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In reply to the discussion: Holy Shit - they're saying Cat3 Hurricane Michael - and it's now Cat4 with 140mph winds [View all]Scurrilous
(38,687 posts)<snip>
Panama City Beach
"Hurricane Michael is expected to make landfall Wednesday in the Florida Panhandle as a Category 3 storm and is very likely to cause erosion at the base of sand dunes of three-quarters of the beaches along the panhandle and flood more than a quarter of its dunes, causing flooding behind protective dune lines, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
If Michael continues to intensify and stay on the National Hurricane Center's forecasted path, storm surge impacts east of the hurricane's eye are expected to be most severe, where storm surge and waves could bring water levels to rise as high as 16 to 20 feet, the USGS predicts.
In the open Gulf of Mexico, wave heights are expected to hit as high as 40 feet, said Kara Doran, the research oceanographer for the USGS. Doran leads the agency's Coastal Change Hazards Storm Team in St. Petersburg, Florida.
As the storm approaches the coast, the shallow seabed will reduce that wave height, said Dorn. But water levels in some parts of the Northeast Florida coast will still be high enough to overwhelm the dunes, which are relatively low and narrow.
https://weather.com/news/news/2018-10-09-michael-storm-surge-erode-florida-beaches