Ernesto Defies Prediction as Storm Nears Florida

Willie Drye
for National Geographic News

August 28, 2006

A weakened tropical storm Ernesto—formerly the first hurricane of
the 2006 Atlantic season—made landfall in Cuba this morning with
winds of 40 miles an hour (64 kilometers an hour).

The storm is expected to regain strength and become a hurricane again before striking South Florida as a Category One storm late this Tuesday—the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall in Louisiana and Mississippi.

Ernesto's eye is expected to cross the Florida peninsula and be offshore of Georgia by 8 a.m. Wednesday. The storm will still have hurricane intensity as Ernesto skirts the coasts of Georgia and the Carolinas, forecasters say.

But Irene Toner, emergency management director for Monroe County in south Florida, says Ernesto is proving to be a difficult storm to predict.

"The forecasters are very frustrated with this storm, because it's so all over the place," Toner said.

Meteorologist Mark McInerney of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida, says the storm's path will be determined by a "tug-of-war" between an upper level low-pressure system over Texas and a high-pressure system over the Atlantic Ocean.

The hurricane will get squeezed between these two systems, and the stronger system will determine which way it goes, he says.

"That's a tough call," he said. "It could ride up all along the coast and have the Outer Banks [islands of North Carolina] in its path. It may cross the Outer Banks."

First Hurricane

Ernesto became the first hurricane of the 2006 season on Sunday with winds of about 75 miles an hour (121 kilometers an hour)—at the low end of the Category One range (find out how scientists rank hurricane intensity).

Shortly afterward it crossed western Haiti, where the mountainous terrain disrupted the storm and reduced its peak wind speed. One related death has been reported in Haiti.

The weakened storm came ashore in Cuba around 11 a.m. local time about 35 miles (56 kilometers) west-northwest of Guantanamo Bay, McInerney says (map of Cuba).

Ernesto is now expected to reach the Straits of Florida—the seas between Cuba and the Florida Keys—around 5 a.m. on Tuesday.

With warm Gulf of Mexico waters and little wind shear (high-level winds that can break up a hurricane), Ernesto could regain hurricane strength before it reaches the southern tip of Florida (map of Florida and the Gulf).

The storm is expected to make landfall at or near the town of Homestead, possibly as a Category Two hurricane, with winds of at least 96 miles an hour (155 kilometers an hour).

A hurricane watch has been issued for the Florida Keys and much of mainland Florida. A hurricane watch means that winds of at least 74 miles an hour (120 kilometers an hour) are possible within 36 hours.

On Sunday emergency-management officials in Monroe County—which includes the Keys—ordered all visitors and temporary residents to leave the islands.

The storm's worst effects are expected around Key Largo, which is at the northern end of the island chain.

This morning Jeffrey Pinckus, a city councilman in the Keys town of Marathon near the southern end of the chain, said his city had not yet opened its emergency operations center.

Ernesto "keeps pushing farther east," Pinckus said. "We're hoping the center of the storm will stay offshore in the Gulf Stream [ocean current]. But Marathon is prepared to open its emergency operations center."

As of 11 a.m. today forecasters were predicting that Ernesto's eye will be offshore and east of North Carolina's Albemarle Sound by Saturday.

But McIerney cautions that coastal residents could still expect hurricane-force winds within 70 miles (113 kilometers) of the storm's center.

Willie Drye is author of Storm of the Century: the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, published by National Geographic.

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