MIAMI — On Sunday morning, Tropical Storm Ian remained on track for a potential landfall somewhere along the Florida Gulf coast later this week — with the Big Bend area in the center of a forecast track that could still change.
The storm continued to slowly organize but by Monday the National Hurricane Center expects it to morph into a monster, approaching Cuba on Tuesday as a Category 4 storm with 130 mph winds. The western part of the island, including Havana, was now under a hurricane warning. By early Wednesday, Ian is expected to be more than 100 miles west of Key West — a dangerous system with its final destination still up in the air.
At 2 p.m. EDT Sunday, the latest track from the National Hurricane Center continued a westward trend that kept much of South Florida, including the Florida Keys, solidly out of the cone of uncertainty. But forecasters warned that the cone only shows where the most powerful eye of the storm might go.
The NHC predicts the system could begin to weaken before it makes landfall, possibly as a Category 1 along the Big Bend on Friday, but heavy rain and winds could be felt throughout the state next week. And if comes ashore sooner near the Tampa Bay area at the eastern edge of the cone, the storm could be stronger.
Jamie Rhone, acting director of the NHC, warned southeast Florida and the upper Keys not to tune out the storm just yet in a Sunday morning broadcast.
“You can’t be too fixated on this cone and it moving around a little bit,” he said. “The track has now shifted just enough that you’re out of the damaging wind potential, but I still need you to prepare for heavy rains and some of the gusty squalls.”
All of Florida remained under a state of emergency and President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency in Florida Saturday night. Officials in the Florida Keys met Sunday and once again bumped the decision to call for evacuations to Monday, though that seemed increasingly unlikely.
The ‘cone of uncertainty’ is getting smaller — but it still matters if you’re outside it
Ian projected to strengthen
As of the 2 pm. alert, Ian had strengthened little overnight, with maximum sustained winds near 50 mph. It picked up the pace and was back to a west-northwest motion at 14 mph.
It was about 265 miles south-southeast of Grand Cayman, which was under a hurricane warning, and about 540 miles southeast from the western tip of Cuba, parts of which had their hurricane watch upgraded to a warning.
On Saturday, forecasters were watching Tropical Storm Ian for signs of rapid intensification, when a storm gains at least 30 mph in sustained winds over a 24-hour period.
An overnight investigation from the Air Force Reserve found Ian was still disorganized, with misaligned low and mid-level centers. The hurricane center noted in its 5 a.m. advisory that it wasn’t sure exactly where the center was and it’s likely a new one will form somewhere else soon.
Storms are hard to track without a defined center, which could be part of the reason computer models still appeared split about the storm’s projected landfall in Florida or the eastern Gulf coast — a factor that makes the path four or five days out uncertain.
A split in the models
The latest forecast calls for Ian to move northwest and strengthen Sunday and Monday into a Category 4 hurricane over a patch of very warm ocean water south of Cuba, before heading into the Gulf of Mexico.
“However, there is still significant uncertainty in the long-range track forecast of Ian, and future adjustments to this portion of the forecast will likely be required,” forecasters wrote in the 11 a.m. update.
The two major computer models still showed a split track: with the Euro taking Ian into west central Florida and the GFS aiming for the panhandle.
John Morales, a hurricane specialist for NBC6, tweeted Sunday that the split between models left “plenty of reason for concern still for west-central Florida.” He noted that the computer models appear more clustered around west-central Florida compared to yesterday, a signal of growing confidence in predictions.
How far north it goes matters for its intensity. Wind shear by the panhandle is expected to weaken the storm from a Category 4 to a Category 1 ahead of a Friday landfall.
“Despite the reduction in intensity, Ian is likely to have an expanding wind field and will be slowing down by that time, which will have the potential to produce significant wind and storm surge impacts,” the NHC warned.
Impacts in Florida
With models still divided on a right-hand turn into Florida’s west coast or a more northern run into the panhandle, both options present a potentially dangerous week ahead for Florida.
Florida’s west coast — and Tampa Bay in particular — is uniquely vulnerable to storm surge. The shallow shelf in the Gulf of Mexico can push tremendous amounts of water onshore, especially if the storm is slow moving and “weaker,” as the hurricane center is currently predicting.
Rhome, acting NHC director, said the region had “perhaps some of the highest vulnerability in the country” to storm surge.
“I’m telling you it doesn’t take an onshore or a direct hit from a hurricane to pile up the water,” he said. “We could see a significant amount of storm surge on the west coast of Florida even if the storm stays offshore.”
Tropical Storm Ian’s new projected path means Floridians could start to feel its winds and rains slightly later than originally predicted, with winds picking up on the west coast starting Tuesday evening and rising to hurricane-force starting Wednesday morning.
The Miami office of the National Weather Service said rainfall is expected to be heaviest Tuesday and Tuesday night, but it could linger through Wednesday. South Florida could see about 2 to 6 inches of rain, especially near Flamingo.
Western Cuba, which could start to experience hurricane-force winds Monday night or early Tuesday, is projected to see 4 to 8 inches of rain, according to the hurricane center. The biggest danger for Cuba may be storm surge, which could swell 9 to 14 feet above normal overnight Monday and early Tuesday.
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