The rainy weather forecast made days in advance for Jacksonville was spot on for Thursday morning. The weather would have been the same even if Tropical Storm Mindy never developed. But it did.
Four hours after getting named in the Gulf of Mexico, Mindy made landfall just west of Applichaolia close to where Tropical Storm Fred struck less than one month ago. It’s landfall at St. Vincent Island had sustained winds at 45 mph.
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There was Little heads up, but in reality it was not needed since the borderline tropical storm only had a few reports of storm threshold winds.
Wind gusts ranged from 54 mph at Fort George Island to 58 mph farther east in Alligator Point.
The highest wind measured at 61 mph came from a tower near Tyndall Air Force Base. A speed exaggerated from standard 30 foot measurements due to the perched anemometer 114 feet in the air.
Fortunately it didn’t cause flooding similar to the Ida’s rainfall in the Northeast when its remnants passed through. Rather, Mindy’s rainfall in Jacksonville was insignificant compared to typical summer thunderstorms.
So why did the tropical low get named? National Hurricane Center forecaster, Dr. Philippe Papin, noticed southerly winds on doppler radar occasionally read over 46 mph and reasoned that a circulation had formed just offshore the panhandle.
All this happened so quickly in the late afternoon that there never was a chance to issue an early heads up via a Potential Tropical Cyclone Forecast cone, according to Dennis Feltgen at the National Hurricane Center.
Mindy ran out of room to grow so close to land in the Gulf and fortunately didn’t become stronger.
Mindy will be added to the list of other shorties that lasted about 48 hours or less which included: Tropical Storm Ana, Tropical Storm Bill just over 48 hours, Tropical Storm Danny and Tropical Storm Julian.
These short-lived systems have pushed the storm count beyond average. Only halfway through the season we are just 1 storm shy of a normal season’s 14 named systems.
But remember not all systems are the same as Mindy or have the same roadblocks in the way. Others can power up fast just like Hurricane Ida which almost doubled its wind speed in 36 hours before striking Louisiana.