80's, compared paths, strengths, conditions at the time. Learned a lot about them, biggest lesson being how unpredictable they are. When they strengthen so close to landfall it is very worrisome, when they do early in the life cycle they tend to poop out before landfall.

I remember first hand Hurricane Agnes here in PA and what it did to the Girl Scout camp I used to go to (was at the camp about month after it came through in '72).

But as a note to your comment - in this era of "climate change" sometimes "past performance doesn't guarantee future results". This 'cane is doing all sorts of non-traditional things due to the SSTs in the GOM, which are above normal for this time of year.

We did see Florence drop suddenly before landfall but then Florence would have been a record storm coming in that far north as strong as it was before weakening. But in this case, Michael is in some real bath water with a strong trough to guide him in. Plus another distinguishing factor is that Michael is more compact than Florence, which had a much wider spread-out wind field making her ripe for disruption.

as with Florence, although this storm surge will devastate many Gulf beach areas. They're now showing high probability of tropical storm force winds all the way through Georgia and even into SC.

This could lead to very wide-spread power and communications outages and lots of tornados. Very large tornado warning zone showing on radar on the coast.

Radar now showing it less than ~30-mi. off shore and going in just east of Panama City (Tyndall or Mexico Beach? ). Looks highly organized to this amateur.

He drove down through Mexico Beach to Port St. Joe and is on his way back towards Mexico Beach. Stuff is getting shredded down there. There are comparisons of this to Hurricane Andrew. Pressure has been reported as 919 mb. There are smaller storms rolling around inside the eye. It is starting to make landfall - looks to be just west of Mexico Beach...

looks like it took a weird last minute twist to the west and went in over Panama City with a roughly 5-mile dia. eyewall.

Probably ripping hell out of Tendall too, but they're likely better prepared than the general populace. This may be one for our record books when tornados are included. What do you think?

From CNN interview with NWS:

Most people broadcasting/streaming were apparently doing so on either side so folks have been trying to find some shots of "blue sky" under the eye.

It already is in the record books now. There were mesovortices rolling around inside the eye that seemed to help feed it. The chaser I was watching had to bail as they got caught in surge trying to go from Port Joe to Mexico Beach and ended up parking the truck against a wall. The feed continued on for some time as the truck started floating and then the feed dropped. I saw someone post on my weather forum that his wife tweeted that he (and the guy with him) is fine.

And yes - as that whole area, which is low lying, is completely strewn with debris - the surge was unreal. There were no barrier islands to protect it (at least in that area between Port St. Joe and Mexico Beach).

EDIT TO ADD pic of eyewall right over Tyndall AFB -

He has been assured by Conrad Trump that the necessary funds will be made diverted from the needy children's Democratic ripoff lunch program for his selected contractors reconstruction program.

The fact that this grifting carpetbagger actually got elected, never mind re-elected after what he pulled in Texas just blows my mind every time I see his Batboy face. Hopefully Florida is blue enough now to sideline this guy and Nelson keeps being our Senator. Gilly is going to be a great Gov.

Still outside of this point everyone in florida this is a mortal level destroyer storm if you have any way to get out use it today otherwise God bless.

it's hitting a big part of his base so that could drive turnout up OR down.

You also have Gillum with a pretty decent lead and one can hope that there aren't a lot of Gillum/Scott voters so the Governors race might have coattails for the Senate race.

“It’s too late - You’re going to die” is not really helpful. They should probably be seeking shelter on higher ground.

A big chunk of his supporters are in these soon to be affected areas.

RW dummies from the voter rolls.

No one needs a "leader" saying it's too late for you you're going to die. It's kind of the opposite of what leading is about.

who refused to evacuate because "it's only water". He refused to go to a shelter because he'd still have to deal with the damage later on anyway. The reporter tried to appeal to a common sense he apparently did not possess.

He has pets, too.

I'd die before I abandoned my pets.

Emergency shelters need to deal with the reality that many people consider them family and will not leave them behind.

Unless he has pets the shelter won't take.

(Horses?)

He came across as somewhat loony. Big Bend area on the coast, think 'Deliverance' . I couldn't fully read his T-shirt but the big writing on it said "WHEN I SNAP' .........I got a whiff of MAGA from my scratch n sniff tee vee.

Or, that's how it sounds to me from your description.

They had the path right on this one, heading NNE towards Tallahassee