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The Twentieth Anniversary Of A Small But Very Powerful Hurricane Charley

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We are quickly closing in on the twentieth anniversary of a small but powerful hurricane that made landfall on the Gulf side of southern Florida, Many residents indicated that the destruction inflicted by this unusual hurricane looked more like tornado damage than what is usually associated with a hurricane !

Humble Beginnings

Twenty years ago, On August 4, 2004, a tropical wave, as they often do, moved out into the eastern Atlantic from the western coast of Africa. The wave moved at a pretty good pace to the west and it slowly began to organize.

It moved to the Lesser Antilles and it became a Tropical Depression (Number 3) near the island of Grenada on August 9th. The depression was one of the few that managed to gain strength in the eastern Caribbean. On August 10th it was named Tropical Storm Charley.

While Charley was approaching Cuba on August 12th, a strengthening high-pressure ridge aloft. changed the track of the tropical storm and it began to move to the west-northwest.

A Wild 48 Hours

Charley became a hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph just south of Kingston, Jamaica. One person died and one million dollars of property damage, along with extensive agricultural damage, was recorded from Charley on August 11th and 12th.

After departing Jamaica, Charley became a Category 2 hurricane as it turned to the northwest toward Cuba. Charlie became a major hurricane (Category 3) when it struck Cuba with maximum sustained winds of 120 mph.

Over half of the population around Havana lost power and it remained that way for nearly two weeks. There was also a lack of drinking water. One village where Charley made landfall had almost all of their homes destroyed and 70,000 homes in Havana were damaged or destroyed. The death toll on Cuba was listed as four.

Charley then moved toward Florida, loaded with a bag of tricks.

Twists and Turns

On August 11th,  Florida Governor Jeb Bush issued a  state of an emergency decree on August 11th.

The National Hurricane Center issued hurricane warnings for the Florida Keys and from Cape to the Mouth of the Suwanee River while tropical storm warnings were issued for many other areas in Florida.

Because of the threat, 1.9 million people along the Florida west coast were urged to evacuate, including 380,000 residents in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area, and 11,000 in the Florida Keys.

The National Hurricane Center track forecast for the two days leading up to landfall showed the line moving to the Tampa Bay area but the cone of uncertainty stretched from southwest Florida to well north of Tampa.

On August 12th the general consensus among forecasters that the Tampa-St. Petersburg area had a fairly high percentage of a direct hit. That is not good because of the storm surge threat around Tampa Bay.

Early on August 13th, I was at the Weather Channel and we were tracking Charlie closely, knowing that landfall in Florida would be occurring that day. Interaction with Cuba had reduced Charley to a high-end Category 2 hurricane but the forecast indicated that it could reach minimal Category 3 strength by landfall.

          A NWS/NHC forecast track of Hurricane Charlie issued at 11 p.m. August 12, 1994. Map Credit-NHC.

During that morning, things began to change and those changes were fast and significant!

Radar and satellite photos indicated that rapid intensification was taking place. In the span of just three hours, Charley would strengthen from a Category 2 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 110 mph to a strong Category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 145 mph. The maximum sustained winds then went up to 150 mph.

With the rapid intensification, Charley was now being steered by winds father up in the atmosphere that would allow it to curve rapidly to the northeast rather than north or north-northeast. I clearly remember thinking … this is not going to make it all the way up to Tampa.

Dr. Steve Lyons, our hurricane specialist at the time, was explaining all of these changes on the air. We indicated that areas well south of Tampa would now feel the highest impacts. Another interesting feature of Charley was that it was a very small hurricane with a six-mile diameter eye and a small eyewall around it.

Radar image of Hurricane Charley (from MWS Tampa) just after landfall on August 13, 2004, showed a tiny eye. Note the small eyewall.

So, what we were dealing with was rare, a very powerful hurricane with impacts that would only be around 10 miles from west to east. Now a strong Category 4 hurricane, Charley made landfall with a vengeance on Captiva Island, Florida, around midday and it unleashed tremendous fury on the town of Punta Gorda about an hour later.

After that, Charley tracked northeastward, toward Orlando. The hurricane hit Orlando as a Category 1 hurricane after midnight with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph. A couple of hours later, Charley passed near Daytona Beach and moved out into the Atlantic.

 

Map showing the track of Hurricane Charlie in the Florida Peninsula on August 13-14, 2004. Map Credit-Lee County/NOAA

Charley moved up along the South Atlantic Coast and made landfall near Cape Romain, SC on August 14th as a Category 1 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph. It moved offshore and then came ashore again a few hours later near North Myrtle Beach, SC with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph.

Charley then interacted with an upper-level trough and was downgraded to a tropical storm. It moved back into the Atlantic Ocean near Virginia Beach, VA on August  15th and became extratropical.

Florida Impacts

The impacts over parts of Florida from Hurricane Charley were severe. There were 10 deaths and 20 indirect deaths attributed to the storm. Many residents of southwest Florida were taken by surprise at the intensity and destruction of Charley.

Remember, that much of the general public thought that Charley was going to make landfall up in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area. The Weather Channel wasn’t the only media entity that tried to warn residents of the rapid changes that were occurring before landfall. Several other meteorologists in local markets in southern and central Florida did the same.

Property damage was estimated at around five and a half billion dollars (830 billion 2024 dollars)  and nearly 300 million dollars (500 million 2024 dollars) in agricultural damage! Because of the small size of Charley, the storm surge wasn’t much more than 6 feet. Rainfall was held to 4 to 6 inches because of the pace of the hurricane.

A photo showing severe damage from Hurricane Charlie at Punta Gorda, Florida on August 13, 2004. Photo Credit FEMA Library-Public Domain.

There was some tree damage in the Florida Keys as wind gusts reached 60 mph. Extreme to catastrophic damage occurred in parts of southwest Florida. Charley created a quarter-mile inlet on the northern part of Captiva Island. About half of the 300 homes on Captiva Island encountered severe damage.

The damage reached well inland. In the city of Arcadia in DeSoto County, there was damage to 95% of the buildings. A shelter had its roof torn off leaving 3500 evacuees unprotected.

A photo showing  damage to a gas station at Kissimmee, Florida on August 14, 2004, from Hurricane Charley. Photo Credit-Wikipedia-Public Domain

Other Impacts

In South Carolina, there were reports of hurricane-force wind gusts at Myrtle Beach.  Flash flooding occurred in  Charleston County. Damage in South Carolina totaled to 20 million dollars (33 million 2024 dollars)!

A radar image shows a weakened Hurricane Charlry on August 14, 2004, in North Carolina. Photo Credit-NWS.

In North Carolina, there was minor beach erosion along the coastline. Winds gusted to 70 mph, causing minor wind damage.

Charley spawned five weak tornadoes across the state including an F-1 in Nags Head that damaged twenty structures. Charley destroyed 40 houses and damaged 221 damaged beach homes in Sunset Beach. Damage in North Carolina totaled to 25 million dollars (42 million 2024 dollars) !  Scattered damage extended up to southeast Virginia.

Lessons From Charley

Charley gave forecasters fits in the hours leading up to U.S. landfall and it changed the way that information about tropical systems was communicated to the public.

Although hurricane track forecasts have improved over the past two decades years and there has been some improvement in intensity forecast, meteorologists began stressing the cone of uncertainty rather just relying on one line to forecast the track of tropical cyclones.

Forecasts can still change and the public must be aware of this. If there is a tropical storm or hurricane headed your way try to keep up with the latest information and not what you heard two or three days ago.

Hurricanes are unique and a category only indicated wind speed! A particular category can produce widely different impacts depending on its size and forward motion and the shape of the coastline. Fortunately, Charley’s small size and forward speed mitigated rainfall and surge issues but there was tremendous power in the confined area of Charley’s path.

Dr. Steve Lyons at The Weather Channel introduced a new term based on Charley’s tiny size. He called it a “vortcane”.  The impacts were similar to a powerful upper-level disturbance (a piece of vorticity) in the atmosphere that allowed Charley to produce extensive damage in confined areas. In fact, the damage pattern was more like a large tornado.

We haven’t seen anything like Hurricane Charley in the past two decades and hopefully it will remain that way !

 

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