Hurricanes, Tropical Storms and South Florida Diving

[Jim238]

I'm looking at going on an afternoon dive and an evening dive next Saturday, September 4. But it looks like a hurricane will only have recently passed the area if its present track holds.

So my questions are: As a storm approaches the area, how close can it be and the dive conditions still "good"?

How long after a storm passes does it take for dive conditions to return to "good"?

 

[RetMTFE]

If anyone is able to correctly answer this question, please PM me tonight's winning Powerball number. TYVM

 

[cudachaser]

The ground swell is at least as far south as Ft Pierce. South Florida will probably see some ground swell as Danielle moves northward. The Keys are unaffected and there is always the springs

 

[RickI]

Where are you planning on diving and in what depth of water? As others have said already, it is way too far off at this point to say for sure what the storm impacts in SE Florida might be. Passing into the wake of two other tropical systems I suspect there is some added uncertainty in the models at this advanced point. Tropical systems can impact visibility in several ways, I even learned some new ones in Key West a couple of weeks back. The Keys can present a special case depending on the nature of the storm and passage. Anyway, sustained wind and swells are two of the key sources of impact. It is way too far off to say what winds we will have. Hopefully not much but who knows at this point. The position and direction of travel of the storm relative to the coast is a large factor. There have been cases of hurricanes moving parallel up the coast but off to the east causing light winds here.

The same could be said about swells too, there is a lot of uncertainty. Hurricane Andrew generated massive UW forces that busted many of the wrecks to plate in Miami-Dade county, moved the Lowrance and Mercedes up here, excavated reef and silted things out for about a week or so. Just because you have a TS or even hurricane in the area isn't necessarily going to mess up diving, maybe. Then again, they can have a major impact depending on how things play out. Just have to wait and see at this point until the weekend is closer.

There are some tracking resources collected for easy reference at:
Hurricane Prediction and Tracking Resources - FKA Kiteboarding Forums

 

[CaptEsteban]

I have always said that, " if a meteorologist could predict out weather with 50% accuracy,,, he would be a millionaire ! "

 

[Jim238]

Rick,

I'm looking at the wrecks off of West Palm Beach. Visibility and surface conditions were my first thoughts. But, I hadn't really considered the wrecks themselves being disturbed.

Mostly, I would like to avoid booking the trips, hotel room, etc and then being disappointed in the diving, or having to cancel at the last minute.

Since it looks Earl will be getting stronger and kind of close to FL, think I will pass on the trips.

Thanks!

 

[RickI]

By current projections the storm track for the eye of Earl is to completely miss Florida entirely and pass to the east of the Bahamas. Hope it happens too. There "may" not be a lot of impacts in WPB, it is hard to say at this point.

You should know Andrew was a rare Cat. 5 storm with max 175 mph winds that slammed into South Florida on a westward track moving fast over ground in 1992. The rest is history. The winds and associated wave forces were extreme and fairly unique, we can hope. Moving wrecks on the bottom does happen, i.e. righting of the Speigel Grove in 2005 by Hurricane Dennis. It was moved about 150 yards and turned on to even kneel. Even though Dennis passed to the west of Key Largo by 200 miles, the right leading edge quadrant of this Cat. 4 hurricane were aimed at the area for a few days. It seems to have been moving fast as well. The Speigel might have been a current as opposed to a deep water wave event with major wind water surcharge stockpiled between Cuba, the Bahamas and Florida really spiking the Florida current north, it is hard to say. Shifting wrecks major distances still seems to be fairly infrequent.

A hurricane passing roughly parallel to and perhaps 500 miles to the east on the other side of the Bahamian plateau as currently predicted for now TS Earl "may" not have much impact on Florida conditions. Depending on how close it comes to Florida, pressure gradients, etc., there may be some winds developed over in Florida. The hurricane winds themselves for a storm passing well to the east should clock from NW to W to SW as it passes by to the north, offshore in WPB and not generating much other than some refracted swells perhaps. It is the pressure gradient developed with the system to the west than may create some local northerly winds for a time. These winds may generate some surface swells but in deep water off West Palm perhaps won't impact visibility that much. By current estimates, subject to change, the center of Earl is supposed to be off Delaware by early Friday morning. Then there is Invest 97 coming behind Earl, they think this might turn into a Cat. 4 storm. They also currently think it will pass to the east of the track of Earl, even further from Florida. None of the last three storms have been driving much in the way of swells to SE Florida, yet. So, if you can wait a bit longer to see what TS Earl and Invest 97 are going to do, you might consider doing just that. We should know more by Tuesday and Wednesday.

 

[Chugwhump]

Crownweather.com

Tropical Weather Discussion Crown Weather - Your One-Stop Weather Information Source - US Weather, Tropical Weather, and More!

Enjoy.
Chug
Is a jist a leetle bit worried about Labor day weekend.

 

[Jim238]

Thanks Rick and Chug,

Since many of the folks on here have been diving FL for years and have seen these storms pass by before, I was hoping for some perspective on how soon a storm affects the area and how long it takes for the effects to calm back to normal. Kind of a rule of thumb, if you will.

 

[RickI]

The only thing I can say right now is it doesn't look like Earl or Invest 97 should have much impact on the WPB area from the long range models. That is still pretty far off in the future however particularly for Invest 97. If the forecasts hold, there may be little direct hurricane impact to recover from. This could change sure hope it doesn't! As I said, local winds might set up from the pressure gradient between a western system and the hurricane but that is still far off in the future too.

This is quite different from the eye of a hurricane passing right over you. Visibility can take a week or longer to clear up at times in nearshore areas. Power can go out for a while too for that matter, hotels can sell out and all the other fun stuff lots remember from 2004 and 05. In deepwater off WPB with lots of flushing from the Gulfstream perhaps a bit faster. Again, from the forecasts this IS NOT what we are talking about. The main rule of thumb regarding the impact of hurricanes is that there isn't one that comes readily to mind. Each set of circumstances can vary.