Hurricane Dorian's Westward Turn To Determine South Florida's Fate
MIAMI (CBSMiami) - Often times it is the wind speed and category that everyone wants to know with the new advisories but at least over the next 24 to 36 hours it may be the latitude and movement to watch.
"There is no question the storm will intensify and be a major hurricane prior to landfall," said CBS4 meteorologist Dave Warren. "The storm will be passing through a very favorable environment which includes very warm water and little to no wind shear."
The latest advisory has Dorian as a category 4 storm with wind speeds of 140 mph near landfall, but big question remains where along the coast that may occur. When the storm begins its forecasted movement to the west then it may become clearer at what latitude that will occur.
"The movement is expected to go from northwest to west-northwest sometime late Friday or early Saturday," said Warren.
Currently, the forecast track takes Dorian over the Northwestern Bahamas where a hurricane watch is now in effect.
"A few forecast models have even taken the storm directly west or even moved the storm back to the south, but the official track is still west-northwest." He said.
Currently, the storm is about to cross over 25 degrees north which puts it almost due east of downtown Miami. By 26 degrees North it would be off the coast of Fort Lauderdale and at about 26.75 degrees north it is off of West Palm Beach.
The farther north it can get before making the turn to the west the less of an impact, given it does not get pushed south, it will have on Miami-Dade and Broward Counties.
There are ways to track the storm's location other than checking the advisories issued every three hours.
"Given the potential impact of the storm reconnaissance flights are pretty much nonstop," said Warren. "They send back detailed coordinates of the storm's center pretty much in real-time giving us the storm's position in some cases a few times per hour."
Along with a detailed record of the storm's position and movement other data these flights collect are incorporated into the many computer forecasts you see displayed.
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