Warnings from Matt Strahan

Florida Keys Hurricane Guide 2009

Meet Matt Strahan: the Meteorologist-in-Charge at Key West’s National Weather Service Office. Strahan is a native of Missouri, where tornadoes are the norm, not hurricanes. The Weekly Newspapers took a tour of the facility with Strahan recently and found out, forecasting for either weather system is similar, in that both, life-threatening weather systems involve rotations.

We’ve asked the scientist a gamut of other questions involving the inner working of the Key West National Weather Service, to better prepare islanders for the 2009 Atlantic Hurricane season.

Tell us about the size and expertise of the staff at the Key West National Weather Service.

There are 20 of us, and the facility is staffed 24/7. The staff takes care of all the weather instrumentation at the airport and the radar at Boca Chica, and they do the balloon launches twice a day at 7 am and 7 pm off the roof of the building on White Street. We can’t really say what we’re predicting for the 2009 season. I don’t believe any scientist, meteorologist, or weather expert really can. There’s been a lot of research in trying to do that. I can attest, an average year across the Keys can still being one or two hurricanes.

What is the biggest concern facing Monroe County residents?

The most dangerous part of the hurricane is the storm surge. Most of us live low in accordance with sea levels, making us very vulnerable. We haven’t been hit by any major hurricanes since people started living in the lower lying areas near the public beaches. The mainland of Florida isn’t as vulnerable because there residents are outside of the storm surge area. I’d rather be taking the wind on the mainland than subject to a storm surge in the Keys.

As far as forecasting goes, when a tropical storm forms, how can you and your colleagues tell the pattern is going to turn into a hurricane?

Forecasters are really good at telling you when it’s not going to turn into something stronger. We’re very accurate telling people the storm can intensify, we just don’t know when that’s going to happen. We’ve been missed. We’ve been quite lucky. Ike is a good example. Hurricane Ike was initially forecasted to go over the 7 mile bridge as a Cat 4. Rita back in ’05 missed hitting the lower keys by 6 miles in 12 hours as a Cat 5. She passed us as a Category 2. The other way to look at it is Key West is a little itty, bitty 2 by 4 island and what are the chances of our island being in the path of the hurricane when it’s typical path is 50 miles wide.