Fay is Going Away

After making its first U.S. landfall Monday afternoon over Key West, Florida; Tropical Storm Fay made its second landfall near Cape Romano, Florida on Tuesday morning at about 4:45am ET.

A is in effect for the Florida Keys and the majority of Florida's Atlantic coast. All hurricane warnings have been discontinued and a tropical storm warning is in effect now for the Florida Keys and majority of Florida's Atlantic coast.

As of 5 am, Tropical Storm made landfall about 55 miles south of Ft. Myers, Florida near Cape Romano. Fay is moving to the north-northeast at 9 mph. This northward motion is expected to continue throughout the majority of the day as Fay crosses the Florida peninsula.

Parts of the Florida Keys have experienced tropical storm conditions during much of the day on Monday though conditions should gradually improve during the morning hours. The conditions that the Florida Keys experienced on Monday is what coastal southwest Florida can expect this morning and continue into the midday hours.

The greatest impact from Fay, however, has been the heavy rain. Fay is forecast to produce rain totals of 4 to 8 inches with some locations picking up close to 10 inches throughout South Florida. Eventually, as Fay moves north across the state, a greater portion of the Florida peninsula will deal with the heavy, maybe even flooding, rain.

As Fay rotates northward, it is also possible for isolated tornadoes to impact central and south Florida.

Fay continues to produce moderate to heavy rainfall across the southern half of the state on top of the estimated 4-8 inches that has already fallen across south Florida.

Although Fay's central pressure continued to fall Monday night into Tuesday morning, the winds never responded to the lowering pressure and hurricane status was never reach before landfall.

The extended future of Tropical Storm Fay is somewhat uncertain with computer models suggesting Fay may stall off the northeast Florida Atlantic coast before making another landfall somewhere along the Southeast U.S. coast later on this week.

Its still too early to determine if Nils and I will be reporting to work. I will keep you all posted moving forward.