What I believe to be an unfortunate comment was left on this blog this morning. Here it is. This wasn't the only comment along these lines. The comments below were left at the Washington Post  after an article about meteorologists staying behind in Key West (as the storm approached) to do their jobs gathering meteorological data and issuing storm warnings for Irma. A sample of those comments: On a personal note, after hours and hours and hours of 'round the clock, exhausting work to warn of Harvey and Irma, you cannot imagine how discouraging this is. Similar thoughts were expressed on Facebook this morning in a group for meteorologists. But, that is not the point I want to make, which is: These comments illustrate the utter lack of understanding of the critical service  meteorologists provide to America.  First, let me comment on September 11th. While it was a catastrophe, a better word to describe it would be "atrocity." The official toll wa...

I will be on the Jim Bohannon Show tonight for the one-hour slot beginning at 10pm Eastern/9pm Central. You can find a list of stations,  here . You can listen via the internet, here . If you want to call in with a question, please go here .

If you would like to read what it was like in our State College forecast center during Hurricane Irma, please click here .

Here is a analysis of the insurance losses with regard to Harvey and Texas .

As mentioned below, I've turned the forecasts for Irma over to my talented colleagues at AccuWeather . I am still doing some tweeting @usweatherexpert . For readers in Florida and the rest of the area yet to lose power, please see the posting below and be very patient. The huge power failures I was expecting was one of the reasons I was urging people to evacuate. I appreciate all of your who have followed the blog's coverage of Harvey and Irma. If you would like to go behind the scenes and learn how meteorologists save literally thousands of lives in storms like these, I'd like to immodestly recommend my book on the subject . While Warnings  is completely true and accurate, it is written in the style of a novel as I take you behind the scenes while warning of these monsters. The hardcover version is sold out. But, you can get the Kindle version at the link above or purchase a used book at Amazon. The Kindle version has many additional photos we could not get into...

ABC News just had a spokesman for Florida Power & Light on and he made that statement. He talked about the huge effort needed to rebuild the grid. I know that trucks and crews from Westar Energy in Kansas left two days ago to be onsite to help. Below is the radar from 5:35pm I circled Marco Island and Naples. The storm is moving N to NNW. Peak winds are now around 110 mph and it has appeared to weaken just a touch in the last hour. This is going to be my last update on this storm.  There is not much more I can do in terms of weather forecasting. Please switch over to accuweather.com for the latest information.

Hurricane Irma is over Naples and its eye will be moving north along I-75 the next couple of hours. Wind gusts of 142 mph have been reported at the Naples airport as the eyewall passed. Water level in Naples has risen 3' in 18 minutes and still rising rapidly. Communities to the north northwest of Naples should prepare for extreme conditions as the evening progresses.