SARASOTA, Fla. (WWSB) – One year ago today we were watching hurricane Helene in the SE Gulf moving northward toward the Big Bend of Florida. This major storm would bring the biggest storm surge in Suncoast history destroying many structures on the barrier islands along our coast.
The storm surge would be as high as 7 feet on Anna Maria island and a 5-6 ft. surge into Sarasota. It would eventually move to North Carolina and causing catastrophic flooding killing over a hundred people in NC. The name “Helene” has been retired and will never be used again.
This year’s “H” storm is Humberto and it is expected to become the 3rd. major hurricane of the season. It will move to the northwest for a couple of days and then move northward well east of Florida.
Another system is trying to develop near Hispaniola. It is likely to become a tropical depression or storm by late Friday or Saturday morning. We could see two storms moving very close to one another over the weekend. Both of these storms will stay away from our coast and more than likely stay far enough east of Florida to be much of a problem.
There is still a lot of uncertainty as to where this may end up as the influence of Humberto may make a huge difference as to its future path. If they are close enough we could see the Fujiwhara effect occur. That is where two storms could actually rotate around each other and then the bigger one absorb the small one…