Isaias's 'dirty side' and a Tampa Bay flood advisory, in Jim Weber's FOX 13 update
The storm the station had been forecasting all week is now a hurricane, and the comments run from a Camille survivor's memories to Citrus County lakes that want the rain.
Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 293,555 views a day, 26 times a normal first day on this channel (11,107).
Hurricane Isaias forms in Gulf
A regular forecast on FOX 13 Tampa Bay usually ends its first day with around 11,000 views. "Hurricane Isaias forms in Gulf" passed 190,000 in just eleven hours. Its comment section, which on a normal first day gets a handful of messages, had well over a hundred.
The storm Jim Weber spent the week expecting has arrived. At the 11 a.m. advisory, Isaias had 85 mph winds and was drifting east-northeast. Weber expects it to reach Category 2, perhaps a little stronger, before wind shear over the northern Gulf starts to pull it apart. He sets the European ensembles beside Google's AI ensembles on the forecast cone, then walks through a Hurricane Warning that runs "from Ocean Springs, Mississippi, all the way over to the Bay-Gulf county line," with peak surge of up to five to seven feet. Landfall is forecast for Friday night, followed by a soaking weekend for Alabama and Georgia.
Tampa Bay is far from the bullseye, but it is not untouched. "We always talk about that right-hand side being that dirty side of the storm," Weber says. For the local coast, that means a Coastal Flood Advisory from Friday morning to Saturday morning and one to three feet of extra tide and surge.
Viewers wrote in from all along that coastline. One remembers riding out Camille in Bay St. Louis in 1969. Another writes from Pensacola, bracing for the next day. Someone in Citrus County says the lakes there have been low for months and the rain is welcome, and a charter fan is already thinking about the fishing once it passes.
Weber's colleague Dave Osterberg had a busy morning too: his cloudy, rainy Thursday forecast drew several times the crowd a FOX 13 forecast usually gets.
Published on Trari
Where next?
What viewers say
Here in Citrus Co...sooooo happy for the rain...our lakes have been five' plus low for months!
@marklowe8061See it on YouTubeGonna be some great gulf fishing after that storm. Always the best time to take a charter out.😮
@Stuart-m1hSee it on YouTubeI was in the eye of hurricane Camille August 17, 1969 Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.
Right before the eye for about 30 minutes, the wind was blowing sustained 190, gust to 250.
It blew down every tree like an atomic bomb would do.
It blew our house apart as well.
The sound was like 1000 trains roaring , in the wind, shrieking through the shattered pine tops high-pitched sound, low pitched roar.
Hell, couldn't sound any worse than that ....
I just couldn't believe how nature could get so violent@martimar541See it on YouTube
3 more comments
Anybody remember Irma: the last minutes counted.
@lifeenglightment7977See it on YouTubeI don't know what's worse, getting the eye of the hurricane or getting the right side of the hurricane.
@LemonDropYumSee it on YouTubeAin't no way people are having that much trouble with Isaiah's cousin Isaias.
@reachthroughrealitySee it on YouTube
Public comments from the video's page on YouTube
- Channel
- FOX 13 Tampa Bay
- Subscribers
- 1,080,000
- Channel views, last 7 days
- 3,685,813
- Channel views, pace per day
- 761,592 (on a normal day: 340,199)
- Video published
- October 8, 2026
- Video views so far
- 191,568 (less than a day online)
- Video views, pace per day
- 293,555
The numbers
A hurricane in the Gulf pulled far more viewers to the Tampa station than an ordinary forecast does, and the comment section filled up just as quickly.
💡 Test your knowledge
One viewer recalls how the last minutes counted during Hurricane Irma. In which year did Irma hit Florida?
Hurricane Irma made landfall in the Florida Keys and then on Florida's southwest coast in September 2017.



