Marine Tropical Storm — St Augustine To Flagler Beach Fl Out 20nm, Atlantic South

2023-08-30 · St Augustine To Flagler Beach Fl Out 20nm, Atlantic South

Event narrative

St. Johns County Coast: At 644 am, a mesonet station in Summerhouse measured a wind gust of 42 mph. Coastal gusts of 40-50 mph continued through the morning hours. At 0730 am, a mesonet station in the City of St. Augustine measured a wind gust of 42 mph. At 8 am, the C-Man station SAUF1 in St. Augustine measured a wind gust of 44 mph, then at 9 am that station measured a wind gust of 46 mph. At 942 am, the St. Augustine Airport AWOS measured a wind gust of 40 mph. At 1106 am, the AWOS at the airport measured a wind gust of 41 mph. At 1140 am, the mesonet site in St. Augustine measure a wind gust of 46 mph. At 1210, the same site measured a wind gust of 47 mph. At 307 pm, the AWOS station measured a gust of 43 mph. At 350 pm, the mesonet site 2 miles SSE of South Ponte Vedra Beach at the St. Johns County Fire Station measured a wind gust of 45 mph.

Flagler County Coast:

The first tropical storm force wind gust at the mesonet at Marineland measured a wind gust of 45 mph around 6 pm. Gusts of 40-45 mph continued at this location through the morning hours. At 1011 am, a trained weather spotter measured a wind gust of 41 mph in Flagler Beach. At 1130 am, a mesonet station in Palm Coast measured a wind gust of 42 mph (Hammock Dunes Bridge). At 1211 about 2 miles south of Flagler Beach on the intracoastal waterway, a spotter measured wind gusts of 46 mph at South Flagler Beach. At 1213, a spotter in north Flagler beach measured sustained winds of 35 mph with gusts to 48 mph. At 410 pm, the mesonet station at Marineland had a wind gust of 49 mph.

Wider weather episode

Hurricane Idalia made landfall Wednesday morning August 30th around 745 AM EDT along the

Florida Big Bend near Keaton Beach as a category 3, with the inner core moving NE across the

Suwannee River Valley. The inner wind core of Idalia gradually weakened through the morning while,

heavily impacting Suwannee and Hamilton counties in NE Florida and Echols county SE Georgia as the

circulation tracked NE. Widespread tree, power line and structure damage occurred across Suwannee

and Hamilton counties, with estimated winds of 80-100 mph based on damage surveys with isolated

pockets of peak wind gusts near major hurricane strength. Outer rainbands on the eastside of Idalia

impacted all of SE Georgia and NE FL through the day, with early morning tornadoes across coastal SE

Georgia and widespread tropical cyclone wind gusts through the day causing tree damage and powerline damage at least somewhere across NE Florida and SE Georgia. Measured gusts during the peak of

the hurricane across the local forecast area were 60-80 mph. Flooding rainfall impacted locations in

the direct path of the weakening inner core across the Suwannee River Valley and southeast Georgia,

especially from eatern Hamilton county toward Baxley and Jesup GA. The peak rainfall amounts were

up to 5-8 inches. At least 3 tornadoes occurred in southeast GA as rainbands swept northwestward

ahead of the hurricane.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 1128999. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.