Property & Weather

If you want to look at more Florida maps, but category, like hurricane and sinkhole maps, or maps you can use for your Power Point presentation (free), check out this University of South Florida collection at “Maps Etc”.

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection site includes a “Sinkhole page” which contains links to a wide variety of information regarding sinkholes, including a link to view and purchase a 2004 sinkhole poster showing the location of “reported” sinkholes, which, if updated, would likely show blue circles covering the whole of Central to West Central Florida. A July, 2011 Florida Department of Financial Services document, “Settling Your Sinkhole Claim – Where to Find Help” is linked as well.

There are several sites which now provide live lightning strike maps. StormCenter.com appears the most professional, and you can zoom in on a map location. This one is the video gamers (think Pac Man or Missile Defender) choice: FloridaMedia.com (I keep forgetting to check out this site during a storm! There is no historical, say by time and day, to see where lightning struck, but this feature would certainly have value in the claim and legal environment.)

For weather conditions, you could go right to the NOAA site, but it’s a lot more confusing to use for Tampa Bay weather than this page. Take a look at the current Tampa Bay radar time loop. You can view the loop view for storm velocity and rainfall, or view the composite loop (which is the linked view). Or, check out this current radar view for the whole State of Florida.View the West Central Florida inshore marine page, for forecasts wind speed, direction, and wave height from 0-20 miles offshore. And, the West Central Florida offshore marine page, forecasts wind speed, direction, and wave height from 20-60 miles offshore. For 60-120 miles offshore, look here. You can view the weather conditions at various anchored NOAA sea buoys, which, depending on the type of buoy can give you wave height, wind speed and water temperature. For a radar view of the Eastern U.S., see this NOAA page.