Hurricane Sally smashes into Alabama, Florida

Hurricane Sally slammed into Gulf Shores, Alabama this morning with winds to 123 mph and rain that accumulated to at least 30 inches.

Hurricane Sally slammed into Gulf Shores, Alabama, this morning with winds to 123 mph and rain that accumulated to at least 30 inches. I use the term "slammed" lightly, as the storm was moving very slowly. About half of a million people are without power, as of this writing.

These are the highest wind gusts I saw:

• Gulf Shores, AL: 123 mph*

• Fort Morgan, AL: 121 mph (N) (elev. 112 ft)

• Viosca Knoll: 117 mph (N) (offshore oil rig elev. 525 ft)

• Buoy #42012: 110 mph (N)

• Dauphin Island: 104 mph (N)

• Elberta, AL: 99 mph (L)

• Miflin, AL: 93 mph (L)

• Pensacola Naval, FL: 92 mph (N)

• Wallace Tunnel, AL: 83 mph (A)

• Mobile, AL: 83 mph (A)

• Gulf Breeze, FL: 82 mph (F)

*Measured by wind instrument on the CSWRDOW mobile doppler radar's truck, unknown mast elevation. Sources in parentheses are shown below.

This map shows selected gusts from NOAA's network:

Various photos from the storm can be viewed in our wrap-up story.

I collected the following rainfall reports for the three-day period from Sept. 13 to Sept. 16. Most rain gauges stopped reporting on the morning of the 16th when Hurricane Sally made landfall, so these may not be final amounts.

• Bellview, FL: 30.00"** (L)* (Spotter Estimate)

• Pensacola, FL: 24.80" (L)*

• Destin, FL: 24.52" (U)

• Orange Beach, AL: 21.99" (F)*

• Gulf Shores, FL: 21.83 (A)*

• Pensacola, FL: 20.35" (C)*

• Gasque, AL: 18.68" (L)*

• Navarre, FL: 17.97" (A)*

• Milton, FL: 17.24" (A)*

• Freeport, FL: 17.80" (C)*

• Pace, FL: 17.68" (N)

• Summerdale, AL: 15.81" (C)*

• Escambia River, FL: 15.84" (G)*

There were also these, which are probably in error. I don't know the accuracy of the WeatherFlow stations, and the Weather Underground stations are generally amateur stations that have tipping bucket rain gauges, which can rattle in the wind, producing a higher rainfall amount than actually falls.

Oriole Beach, FL: 74.82" (F)
Grande Lagoon Lakes, FL: 55.68" (U)*
Lake Lorraine, FL: 41.61" (F)*
Lake Lorraine, FL: 39.90" (U)*
Gulf Breeze, FL: 36.49" (U)*

*Stopped reporting Thursday morning near landfall. Sources in parentheses are shown below.

Also remember, this is the second round of heavy rain for Florida from Sally. Up to a foot of rain fell in the Florida Keys over the weekend!

Islamorada, FL: 11.98"
Key West, FL: 11.36"
Channel Bridge, FL: 11.00"
Marco Island: FL: 8.45"
Fiddlers Creek, FL: 8.28"

In the above reports, the sources for the reports are abbreviated as such:

(A) = Amateur (CWOP)
(U) = WeatherUnderground
(F) = WeatherFlow
(C) = CoCoRAHs
(N) = NWS or RAWS
(L) = NWS LSR
(G) = USGS

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