their crew there during the chase. The main band passed through about 10:30am on August 12th, with clearing skies after 11am. We left the island at about 11:45am after saying our goodbyes and made it back to Tallahassee at 1pm. While Bonnie didn't quite cooperate - we were expecting a weak hurricane, like the NHC predicted - the chase was still a fun one. For us, that afternoon of the 12th was spent doing one thing - catching up on sleep. Perhaps there will be future opportunities; only time will tell. Certainly anything like Charley further south will not be on the docket. |
|||||
|
