Ian Makes Landfall In Florida – National Weather Outlook For September 29, 2022

Ian Makes Landfall In Florida

After reaching winds of 155 mph earlier in the day Wednesday, Ian made landfall with slightly lower winds around 3:05 PM ET. It was a Category 4 hurricane at landfall with 150 mph winds. It essentially made landfall in the same spot that Hurricane Charley did back in 2004.

Ian will continue to track across Florida Wednesday night into Thursday, slowly weakening as it does so. Even while it is weakening, it will bring catastrophic flooding and damaging winds across the Florida Peninsula and a devastating storm surge along the coast. It will emerge into the Atlantic Thursday night, recurring northward into South Carolina as a tropical storm on Friday.

_______________________________________________

National Weather Forecast

Ian will continue to impact the Southeast on Thursday with high winds and flooding rains. Elsewhere, a system out west will produce storms and some higher elevation snow mixed in.

The heaviest rain through the end of the week will be in Florida where at least one to two feet of rain could fall courtesy of Ian. Surrounding that in the Southeast, at least 3-9” of rain could fall.

_______________________________________________

Ian smashes into southwest Florida with historic force

More from Yale Climate Connections: “Hurricane Ian powered ashore along the southwest Florida coast at Cayo Costa Island at 3:05 p.m. EDT September 28 as a category 4 storm with 150-mph winds, tying as the fifth-strongest hurricane on record to make a contiguous U.S. landfall. The mighty hurricane’s winds, storm surge, and flooding rain are all expected to cause catastrophic damage, and Ian will go down in history as one of the most damaging hurricanes of all time. Ian was pushing a catastrophic storm surge along its right side into the southwest Florida coast as it charged ashore. Winds circulating around Ian pushed water offshore late Tuesday night, but the flow quickly switched to onshore Wednesday morning, triggering sharp rises in water. The storm surge will peak on Wednesday afternoon, with the timing of peak inundation modulated to some extent by the astronomical tides. Storm surge will continue well into Wednesday evening, as Ian pulls northward and southwest winds continue to funnel water into the southwest-facing coastline and bays.”

Astronomers May Have Spotted the Remnants of One of the Earliest Stars

More from Gizmodo: “A team of astronomers studying the gas surrounding a distant quasar believe it may carry remnants of one of the universe’s first stars. The first stars are known as Population III stars (the three star populations were named in the order they were observed, so the Population III stars are counterintuitively the earliest). These oldest stars are hypothetical at the moment and presumed long gone, as they would have been hundreds of times the mass of the Sun and would have burned out quickly.”

Gas station owners, charging companies oppose Xcel Energy’s electric vehicle charging plan

More from Energy News Network: “A coalition of retailers and charging station companies is objecting to a proposal by Xcel Energy to install hundreds of high-speed public charging stations across its Minnesota territory. Xcel Energy asked state regulators last month for permission to spend $170 million on a rapid expansion of charging infrastructure to help the state meet its goal of electrifying 20% of light duty vehicles by 2030. The utility said “range anxiety” will remain a barrier to that goal until drivers have enough charging options — it projects a need for 8,300 public fast-charging ports statewide by the end of the decade. Fewer than 100 exist today.”

_______________________________________________

Thanks for checking in and have a great day! Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter (@dkayserwx) and like me on Facebook (Meteorologist D.J. Kayser).

– D.J. Kayser