Hurricane Idalia continued to build strength over the Gulf of Mexico’s abnormally warm waters on Tuesday, taking aim at a vulnerable but sparsely populated portion of Florida’s coastline known as the Big Bend, where the peninsula curves west into the Panhandle.
My colleagues and I on The Times’s Weather desk just redesigned our hurricane tracker with detailed information about the storm’s path and severity.
In today’s newsletter, I’m going to tell you how best to track a hurricane’s progress, especially if you’re in its path.
But people often misinterpret these maps, thinking they’ll be safe if they live just outside the cone, for example.
Nearly a year ago, officials in Florida’s Lee County saw they were on the edge of the cone of uncertainty for Hurricane Ian and delayed an order to evacuate, with devastating consequences.
Persons:
Idalia, they’ll, Hurricane Ian
Locations:
Bend, Tallahassee, Tampa, Florida’s Lee