Ramblings' Journal

Ivan is ashore; weather here is nasty

Hurricane Ivan came ashore somewhere between 3 and 4 this morning between Mobile and Pensacola as a CAT 3 storm with sustained winds above 120 MPH.

The storm wreaked havoc on it's eastern side, with brought catastrophic damage to Pensacola and the surrounding area. Tornadoes have been spawned in the Florida panhandle, south Alabama and south Georgia, with at least 12 deaths reported.

Heavy weather is headed my way, and I fully expect to lose power sometime late today or tonight.

ABC NewsNow (check your broadband portal's news page for access) is carrying live coverage from WMBB-TV Panama City, where two tornadoes struck within an hour of each other yesterday afternoon while Ivan was still out in the Gulf.

WPMI-TV/DT Mobile and WVTM-TV/DT Birmingham are streaming their wall-to-wall coverage, and I expect other stations (including Atlanta's WSB-TV and WXIA-TV) to join them as the day progresses.

According to local weathercasters here, the truly heavy weather (including a Tornado Watch) should get here around 2PM or so. Many of the south suburban school systems have cancelled classes for today, but with the heavy weather not arriving until later today, most systems are still in session. I wouldn't be surprised to see most systems out tomorrow, however.

The National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center are forecasting Ivan (by then a tropical storm) to move into the lower Appalachian Mountains and stall -- dropping enough rain to cause mudslides in north Georgia, north Alabama, Tennessee and the Carolinas.

This is what you call a "character builder."