Hurricane Charley
Charley is a dangerous Category 4 Hurricane
3:33 P.M. ET Fri.,Aug.13,2004
M. Ressler, Senior Meteorologist, The Weather Channel
After hitting western Cuba with wind gusts up to 124 mph and brushing by to the west of Key West with gusts nearing 60 mph at the airport, extremely dangerous Hurricane Charley, now a major category-4 storm with 145 mph winds, takes aim on the Gulf side of the Florida Peninsula. Charley is coming ashore between Tampa and Fort Myers. Destructive winds, high storm surge and torrential rains will all contribute to extreme tree, power line and structural damage along with widespread flooding over the western side of the peninsula especially along the northeast quadrant of its track.
Most of the Florida Peninsula is already soggy with August rainfall over the first 12 days 1 to 8 inches above average. Charley will head inland toward coastal Georgia overnight, gradually weakening. Charley will still produce damaging hurricane-force winds and torrential flooding rain across northeast Florida and southeast Georgia. Over the weekend, a weakening Charley will cause flooding up the East Coast as it rapidly zips northward.
East of its track, the threat for tornadoes will be high. In the
central and eastern Atlantic, two tropical disturbances have potential for development as the 2004 hurricane season moves into high gear. In fact, the one just to the south-southeast of the Cape Verde Islands has become Tropical Depression Four and will head west to west-northwest across the open Atlantic, slowly but steadily increasing.
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