Sunday, September 10, 2017

Hurricane Irma smashing south Florida

As of this writing, the eye of Irma - the 2nd major hurricane in a month to hit the Gulf Coast - is making landfall in Deer Key and approaching Marcos Island on it's path up the west coast of Florida.  Our prayers and wishes go to the those affected by this storm.  As the red lines on the image on left show, hurricane force and gale force winds will extend across all of Florida as it moves north, then northwest towards east Tennessee before changing to a northeasterly course.  While Irma won't bring nearly as much rainfall to the Southeast as Harvey brought to Texas, the tidal surge will do much more damage. Those who have frequently fished the southwest coast of Florida (as we have) know that most of the communities in Marcos, Naples, Fort Myers Beach, Charlotte, Venice, and Sarasota are built on canals just a few feet above sea level.  It's almost a given there'll be major saltwater flooding in these areas.  One of my guides in the area joked, "There's going to be a lot of good snook holding structure" after the storm.  I think that positive is going to be outweighed by a LOT of negatives!  As for effects on the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts... it doesn't appear there'll be any if projections hold true.  We're not out of hurricane season yet!