WEATHER OR NOT?

Listening and watching detailed weather on cable with detailed high res doppler. Still very bad. We're getting gusts and heavy rain.

I'm hearing about a bad cluster tornado warning around St Pete Beach Treasure Island, Ft. Desoto, Tiera Verde. Trouble all the way up past Clearwater on the shore side..more trouble til 8:45 - 9pm and inland towards Lakeland and Winter Haven. More tornado touchdowns.

This sucker won't go away quickly at all. Major trouble til 9pm - 9:15pm so far.

My sister in N. Tampa reports 1 foot of rain so far today.

I believe it! We're getting another heavy rain and wind, lost power for about an hour!

Yup! Quite intense here and coastal shoreline. In last 30 mins it got torrential and gusting to 40 mph here and more north of us. Higher winds and damage north of me. Quite bad at St. Pete Beach ... bad and Pinellas Park now. More rain likely another 6 inches of rain could be coming overnight through tomorrow.

Another tornado has hit as we speak at St. Pete Airport. 2 transformers blew up at or near the small airport.

{edit: 10 mins later... no tornado warning in effect at this moment; however, we might go through intervals of this stormy gusty crap from this slow mover for 12-18 hrs}

I have two waterspouts/tornadoes offshore st Pete beach inbound!

That tornado hit St. Pete Airport. 2 transformers blew up at or near the St. Pete-Clearwater airport. According to news, all tornado warnings have now expired as of 9:30 pm.

However, the Tornado WATCH will be on until 5 am.

I hope the really bad stuff is about over.

Yeah, you guys got hit with some real bad ****. I'm just glad everybody seems to be ok (after a fashion). I suddenly remembered why I don't live in Florida.

Parts of Tampa-metro on northward (Pasco, Hillsborogh, Polk Counties) are being described as having 100-yr-floods. Inland areas had several tornados. From 8-12 inches of rain has fallen in a 50-100 mile area over the coastal areas in the last 24 hrs. Feeder bands are still hitting the area. This storm won't be steered far away either over the next 2 days.

The thing is that these extreme weather outbreaks are not just happening in FL alone. This is still only the beginning of hurricane season.

Everyone still doing okay? Doesn't look like any of you from the St. Pete area have posted since very early this morning before sunrise.

I bet they're all busy cleaning up.

(I've been thinking of them all day, too.)

floods suck...

if any of you got flood water inside your vehicles, get them professionally cleaned immediately, or notify your insurance.

that is a smell I hope to never bump into again...

I only went in the salon for a few hours today. There is so much debris from the wind and rain I was out cleaning up most of the day. We’re still getting high winds but nothing like yesterday!

I stopped by Morgan’s today, he had to work from home, had to have his car towed to the body shop. The waves pushed it up off the street and into one of his pillars in front of the house, which dented the passenger’s side door.

The wind and rain was so heavy my neighbor’s windows leaked and he’s got water damage in his living room.

I think we are through the worse of it, for now anyway.

Some friends of mine emailed me this photo from yesterday. This is Woody’s restaurant. They were down at the waterfront when it started and the waves came across the street and into the restaurant, they couldn’t drive away so they all just stayed inside.

Oh, yeah, much better to live where the hurricanes are bigger than your entire island chain!

So glad to see you guys up north of me in St. Pete are relatively OK.

No Sarasota is OK here. We had lots (6-8 inches) of rain and some 25-45 mph winds but no damage. We're still raining. At noon we had a break in the clouds but it went back to it again 45 mins later. Still have power.

Sometimes I like the Tampa Bay Area. Honestly, it can be a very visually pleasing place to live with the bay and gulf easily accessible. There are miles of beaches and Tampa is the #1 most vain city in the US (so there must be SOME attractive people). BUT then I remember how poorly designed this area is. We have 2 giant, low bridges spanning the bay. Each is 7-8 miles long and dangerous in a storm. The Sunshine Skyway spans the mouth of the bay and, since it's vulnerable to high winds, has been shutdown since yesterday. The required detour is 75 MILES around the bay! Our rich people live on Bayshore Blvd. and with every major storm, their front yards become a river, just today I had to cautiously traverse flooding on Hillsborough Ave. and Fowler Ave., 2 of our biggest roads!

I've been reading about in the news. That Sunshine Bridge detour is a major PITA. I heard that the Davis Island bridge was also closed.

Such a pretty place - ain't it?

Its beautiful here and we love living here. You have to take the good with the bad and I think this was one of the bad days, its not over. They say its moving northeast now but we are still experiencing heavy winds this evening. Here is our back deck, the water line is usually about 6 feet below the deck. The ladder takes you down to where our boat was, we have no idea where it is right now!

I think I need to look into long term actions re this tract developer. He was apparently sued before others and myself bought here and was forced to recipe houses. But many of us down my street deal with breaks.

My house was just fixed by the red cross. Mess, but never mind.

I could go on about the developer, but I'll save it.

Oh my, sorry about your lost boat... and all the other craziness down there. (Water damage, cars floating hither and yon, the poor greenhouse, etc. Glad the tortoises and the people seem to be OK.)