Hurricane Ian Rolling In

It's become legend that whenever Jim Cantore from the Weather Channel shows up on your beach, you're getting doomed with a hurricane...

So here comes Hurricane Ian aiming for the Tampa Bay area with Jim goofing off on Clearwater Beach. More from Michaela Mulligan at the Tampa Bay Times:

After a night of intensification, Hurricane Ian has emerged as a major hurricane Tuesday — still following its track toward Tampa Bay.

The Category 3 storm is just off the coast of Cuba, about 10 miles south of Pinar Del Río and 130 miles southwest of the Dry Tortugas, according to an 8 a.m. update from the National Hurricane Center. Ian is moving north at about 12 mph and is expected to turn toward the north-northeast while beginning to slow Tuesday night into Wednesday.

Forecasters predict the center of Ian to move over western Cuba Tuesday morning and then emerge in the southeastern Gulf of Mexico, where it likely will strengthen...

I'm a little further inland (Polk County), and if the storm keeps tracking straight north - or better turns west - I won't get hit with anything serious. Still, this is the first year I've gotten sandbags for my porch doors, which were vulnerable to the last hurricane that passed by.

This year, given the uptick in climate change and the noticeable erosion of the Florida coastline, my home metro of Tampa Bay may be hit real hard with lasting - and tragic - damage. Too much residential development along the coastline has made us too vulnerable to big storms like this, and we're looking at serious flooding and power outages to last well into next week.

I may try to get a few more blog articles in before the storm hits, so we'll see.