KATRINA – Day Two.
Tropical Depression Twelve continued to become better organized and was christened Tropical Storm Katrina at 11 a.m. EDT on Wednesday, August 24, 2005. Immediately, a Hurricane Watch was issued for the Florida coastline since the storm was expected to become a hurricane before making landfall.
Weather forecasters warned that the storm’s slow forward motion could lead to serious flooding over South Florida. They also were concerned that light upper level winds and warm ocean waters could lead to a round of rapid intensification before landfall. The only inhibiting factor was dry air in the atmosphere surrounding the hurricane.
Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center monitored their array of computer models and worried that Katrina could become a serious problem for South Florida. The very reliable GFDL model painted a disastrous scenario of Katrina becoming an intense hurricane before crossing extreme South Florida and the northern Keys. This could have presented another Hurricane Andrew scenario for South Florida.
By late evening, Katrina’s winds had increased to 50 mph and the Hurricane Watch was changed to a Hurricane Warning from Vero Beach to Florida City, including Lake Okeechobee. Also, what would happen when the hurricane emerged over the Gulf was in the back of everyone’s minds. With Katrina intensifying and taking a more southerly track, the amount of weakening that could be expected as the storm crossed Florida was lessening. Forecasters were faced with the looming possibility of a rapidly strengthening storm over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
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