Weather, Storms & Hurricane Blog

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In this “Moments in Chasing” post, I wanted to look back at our Hurricane Rita chase intercept, as we sit here in the middle of winter. With very little to talk about during the 2006 Atlantic Hurricane Season, there is plenty to talk about from 2005. Hurricane Rita just reached hurricane status when passing just south of the island of Key West, in the Florida Keys during September 2005. Key West was spared a direct hit on the island, but Hurricane Rita’s tropical winds and surge were still felt on the island.

Storm Chaser Chris Collura and myself drove into the Keys from south Florida still recovering from our Hurricane Katrina chase intercept in the Gulfport, Mississippi area. We were expecting category one winds if the center came close enough to the island and felt it was worth the drive south from Ft Lauderdale to investigate, plus this was a ongoing record breaking year and wanted to be included in all the storms if possible

Once in the lower Keys, Chris and I stopped at a Holiday Inn to look over some data. We started to notice that the center of circulation was pulling a bit more westward and south of the island. We knew now that we would not likely intercept the eye as it was further south over open waters, but we did know that we were on the right north side of the storm, so expected some winds and surge nevertheless. We scouted the island and looked for locations we wanted to setup to record wind and pressure readings and shoot video. There was a place that I was very filmilar with on the east-northeast side of the island at the waters front. It was the Key West Ambassador Best Western Resort that Kersten and I stay at every year when on our mini Keys vacations. This area was looking good and like it would see some surge and winds, so we setup and waited.

When we first setup, the ocean was flat! With a small hit of a swell bumping up into the seawall. Over time the swell started to increase and Chris and I started to film the walls of water smashing into the seawall and coastal road. This was a swell coming in from Rita still southeast of the island and getting stronger. It was pretty cool to see the ocean go from flat to very rough with in a few hours. Chris started shooting with his surge HD camera, while I walked around a shot before and after scene setups. Rita was now starting to get her act together and Key West would feel some of her power in the coming hours.

Chris and I closely monitored the visible satellite and radar imagery, watching every little wobble and shift west. We could clearly see Rita was about to strengthen and we would see our winds soon. Sure enough within a hour or so from first arriving at the location, our winds and seas dramatically increased from the northeast. Over the next few hours the winds would increase to near hurricane strength with hurricane gusts right at the beach. We filmed the storm surge over taking the coastal highway and moving into the Best Western property. At one point the surge over took us and Chris’s car was a float for a few seconds, as seen in some of this video.

We continue to film and record weather observations for the next few hours, and as sunset approached , we opted to leave the island and start to make our way back to the mainland. All in all, it was a pretty impressive storm for the lower Keys and Rita went on to become a very intense category 5 hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico and weaken to a category three and made landfall along the northern Gulf coastline near the Texas and Louisiana border. Although we never chased in the Keys again that year, The Florida Keys would see another round of tropical weather with Hurricane Wilma in October 2005. Major storm surge flooding took place over much of the Keys.

The 2005 Atlantic Hurricane Season would rage on for months to come that year. You can view video of our Hurricane Rita chase on network site Hurricanevideo.com. You can view a few more photos from that day as well on Weathervine Storm Chasing, and review all of our hurricane chasing for the 2005 season. You may also to view the weather data recorded while in Key West and Christ Collura’s photos of the chase. Visit his chase log of Rita here.

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