Weather Conditions in Fl, USA

Korishan

Administrator
Joined
Jan 7, 2017
Messages
7,525
I know there a lot of people from around the world and each has their own weather issues from time to time.

I figured I'd give an update of what's going on here.
I live in North Central Fl, near Gainesville. There are some members near Melbourne, and some near Tampa all over the state.

We currently have Hurricane Irma going to make landfall soon on the state between Tampa and the tip of Florida (Naples). It'll be a category 4 when it makes landfall, and will only slow down to about a low cat 3 by the time it gets to central Fl.
Unfortunately, it has moved westward and basically the whole state will be in the forward right quadrant which is where tornados and high wind gusts (excess of 100-120mph) occur.

I hope all that can evacuate have done so.Especially those in southern florida andalong the coast line. There is going to be storm surges to as much as 2 feet.

Anyone who can't evacuate, please make sure you have things in order and not just be like "Eh, this is gonna be no biggie". I was thinking that yesterday as it was going to be more eastward. But, now that it's moved westward, it'll be far worse than it was going to be before.

Kori

Added: Good thing I have plenty of charged cells to carry me through if the power goes out ;)
 
Stay safe man. I will say some prayers for you folks in florida.
 
Hope you guys all stay safe over there
 
Irma made landfall at Naples, Fl a few hours ago. It was a category 4 of about 135mph winds. Now, it's sped up from 12mph to 14mph headed northward. It has also slowed down rotation to a cat2 with 110mph winds. So far as I can tell from the Weather Channel, there hasn't been hardly any tornados, which is very thankful. We are still in a tornado watch for the next 12hrs or so, but at least so far nothing dangerous has been reported that I have noticed.
There's a large dry front pushing into it as well, which is helping to kill the rainfall on the backside of the storm. So we'll only be getting rain on the front, which is great as we've already had a lot of rain over the past couple months and our aquifers are pretty full, and the soil is no longer as porous as it was 4 months ago (when we were in a medium drought).
It's nice that it's dyeing down since it came on land and didn't ride the west coast and keep itself charged with the warm gulf waters.
Where I live, we still have about another 12-16hrs to go before we're in the clear.
 
So, here's the current deal. In our area we've lost power and will probably be out for almost another week. Some people in the area of already got power like Gainesville but I live out in the country area and we have multiple poles that have been broke and multiple lines that have been snapped. I know there's a lot of other people out there who probably will be longer and I hope you guys are able to take care and be able to get things going. I currently can only get online by using my phone as my computer is not working and our internet at the house is down.

Fortunately, the fatality rate is only 31 last I heard and that is including all of the things that have been included from Keys all the way up through South Georgia. For a storm that's as damaging as this one was that's a really good low number as some weaker storms have caused much more deaths. We can pretty much atest this to people actually evacuating when they recognize how damaging this storm was going to be. The latest was a couple within the last couple days as they were actually traveling back down south. There are people who are not obeying the four-way stop when there is no power to traffic lights and they were T-boned at the intersection as they were progressing through.

Gas flow is finally starting to stabilize in our area I'm not quite sure how it is further down south; I know in Ocala they are still slightly short on fuel and I'm sure even the further down near Tampa is even worse. Things are slowly getting back to somewhat normalcy.
 
Stay safe m8. We dont have much of this here but some 10 years ago we had a storm over that caused power outage for my parents for like 5 weeks :) But on the country side you know how to help beighbours and get it going.
 
Glad things are looking that good after the Storm. My aunt lives just out side of Tampa and her place faired well. but she evaced to Alabama the day before it hit.
 
Yeah Monday before the storm completely passed even in some of the little bit of rain the neighbors were all out starting to cut the trees up that landed across the road. At least out in the country most of everybody out there has a big truck a 4 by 4 or a chainsaw or a tractor :)

So there was a lot of people helping a lot of people that out in my area. Too bad none of them knew how to put power lines back up ;)

Jdeadman: glad your aunt was able to get out okay
 
Thanks Yea she's still waiting to get back but pictures her friend took look like she was spared too much damage
 
We didn't get a whole lot of damage on our property, but there are several people who ended up having trees land either on their house or land just in front of their house where they look out the window and all they see is tree limbs
Fortunately, just down the street they already have power. So hopefully we'll have power within the next day or two. I haven't looked at the line that comes from the other direction which is where our power comes from the neighboring City, so I don't know how much damage is done up the line on that end.

One thing's for certain though, I'll have some stuff in place using these lithium's so I won't be out of power for as long as I am this time. I'm going to send a couple of pictures probably tomorrow with a couple of quick-thinking use what you have at your disposal configurations to get things working. It's quite comical with some of the stuff I have set up
 
Ok, so we finally got out power back on! Phew! A/C and Fans!!! YES!!! The A/C more to pull the humidity outta the air.

So, here's a few pics of the things I did to help me keep power over the past week:


image_nzxwbr.jpg


So, after 4 days, I remembered I had these small solar panels. They put out 8V open circuit voltage (not sure about the amps). So I connected them up 2s2p and connected them to the LA below to help slow down the draw. It didn't stop it, of course, but definitely added a couple hours worth for a couple days.


image_qlqgvk.jpg


So, before the storm, I was already ready by getting the 900CA Marine Deep Cycle LA. Cost about $135 from Wally World (with taxes). It ran pretty decently.
What's pictured is actually the 3rd iteration of mods to the setup. The LiCo's didn't come till right after the solar panel remembrance. So, I didn't run on those the whole time.
In the middle of the pic under the "S" on the battery, you'll see a yellow power cord that has long leads going to the battery terminals. The other end goes to a pair of alligator clips for connecting to my car battery and I could do a bit of trickle charge when I idled the car. Unfortunately, I couldn't get much closer than about 50', so there was about 1.25V drop as I didn't have any wire larger than 14 gauge.



image_pnauei.jpg


In this pic you can see how the pack is constructed. I took 8 4 cell holders and zip tied everything together. 2 holders are back to back to give me 8p, so all in all I have 4s8p. However, I had to drop down the 3s8p because the current draw was too high as the voltage was 16V compared to the LA.
I had to get a little creative with the construction. As you can see, there are NO solder joints at all. Everything is press fit. Even the tabs on the back of the holders are press fitting against the mated one. I then took 16 gauge wire and stripped it, twisted it, and used a flat head screwdriver to press it in behind the tabs and the holders to keep it in place. It was actually a really tight fit.
It's a somewhat shoddy design and build, but it worked. That pack assisted the LA and was able to give just enough to keep things afloat.


The UPS I think is about shot. Yesterday it started making a loud buzzing sound when I turned it on when I got home; annoyingly loud (had to close the door to the room it was in so I could watch the tv). The odd thing is, as I added loads to it, the buzzing sound when down and even stopped when I had enough load on it. Not sure what this means or why it did it.
But I was able to watch my small 19" lcd tv, keep my devices charged, and able to run a small 12V DC water pump to supply water to the house. Though, the water flowed slowly, it was sufficient to take a shower (albeit cool/cold) and brush my teeth and water the dogs.

All in all, no major damage on our property. 2 trees landed on the lines, a few trees that had grown 'in' the ditch fell over clearing the ditch (so that wasn't a bad thing). Down the road were several trees down and one house had a pecan tree fall close enough to the front that all they see is tree out the window. I don't believe anyone was injured in our area from the storm. Several people with tractors, big trucks, chain saws, etc helped out where they could.

I hope the storms are done so the linemen/women can get back home. We had people all the way from Oklahoma and Nebraska down here helping. One guy on the radio was responding to the complainers ("Why isn't my power on yet?" "Why are they just standing around not doing anything?" "Why is it taking so long?" etc etc) stating that he hasn't seen his family in over a month. He isfrom Oklahoma. I thought about it afterwards, I'm guessing he was part of the crews that went to Texas first after Harvey, then came down here. He hasn't seen his family, hasn't slept in a bed (except for 1 night), been working 18hrs a day, all for over a month;and the poor guy sounded like he was about to fall asleep on the phone.

jdeadman: hows your aunt fairing? Was she able to make it back home yet?
 
Yea she's back home and just about everything is fine. She had power when she first got back but someone down the street knocked over a power pole. So she's in the dark till they get her back up.
 
Sheesh, that sux she lost power "after" the storm. People are crazy :p
Good to hear she got back home with everything in tact.
 
Back
Top