Tropical Depression — Metro Palm Beach County, Florida

2020-08-01 to 2020-08-02 · Metro Palm Beach County, Florida

Event narrative

As Isaias moved offshore across the South Florida waters, outer rain bands produced produced maximum sustained winds generally between 25-30 mph. Wind gusts to tropical storm force were measured as high as 39-53 mph. The highest measured tropical storm-force wind gust was 53 mph (46 kt) by ASOS station KPBI West Palm Beach recorded at 4:08 PM EDT on August 1st. A total of around 2,650 customers lost power in Palm Beach County, otherwise, wind impacts were minor.

Wider weather episode

A low pressure system moving across the tropical Atlantic into the eastern Caribbean Sea formed into Tropical Storm Isaias on July 28th. While the system briefly became a hurricane near Great Inagua Island on July 30th, it was downgraded back to a Tropical Storm as it moved over Andros Island on August 1st with a minimum central pressure of 993 mb. Isaias gradually turned to the N-NW and the center passed about 30-40 miles east of the Palm Beach County coast during the morning of August 2nd with a minimum central pressure of 995 mb and maximum sustained winds of 65 to 70 mph. Lowest surface pressure measured over South Florida was 1003.1 mb at Lake Worth Pier on August 2nd.

Although the effects from Isaias were minor for South Florida, sustained Tropical Storm force winds were felt across portions of Palm Beach, Broward, and Miami-Dade Counties. Rainfall flooding impacts were minor across South Florida with 2 to 2.6 inches measured mainly across Miami-Dade and Broward counties. Almost 3,000 customers lost power during the event, almost all of them in Palm Beach County.

A peak storm surge of 1.11 feet was observed at Lake Worth Pier, 1.06 feet at Virginia Key, and 0.99 feet at Port Everglades. Along the Atlantic coast, minor to moderate beach erosion was observed in usually vulnerable locations, most notably at the beaches of Palm Beach and Broward counties. A total of 165 people voluntarily evacuated in Palm Beach County.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 912554. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.