Gordon heads to Gulf, will be Cat 1 hurricane
Overachieving storm gives South Florida soggy Labor Day.
Tropical Storm Gordon whacked South Florida on Monday with sideways rain and wind gusts nearing 60 mph after a surprise escalation that triggered tropical storm warnings from the upper Keys to the Gulf Coast.
Gordon, which as of 8 p.m. was 95 miles west-southwest of Fort Myers with 60-mph winds, is forecast to reach Category 1 hurricane strength before making landfall today or Wednesday near the mouth of the Mississippi River.
The seventh named storm of the hurricane season, Gordon wasn’t expected to develop until it reached the balmy Gulf of Mexico where sea surface temperatures are running above normal.
Instead, National Hurricane Center forecasters named it at 8:05 a.m. Monday as it zeroed in on Key Largo.
“It’s already 45 mph and we thought it was only going to be a wimpy depression,” said AccuWeather hurricane expert Dan Kottlowski early Monday. “It’s overachieving, so it certainly has time to intensify over the next 24 hours.”
Gordon is forecast to top out with 75 mph winds. Hurricane warnings were issued for the coasts of Alabama and Missis-
sippi on Monday. In Florida, a tropical storm warning was issued for Pensacola through Destin.
While areas south of Palm Beach County experienced the heaviest rainfall, South Florida Water Management District estimates through 4 p.m. showed 1.6 inches of rain in suburban Boca Raton, 1.5 inches in Boynton Beach and 0.71 inches in Jupiter.
The National Weather Service gauge at Palm Beach International Airport recorded 1.84 inches through 4 p.m., with wind gusts as high as 42 mph. Wind gusts reached 56 mph in North Miami Beach, and 51 mph at Fort Lauderdale International Airport. A gust of 46 mph was measured on Marco Island at 2 p.m.
The Labor Day dousing was predicted, with forecasters calling for heavy rain regardless of Gordon’s status.
“My dad was going to grill up some stuff, but not now,” said Nicole Goodwin, of Lake Worth, who watched waves crash on a gloom-soaked Palm Beach on Monday.
Goodwin said she didn’t know Gordon had formed until near noon when she got caught in a heavy rain band and checked a weather app to see when it would end.
Carlos Sanchez, who was sofa shopping on Worth Avenue on Monday, was expecting rain, but not a tropical storm when he drove from his home in Miami earlier in the morning. Still, he was unconcerned.
“We’re from South Florida so we’re used to this,” he said.
Rapids Water Park, the Palm Beach Zoo and Lion Country Safari remained open Monday.
Brian Dowling, general curator for Lion Country Safari, said while humans grouse about the rain, animals have a different view.
“It’s wet, it cools them off. The rhinos are all out wallowing in the mud puddles, they think it’s great weather,” Dowling said. “Wildebeests just love the rain and spend a lot of time running and chasing each other.”
Gordon’s counterclockwise spin as it moved through the Keys and toward Marco Island looked eerily similar on radar to Hurricane Irma’s path. It was Labor Day a year ago when South Florida first found itself in Irma’s 5-day forecast cone. Six days later, it made landfall near Cudjoe Key as a Category 4 hurricane.
No one is expecting Gordon to become an Irma-style storm, but Kottlowski said not to let your guard down.
The National Hurricane Center is still watching Tropical Storm Florence, which is 980 miles west of the Cabo Verde Islands. Florence is riding the underbelly of a high pressure system. Its track depends on whether it weakens. If it starts to fall apart, Florence could follow trade winds toward the U.S. coast, but if it strengthens, it would likely zip up the western edge of the high far from shore, Kottlowski said.
“If it stays with the trades and intensifies over warm water near Bermuda, it could go right into North Carolina,” Kottlowski said. “That’s our greatest fear right now.”
A tropical wave that just left the coast of Africa has a 40 percent chance of developing into an organized system over the next five days. And there’s a wave behind it that hasn’t left the coast yet. The next name on the 2018 storm list is Helene.
On average, 5.6 named storms have formed by Sept. 3, meaning Gordon puts the 2018 hurricane season above normal in terms of formed systems.
“All of a sudden things can just come to life,” Kottlowski said about peak season. “It’s all about the last week of August and first three weeks of September. Weather doesn’t take a holiday.”