Miami, FL

Dean brews and begins the journey towards us.

Photo Via The Miami Herald

Via USAToday:

In the Caribbean, hurricane warnings were issued for the islands of Dominica and St. Lucia by their local governments as Hurricane Dean approached. Hurricane watches were in effect for the islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe and its dependencies, Saba and St. Eustaties.

At 5 a.m. ET, Dean was centered about 485 miles east of Barbados and about 590 miles east of Martinique, according to the National Hurricane Center. It was moving west near 24 mph, and was expected to continue the same path for the next 24 hours.

Maximum sustained winds were near 75 mph, above the threshold for a hurricane. Dean is a Category 1 hurricane and is expected to strengthen during the next 24 hours, forecasters said.

Miami, Hurricane, Hurricane Dean

And it starts.

A tropical wave was expected to bring stormy weather to the region beginning Tuesday evening and likely lasting through the day on Wednesday. It also was to generate winds up to 20 mph along the coast, the National Weather Service in Miami said.

"It may increase the risk of rip currents, too," said meteorologist Andrew Tingler.

As of 3:30 p.m. Monday, the north end of that wave was right over Hispaniola, the island that shares the nations of Haiti and Dominican Republic, and was approaching South Florida from the southeast.

Though sun could peak out on Wednesday morning, more than an inch of rain should fall in some areas by the afternoon. Most areas should see about a half an inch of rain, Tingler said.

"It’s probably going to be wet day," he said. "It just depends if you get stuck under a vigorous thunderstorm."

The forecast calls for a 40 percent chance of rain on Tuesday night, increasing to 60 percent on Wednesday. It also calls for high temperatures in the mid 80s and lows in the mid 70s.

By Thursday, conditions should be back to normal, which in South Florida means there still is a chance of afternoon showers and thunderstorms, the weather service said.

I am just glad the satellites are picking it up and the forecasters are able to alert us to it.

Miami, Tropical Storm, Hurricane, Andrew Tingler, Haiti, Dominican Republic, National Weather Service

I attended the Task Force on Citizens Property Insurance Corporation claims handling at Nova Southeastern University in Davie last night and, wow, there are some egregious stories out there. An excellent lawyer brought the sad reality into scope. Not good.

The task force was created to address the state’s largest wind insurer and poor handling of claims for so many south Floridians.

Let’s hope 2007 is a quiet year because Citizens really isn’t equipped to handle another big storm. Couple this sad fact with the aging satellites used to track these storms and we’ve got the recipe for untold destruction of people’s property and lives because not enough planning and personell has been put in place.

Miami, Hurricanes, Nova Southeastern University, Citizens Property Insurance Corporation, Task Force on Citizens Claims Handling

That is the only explanation for why the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) National Hurricane Center (NHC) would not be replacing a hurricane tracking satellite that an internal memo reveals could fail at any moment. AHN has more:

The replacement for the QuikScat satellite will be launched in 2016, yet experts say if the current satellite fails, experts would be left without the tools they need to predict and track hurricanes.

While other tools do exist, Bill Proenza, director of the NHC in Miami, Florida says that without the accuracy afforded to meteorologists by the QuikScat, they “may have to err on the side of caution” in future forecasts, meaning “more people disrupted, and more impact on the economy.”

Proenza explains, “We have to err on the side of the protection of life. And that’s how we would handle it.”

According to the letter, obtained by the Associated Press, a failure of the QuikScat satellite would hurt the accuracy of two-day forecasts by 10 percent and three-day forecasts by 16 percent.

After the 2004 and 2005 storms, shouldn’t someone have already been prepping the launch of a new satellite? Geez.

[tags]Miami, Hurricane, NOAA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Hurricane Center, NHC, Bill Proenza, QuikScat