Hurricane Dorian - @staugsurf - Surf Station Surf Report

Hurricane Dorian is still ongoing and is about to make its fourth landfall in Nova Scotia later today. In this blog I am going to be telling about the life of Dorian and the impacts it caused to St. Augustine, Florida.

Hurricane Dorian became an area of investigation by the Nation Hurricane Center on August 22, 2019 in the open Atlantic waters due east of Trinidad and Tobago. It tracked WNW for two days before it became a weak tropical storm. Three days later on August 27, it made landfall in St. Lucia as a weak tropical storm (50mph). At this point, the forecast from the NHC showed a northwest turn towards the Dominican Republic. As the next days days went by, that forecast didn’t verify and Dorian went North-north west, aiming for the Virgin Islands and Purto Rico. It later strengthened to a category one hurricane while passing the islands on August 28. It continued north-northwest until August 30, when it made the sharp turn west towards the Bahamas and Florida. It was now a category three hurricane. As it tracked west, it began rapid intensification, which is rare for an already powerful hurricane to do. In just 18 hours, the category four hurricane that had a central pressure of 941mb dropped to 910mb. This was insane and incredible to watch.

Hurricane Dorian over the Bahamas on September 2, 2019

(PC – Noaa)

Hurricane Dorian on radar as a strong category five hurricane. This was after the landfall in Abaco, Bahamas but before it stalled over Grand Bahama Island.

(App – Radarscope)

After making landfall in Abaco, it continued west to Grand Bahama Island. The question for meteorologists were “How far west would it drift before making the EXTREMELY important move to the north?” Dorian eventually slowed down to a stall over Grand Bahama, and it gradually weakened from cold water being pulled up, dry air from a trough that pushed southeast, and land friction from the Bahamas.

As the storm weakened, the wind field expanded and the eye opened even larger, which is expected.

It weakened to a category three hurricane before moving north. The storm’s structure was horrible, the eye was engulfed with clouds. As Dorian moved north, he struggled before finally restrengthening slightly. The overall structure was becoming better organized. As Dorian nears Cape Canaveral, it weakened to a category two hurricane.

Here is a radar image of Dorian when it was nearing Cape Canaveral

Here is another radar image showing wind velocity. As you can see, winds of 80-90mph were near the coast. The buoy offshore of Cape Canaveral recorded a wind gust of 81 mph as the storm moved past.

As the storm moved north, rain bands continued to be move north to south over North Florida, bringing wind gusts of 50-60mph. The storm moved on Wednesday, but not before bringing storng winds and storm surge.

IMPACTS TO ST.AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA

Impacts started indirectly on Saturday. The front runners of the swell approached St. Augustine and the strong onshore winds began. The onshore winds were kinda of due to Dorian, but not really. A high pressure to the north and a strong low pressure to the south will a close pressure gradient, which will create stronger winds. This increased Sun/Mon/Tues, that’s one of the many reasons we had higher tides.

This is the only decent shot I took on Sunday. The Matanzas Inlet was going off.

I didn’t take any shots on Monday or Tuesday, but on Wednesday I took a lot. The winds from Dorian tuned offshore at around 10am, so there were huge 8-12ft waves with an insane 40mph offshore wind.