MIAMI, Fla. — Florida faces a week of shocking weather regardless of how low pressure developments north of the Greater Antilles play out.
This depression, caused by a deep upper trough, is not purely tropical in origin. But it has already caused damaging flooding and mudslides in Puerto Rico and even deaths in the Dominican Republic, as 9 inches of rain fell in just a few hours in the capital Santo Domingo on Friday night.
The National Hurricane Center is likely to classify the system as a potential tropical cyclone, and both Broward and Miami-Dade could soon be caught in the “cone” of possibility. While the low will likely be a worst-case subtropical or tropical storm, there are a model or two predicting a November hurricane for South Florida.
November is the final month of hurricane season and typical tropical activity begins to subside. However, the 2022 hurricane season was postponed and nearly all of the major Atlantic storms that year formed after August.
The state of Florida has been hit by tropical systems nine times in November in the past 170 years, giving it a roughly 5 percent chance each year.
Seven of those nine were from the western Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. That makes this week’s development system, should it consolidate and hit Florida, pretty rare.
But what’s exceptionally rare is for a *hurricane* to hit the Florida Panhandle in November, regardless of where it originated.
There’s only one hurricane to hit the peninsula in November since 1851: the so-called Yankee Hurricane, which struck Miami Beach (near present-day Bal Harbor) on November 4, 1935. It was a Category 2 hurricane!
For now, the forecast suggests that the frequency and intensity of rainfall will increase as we near the middle of the week. It is becoming increasingly windy, with dangerous sea conditions and a high risk of rip currents.
Winds and waves, combined with a full moon and rising sea levels, exacerbated by climate change, will cause significant coastal flooding. Communities like Fort Lauderdale, Miami Beach, Miami Shores, neighborhoods near Biscayne Boulevard including Edgewater, Coconut Grove, Coral Gables and the Florida Keys should prepare for the worst possible saltwater flooding of the year.
Flooding continues in Volusia county. In the Deltona area, residents are also complaining that they didn’t come to pick up much of the debris.
The closest point of approach from the center of the system to Fort Lauderdale and Miami is expected to be early Wednesday through Thursday.
But it’s still too early to tell what the system will look like: depression, subtropical storm, tropical storm, or hurricane.
Of course, no one wants to deal with a hurricane any time of the year, especially now that Christmas music is on the radio.
Decades ago, I might have underestimated such an event with a low probability.
But lately, I see too many extreme weather events caused by global warming to rule out another near-unprecedented event.
Stay tuned.