Hurricane Watch II-12:00am
Coming up on midnight, and things are still relatively quiet. We spent the evening over at some friends, Mike and Jeff, with another friend Cannell. Ordered in a pizza and played some cards.
A few more squall lines have come through during the evening, and we’ve had some rain. The wind has not been all that bad yet, except for a few brief minutes this afternoon. There are more squall lines moving towards Tampa on radar, so we will get some wind and rain during the evening. A tree fell on what was apparently some main power lines in Pinellas County (St. Pete area), and several thousand people were knocked out. I don’t how much has been restored. The power flickered here some this afternoon as one of the squalls moved through, but never flickered once while we were at Mike and Jeff’s.
The eye-wall of the hurricane finally came ashore in the area of West Palm beach. I think the forward speed has increased a little bit. The storm was not able to intensify much as moved over the ocean between the Bahama’s and Florida. Because of the slow movement, I don’t expect us to start noticing anything very significant until around 6:00 or 7:00am this morning, Sunday.
The 11:00pm track from NOAA has moved the center of the track back a little north again. The more north it goes, the better off we will be here in Tampa.
