Hurricane Charley

Landfall | Summary
Posting Date: August 13, 2004, 4:00:00 PM

Hurricane Charley suddenly and rapidly increased in intensity today, and took an unexpected turn to the east shortly before landfall. While some strengthening had been forecast after Charley crossed Cuba, NOAA’s National Hurricane Center (NHC) was not projecting anything more intense than a Category 3 hurricane by the time the storm made landfall along the Florida coast. Throughout the morning, reported wind speeds were near 110 mph, making Charley a borderline Cat 2/3 storm. Then, at 1 p.m. the NHC increased estimates to 125 mph, squarely in the middle of Category 3 status. Just 15 minutes later, a special advisory was issued indicating that maximum sustained winds had increased to 145 mph, meaning Charley had intensified to a Category 4 storm. Charlie had suddenly become as powerful as Hurricane Donna, which hit the area in 1960. In addition, the storm’s track, which throughout yesterday and most of today had Charley making landfall at Tampa, made a sudden turn to the east, bringing the storm into Charlotte Harbor and the Fort Meyers area. As of 5 p.m. EDT, Hurricane Charley is located about 30 miles west-northwest of Fort Meyers, Florida, and about 115 miles south-southwest of Orlando. The storm is heading north-northeast at about 22 mph and some increase in forward speed is expected overnight. Maximum sustained winds are now 140 mph with higher gusts. Minimum central pressure is estimated at 941 mb. Storm surge of between 10 and 15 feet is occurring just south of the landfall location and heavy rains are continuing – between 4 and 8 inches are expected. Flash floods are still a major concern. More than 3 million Floridians were ordered to evacuate. Airports in Tampa, Fort Myers, Sarasota, St. Petersburg and Key West are closed. Hurricane warnings remain in effect for the west coast of Florida from East Cape Sable northward to the Suwannee River. A hurricane warning has also been issued for the southeast coast of the U.S. from Cocoa Beach, Florida to Cape Lookout, North Carolina. While some weakening will occur over the next 24 hours as Charlie makes its way across Florida, it may regain strength after it leaves the northeast coast of Florida and heads toward a likely second landfall in the early afternoon of Saturday. Current forecasts indicate that Charley will arrive on the South Carolina coast somewhere north of Charleston as a Category 1 hurricane. Using the most recent information about the meteorological parameters of this storm, the AIR tropical cyclone modeling team has run hundreds of scenarios representing a variety of assumptions about the storm’s future track and intensity. Results indicate that insured losses in Florida will most likely be between $5 billion and $10 billion, though there is a small chance that losses will exceed $10 billion. Five representative scenarios are now posted on the Scenarios page of this web site, where CATMAP/2®, CATRADER® and CLASIC/2™ clients can view wind speed and loss maps. Please note that the loss estimates provided are for the U.S. only. In addition, event sets representing the full range of simulated scenarios are now available for download. AIR will continue to monitor the situation closely and post new information as necessary. In addition, AIR will dispatch a post-disaster survey team to affected areas over the weekend.

Landfall | Downloads
Posting Date: August 13, 2004, 4:00:00 PM