Wannabe Tropical Storm Alex Sputters, Still Drowns South Florida

Satellite view of the mess that is wannabe Tropical Storm
Alex this morning flooding South Florida. It's not 
organized enough to be declared an official tropical storm.

Be glad you're not in or near Miami this morning. 

Torrential rains already amounting to up to nine inches from wannabe Tropical Storm Alex have flooded countless streets, highways and underpasses in South Florida.  One more round of torrential rain was moving the the Miami-Dade area as I write this around 6:30 this morning. 

Notice I'm calling the storm wannabe Tropical Storm Alex and not actually a tropical storm. 

As of early this morning, the National Hurricane Center says the system has top winds of 40 mph.  Winds need to be 39 mph to declare a tropical storm, so this qualifies, right?  Plus, South Florida is under a tropical storm warning. So Alex it is, you'd think. 

Not in this case. A tropical storm must have a closed circulation. In other words, the winds need to be going in a counterclockwise circle around a defined storm center. This mess of a tropical system does not have such a center.

Instead, as of early this morning, the "storm" was just a chaotic collection of torrential thunderstorms in the Bahamas, Florida and Cuba. Those top winds of 40 mph were just in a few isolated areas. This is as far as you can get from a neat, circular tropical storm.   

High winds aloft have been blowing away any attempts by wannabe Alex to organize into a tropical storm. There's still a chance it could become a tropical storm later today once this mess gets past South Florida, we'll see.

For Floridians, it doesn't matter whether this is an official tropical storm or not.  The effects are the same. They don't have much wind with this system, but boy is it raining! As noted, it's hard to drive anywhere in or near Miami early today there's so much water.  I'm sure a lot of homes and businesses are taking on water, too. 

After wannabe Alex finishes with Florida today, it will continue on a northeastward path out to sea. It eventually will just become a remnant low way out over the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.  This storm will have no effect on our weather here in Vermont. 

In fact, up here in the North Country, we're having a nice weekend. Some scattered showers and thundershowers will pop up this afternoon in the Northeast Kingdom and Connecticut River Valley. (That's the same area scattered storms focused on Friday).

Still, the sun will be out much of the time today. Sunday looks pretty sunny, too. Daytime highs will bei in the near normal low 70s, while tonight will be on the crisp side again (mostly 40s).