00:00 All right, Hurricane Idalia continues to pull northward and continues to get better organized.
00:05 That will continue this afternoon and tonight as we continue to see conditions favorable
00:11 for development.
00:12 We've been talking about the warm water in the eastern Gulf of Mexico for weeks now and
00:16 throughout the Atlantic Basin.
00:18 So we have very warm water.
00:19 But one of the most useful tools is the water vapor loop.
00:23 I call it the x-ray of the atmosphere for a reason here.
00:25 First of all, dry air.
00:27 You don't want any dry air or, you know, if you want the system to develop, no one does.
00:31 But dry air getting into the center of circulation would weaken it.
00:34 There's almost like a wall that's been built here on the western side of Idalia.
00:39 None of that dry air is coming into the center of circulation at all.
00:42 Also, when you look at what's going on with the moisture and how everything is moving,
00:47 you'll notice everything is moving with Idalia.
00:50 And you can also see how there's some counterclockwise or clockwise circulation away from the storm.
00:57 This all tells us there's light winds aloft or what we call low wind shear.
01:00 And that's one of the other ingredients for development.
01:03 So we have the warm water.
01:04 We don't have any dry air.
01:05 And we have light wind shear.
01:07 So this is going to strengthen.
01:08 Now what's going to, I think the deciding factor on whether this pulls to the northeast
01:13 or comes due north will end up being this, this trough.
01:17 You can see this dip in the jet stream coming southward.
01:19 Now the stronger this is, the more likely that Idalia does not, Idalia doesn't take
01:25 that turn to the north.
01:26 It may just to the northeast.
01:28 It may just due north.
01:30 And if that's the case, we could be looking at a landfall maybe near Apalachicola or a
01:35 little farther to the east of there.
01:37 But if this trough is a little weaker, then I think you get more of that turn to the northeast.
01:41 And you're talking about Stein Hatchy across Taylor County.
01:46 So those are the possibilities.
01:48 All that coming from the water vapor loop.
01:51 All right, we've decided we're not changing our track here.
01:53 We're going to be bending this to the northeast at the very last second here as we get into
01:58 Wednesday morning and in the Wednesday afternoon.
02:00 And again, we're looking at a category three hurricane.
02:03 At landfall winds 115 to 125, landfall between 9 and 11 a.m.
02:09 That is going to be in Taylor County near Stein Hatchy, off to the north and west of
02:14 Cedar Key as a major hurricane.
02:17 But of course the impacts are going to be far reaching with Idalia.
02:20 And we'll see those impacts all the way across the Carolinas.
02:23 All right, Christina, states of emergency across a lot of Florida, or at least the northern
02:29 half of the peninsula and the western half.
02:32 Yeah, you can see at this point more than half of the entire state in a state of emergency.
02:37 46 counties when we count them all up here because of what's happening with Idalia.
02:42 Widespread impacts and we will see those impacts stretching across major cities like Tampa,
02:47 Clearwater, St. Petersburg.
02:48 And as Bernie mentioned, up towards Cedar Key, up toward Taylor County as well.
02:52 We have issued an extreme risk for cities like Cedar Key because of the far reaching
02:58 impacts of this storm.
03:00 Flash flooding, damaging winds, dangerous storm surge, rough seas, all of that combining
03:05 to put this at a level three on the AccuWeather Real Impact Scale for hurricanes.
03:10 What is the AccuWeather Real Impact Scale for hurricanes?
03:12 Well, first of all, we're going to take a look backwards to the Saffir-Simpson scale
03:16 here, which takes into account the wind of a tropical system.
03:20 We want to take into account all of the life threatening issues of a system like this.
03:24 So wind, flooding, rainfall, storm surge, and we add the economic damage and loss.
03:29 Now when we add all of those factors together, we get again a number three on the scale for
03:35 Idalia here, which means we are looking at widespread damage, including flooding and
03:39 structural damage to homes, to businesses, trees and power lines, for example, as well
03:44 as major coastal inundation as the storm barrels north and passes across the Florida Peninsula
03:50 and Panhandle.
03:51 Now, taking a look at some of the more specific numbers, what are we watching for?
03:55 Well, we keep talking about Cedar Key.
03:57 This is the reason why.
03:59 With this city being so close to our landfall point, we could see wind gusts of 120 to 140
04:04 miles per hour, rainfall up to a foot.
04:08 That's more than enough to cause flooding on its own.
04:10 But then you add in the fact that storm surge, essentially a wall of water, could reach
04:14 up to 15 feet high.
04:16 That's pretty impactful.
04:17 I want you to think about that for a second.
04:19 I'm a grand total of five foot two.
04:21 If we had 15 foot storm surge, that would be 10 feet above my head.
04:25 That's why storm surge is such a major factor in these tropical systems and why unfortunately
04:30 it's the biggest killer when it comes to tropical systems too.
04:33 Looking down the road here to Tampa, a major city in the state of Florida, we're still
04:38 looking at 60 to 80 mile per hour wind gusts, two to four inches of rain and storm surge
04:42 up to six feet.
04:43 Make sure you're staying tuned to the forecast here and on AccuWeather.com.
04:46 Of course, we will be tracking the storm as we move through the week.
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