Tropical Storm Noel - South Florida

Tour Type: Tropical or Hurricane: QuickFlight Chase
Chase Date: 2007 NOV 01
Target Area: South Florida - Palm Beach to Key Largo
Images: 10

Noel was certainly a news maker, but not a huge event in Florida.  The storm is directly responsible for at least 122 deaths in the Dominican Republic and Haiti without even reaching hurricane strength.  After it did its damage in the Caribbean it brushed the coast of Florida before gaining hurricane strength and heading towards eastern Canada.

Since I grew tired of trick or treating years ago, I decided to go to south Florida and do some chasing on Halloween.   While the center of the storm was anchored just off the northern edge of Cuba, I stayed in Key Largo (as far south as you can get without going to Key West) and basically just drove up the eastern Florida coastline to Palm Springs as the storm started to move slowly to the north.

This wasn't a big event for Florida, a tropical storm watch was issued along eastern Florida and the beaches took most of the damage in the form of beach erosion due to the winds and big waves.  The lifeguard stands on most of the beaches that I visited were pulled back (some were sitting on the sidewalks!) since the beaches were covered with water.  I recorded a max wind gust of 56 mph, which is well over tropical storm strength, but it wasn't sustained.  The sustained winds stayed from 25 to 35 mph, some heavy downpours were frequent as well.

This could have been a major flooding event if the center of the storm had moved any closer to Florida, thankfully for Florida it didn't.   I've posted a few pictures that I took of the event, mostly from Fort Lauderdale Beach, which is when/where I found the biggest waves.

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Hurricane Models and Related Imagery

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