Weather forecaster Joe Bastardi explained where Hurricane Ian could end up as it moves up the coast of Florida on “Hannity.”
JOE BASTARDI: We always felt the landfall would be between Tampa and Naples, probably in the middle of it. It wasn’t too bad from five days away – making a 30-mile error is not that bad. The thing we had to be concerned with Tampa, of course, is all the forecasts that were up to the west of them and that would be shoving that same kind of situation you see in Naples. And this happened in 1921, Sean, and that was the big fear, and it was a well-founded fear, okay? I’m not disagreeing with that. That if the storm went in just north of Tampa, then they would have that 15-20 foot surge up Tampa Bay. But you want to know why this is very, very difficult to happen, and you saw it with Charlie, because when a storm is moving parallel to the West Coast of Florida, the vectors around the storm change.
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And we see this, and there’s actually papers on it done with typhoons in Taiwan, that the frictional affects, if the storm is moving to the right of an island, parallel to it or the right of a peninsula, it will pull it in. And once it gets in, guess what it does? It goes looking for the water on the other side. You notice how hurricanes, when they’re to the right of Florida, tend to stay offshore, Matthew, Dorian, remember how they stayed offshore? Because the same kind of frictional effect on the East Coast will keep this offshore. So what you’re seeing here is, like Charlie — remember Charlie was forecasted up to Tampa, too, remember? And where did it go? It went in south right here because the friction pulled it in. So what happens is, this is going to get to the Atlantic coast, and it’s going to get there, I think tomorrow afternoon. It looks like it’s coming quicker, a little bit quicker to me all right? Once it gets there, then it’s all bets off further north.
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