Unfortunately he hit a tree and lost his life. “He was driving on an incredibly curvy road, the road was slick. “The weather was not that bad when the gentleman was driving,” Fossa said. “In general for the bay, everything that was forecast - those numbers looks like it panned out pretty well.” “Tampa Bay is such a wide and varied bay and it has these little nuances,” he said. One area may be flooding while another is much drier. “It’s actually a lot better and higher resolution than it had been 20 or 30 years ago.”ĭavis said surge is hard to predict in Tampa Bay. “A lot of science has gone into the hurricane center’s forecasting,” Davis said. In June, the National Hurricane Center began using its new Hurricane Analysis and Forecast System to predict storm activity. Rick Davis, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Tampa Bay office, said that is thanks to much better hurricane technology. Tampa Bay’s impact from Hurricane Idalia was very close to what forecasters predicted. Instead, their bungalow succumbed to flames after flood waters prevented firefighters from getting there in time. Like most Floridians, Dave and Heather Durst figured flooding was the biggest threat to their Hudson dream home as Hurricane Idalia bore down on Wednesday.
Dave Durst, right, and his wife, Heather, survey what remains of their Hudson bungalow.
