Hurricane Idalia hits big bend, Florida Aug 30th ,2023 we were there

We headed to the hurricane zone to set up cams before Hurricane Idalia would hit on August 30th. We set up one cam in Steinhatchee right on the river leading in to Gulf and the other in Keaton beach. This was my colleague Bill Phillips first intercept and he talks about the challenges of getting set up at the beginning of the video. After we set up the cams we retreated away from potential surge inland to Perry to ride it out.

Hurricane Idalia made landfall at 7:45 AM ET with 125mph winds 949MB at Keaton beach right over the top of our cam. This was 19 miles to our south at that time while moving NNE towards us quickly. On the remote cam you will see dead calm trees hear crickets, frogs croaking and birds chirping which lasted 10 minutes but no surge yet. In a matter of 15 minutes the surge rolls in based on the video estimating 3 to 5 ft max with waves on top.

Meanwhile our other cam on Steinhatchee river 32 miles to our south catches boats breaking loose dragging docks with them while racing down the river inland. Meanwhile back in Perry the winds are picking up as the eyewall hits us. We were using an inspeed anemometer on the truck which measured gust’s to 130mph a couple of time and a very questionable gust to 166mph possibly by a mesovortice swirl that passed nearby. Heard from other chasers they also saw meso’s in fact the Steinhatchee cam you could see one racing down the river in this video.

Overall the intercept was a success and luckily for the residents in the area Idalia’s collapsed eye closed almost immediately at landfall lessening the winds. This could have been far worse if Idalia had not had an eyewall replacement happen right before landfall in combination with dry air infiltrating the south portion.

Side note the anemometer in Keaton beach failed don’t know what happened working on the problem.

I was able to remove several trees blocking the road leading in to Steinhatchee to allow the convoy to move in.

This archive will be added to our many hurricane coverages found on our archive page

https://hurricanecity.com/videoarchives.htm

VIDEO

https://youtu.be/t0snyimWk38?si=FvQCPRYn9F-BJJp4
20 min long but well worth it thanks for the continued support…..Jim Williams