Wednesday, August 20, 2008

9:59 AM - Fay's "Eye" Passed Directly Overhead Overnight

I quit blogging last night so that I could perform the basic hygenic activities and get some rest, because I was not sure whether FIT would cancel class today or not...
Well, I got out of bed around 7:00 this morning, and found the center of Fay's circulation still lingering just to the north of Melbourne.
The rain's still coming down - over 6 inches since midnight according to the Roberts Hall webpage. We clearly have had well over a foot since Fay began gracing us with her presence early yesterday morning.
Sustained winds are holding in the 20-25 MPH range, with gusts around 35 MPH. The barometer is currently 1000.3 mb and rising as Fay moves on to bigger and better things over the Gulf Stream.

Upon inspection of data this morning, it has become clear that Fay's center of circulation passed directly overhead of or very near campus between 1:00 and 1:30 this morning. The Roberts Hall station reported winds of less that 10 MPH from 1:00 to 1:30, while the wind direction shifted from the NE to the SW within that very short time period. My barometer also shows that the air pressure bottomed out at 992 millibars around 1:45 this morning, which, according to the 2 AM advisory from the National Hurricane Center, was the minimum central pressure of Fay at the time...All very convincing evidence that the very small and compact center of Fay passed directly overhead of FIT.
How cool!

If my analysis isn't enought for you, above is a map from The Weather Underground showing Fay's track in blue, FIT's campus in the yellow box, and Roberts Hall (where the weather station is located) under the black dot. Wow!

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