Hurricane Frances

Landfall | Summary
Posting Date: September 5, 2004, 7:00:00 AM

The center of Hurricane Frances finally made its way onshore near Sewall’s Point and Stuart, Florida this morning at around 1:00 a.m. EDT. Frances maintained its intensity throughout the evening and made landfall as a Category 2 hurricane with sustained winds of near 105 mph. As of 11:00 a.m. EDT, Sunday, September 5, the center of Hurricane Frances is located about 80 miles east-southeast of Tampa. Winds have now dropped to 90 mph, making Frances a Category 1 hurricane. It remains a very large system with hurricane force winds extending to 70 miles from the center. If the current forecast track from the National Hurricane Center holds, Frances will exit Florida’s west coast near Tampa and head toward the panhandle and make a second landfall near Tallahassee. Hurricane Frances is nearly three times the size of Charley, affecting a swath comprising a large part of the Florida peninsula. Exacerbating the potential damage, Hurricane Frances virtually crawled toward Florida, battering coastal properties with tropical storm and hurricane force winds long before the center of the storm actually crossed the coastline. While Frances has now picked up some speed (it is currently traveling at near 9 mph), it is expected to take another 18 to 24 hours before it reaches the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, where it may yet restrengthen. Rainfall amounts of 8 to 12 inches are expected across the state, though some localized areas may experience up to 20 inches. This is likely to result in significant numbers of downed trees resulting from the combination of high winds and saturated soils. AIR also expects slight to moderate damage to roof coverings, awnings and carports. More significant damage to mobile homes can be expected in those areas subjected to the highest winds. The AIR tropical cyclone team has run hundreds of new scenarios using the latest information on Hurricane Frances. Five of these, representing a variety of assumptions about the storm’s future track and intensity, are now posted on the scenarios page of this website, where CATRADER® and CLASIC/2™ clients can view wind speed and loss maps. In addition, probability-weighted event sets representing the full range of simulated scenarios are now available for download. Note that the loss estimates provided in these event sets are for Florida only. AIR continues to monitor Hurricane Frances closely and will update our loss estimates within the next 24 to 48 hours.

Landfall | Downloads
Posting Date: September 5, 2004, 7:00:00 AM