Hurricane Frances

Pre-Landfall 4 | Summary
Posting Date: September 3, 2004, 4:00:00 AM

Hurricane Frances weakened overnight and is currently a Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir Simpson scale. Maximum sustained winds are currently near 120 mph and minimum central pressure has risen to 957 mb. Hurricane Frances’s windfield has spread out as the core has weakened. Hurricane force winds now extend outward to 85 miles from the storm’s center. Frances continues to slow down and is currently moving toward the west-northwest at around 9 mph. A further decrease in forward speed is forecast and Hurricane Frances could slow to 5 mph just before landfall. This would put Frances near the Florida coast sometime tomorrow (Saturday) evening EDT. It would also mean that coastal areas will be exposed to prolonged winds, likely exacerbating damage. Forecasts of intensity are “very problematic”, according to NOAA’s National Hurricane Center (NHC). There are indications that a westerly shear has increased to 15-20 knots, which would have the effect of weakening the system further. Frances still has strong convection, however, and as it crosses slowly over the very warm waters of the Gulf Stream, there is a chance that it will re-consolidate and intensify. The bottom line is that there is currently a great deal of uncertainty about Frances’ intensity at landfall in Florida. As of 8:00 a.m. EDT, the center of Hurricane Frances is located over Eleuthera in the Bahamas, about 260 miles from the Florida coast. A hurricane warning is in effect from Florida City north to Flagler Beach. More than 2.5 million people have been asked to evacuate from coastal areas, Florida’s largest evacuation in history. Airports at Ft. Lauderdale and Orlando have already announced that they will close today. The Miami airport is monitoring wind speeds and will likely close when the maximum sustained winds there reach 45-50 mph. If the current intensity of Frances persists, that is, if the storm makes landfall along the Florida coast as a Category 3 hurricane, AIR estimates that losses will fall between the 30th and 60th percentile of the event set posted yesterday evening. The AIR tropical cyclone team continues to monitor Hurricane Frances closely. We will be posting a new range of loss estimates later today.

Pre-Landfall 4 | Downloads
Posting Date: September 3, 2004, 4:00:00 AM