Whoa -- what a last few days!! "Beryl" came ashore as a tropical storm at Jacksonville Beach at 12:10am Mon., May 28th. We witnessed history as "Beryl" was the first tropical cyclone to ever make landfall on the First Coast during the month of May (going back to 1851). The storm was the first direct landfall of a tropical cyclone of any sort since "Tammy" (an obscure short-lived small trop. storm) came ashore near Mayport in October, 2005. Looks like the peak wind gust was 73 mph at Mayport.
"Beryl" is not done with us yet(!). Very heavy rain bands will circulate across the southern & eastern quadrant through Tue. evening & torrential downpours will occur across much of the First Coast. My concern now is the potential for serious flooding in some areas. We could take the first onslaught since we were so dry but now the "table is set" with saturated ground in many areas followed by rainbands dumping 1-2"+/hour. It'll be interesting to see how much rain falls Mon. night & Tue. night as tropical cyclones over land have a tendency to drop extreme rainfall at night. Anyone in a flood prone area should stay alert.
By Wed., "Beryl" will be accelerating NE into the Western Atlantic but a hot, humid air mass will be left behind helping to ignite "more traditional" afternoon heavy t'storms Wed.-Fri.
For helpful info. on flooding, there's a great web site to refer to [FLASH] -- click here.
CBS47 aired a small portion of the program "First Alert Hurricane Watch: 2012" last week -- click here for sneak peek.
I've received bunch of photos related to "Beryl". Below are just a few, but I'll keep posting pic's through the week. Thanks to everyone for watching, staying calm during the storm, your support & common sense(!) & for sending photos & weather info. Pic's below are from Elizabeth Colavecchio, Jax Beach....Christopher Clark, S'side Jax - possible funnel cloud looking north up S'side Blvd. Mon. morning....Brea Nelson (new trampoline!)...Stacy Maysonet, St. Marys....Emily Bigham, St. Marys, Ga....Laurie Lee, N'side...& Shakia Floyd, Jax.....George Goodrich, Green Cove Springs.
