STORMS TO THE LEFT, STORMS TO THE RIGHT

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Home in Port Charlotte
76* and dry at wakeup

6PM Sunday update:
A tornado touched down in Cape Coral, about 30 miles south of us, flipping a car end over end and resting it standing up against a house. Six other homes received moderate damage. There are no reports of injuries. Our NOAA weather radio activated at 4:45 with a tornado warning for our neighborhood. The warning was due to atmospheric conditions, not the sighting of a tornado like up in the Cape. We had some pretty high winds and rain for a while and then dead calm. Our warning expired at 5:30PM with no further activity. It is not believed this tornado was related to TS Claudette, as that storm is hundreds of miles northwest of us. TS Bill has strengthened to 65MPH winds. Ana has decreased back down to a Tropical Depression (TD) with winds at 35MPH.

Monday morning I will work the Venice/Englewood area, which is the closest branch to our home. Monday afternoon I will depart for Miami/Homestead for 3 days of work.

2PM Sunday update:
TD #4 is now Tropical Storm Claudette. There is no danger of this affecting our position.
TS Ana continues the same track, same status. TS Bill has gained strength to 60MPH winds.

7AM Sunday
Yesterday's big storms missed us on Charlotte Harbor, but Miami, the Keys and Naples all got tons of rain. We had some decent breezes throughout the day but just a spit of rain. That system came from the Atlantic, crossed South Florida, entered the Gulf and this morning became Tropical Depression #4, with 35MPH winds. If it reaches 40MPH, it will become TS Claudette. We are out of the path of it anway, as it is north of us and continuing north/northwest toward the Florida panhandle or maybe even Alabama. The photo above shows our position relative to TD #4.

Back out in the Atlantic, TS Ana is now being tailed by TS Bill. Ana is very small, with winds barely hanging on to her Tropical Storm status. Bill is a huge system that will very likely reach hurricane status by the middle of next week. It's much too early to predict where it may go but with all of this activity we have activated our preparation plans. We bought 20 gallons of bottled water at Sams Club. We have spare propane bottles for cooking on the grill, plenty of non-perishable food items in the pantry, important papers in a box that can be placed in our saferoom, batteries for flashlights, and of course our NOAA weather radio. The to do list includes taking 2009 property insurance photographs (have 2008) and filling up vehicles and spare cans with gasoline just before storm day. Hopefully I have to opportunity to complete the boat repairs project next weekend before anything hits. I'm sure I will be able to.

Today we are relaxing at home and watching the weather. If you want to track our local radar images the best website is http://www.nbc-2.com/ Look for the weather picture on the right and click on it for a larger screen. Close the little advertisement window that blocks some of your view. Now you have an interactive doppler zoom radar. You can use your mouse to scroll in and out as well as click and drag the map all around to see the area you want. This thing zooms in so close, you can get right down to our street level and see our house! Save it to your favorites and follow along all storm season.