TS Fay appeared to intensify for a bit while over land how is that even possible?

Question

The shallow waters of Lake Ochechobee, the overall moisture content at ground level? Another possible explanation?

Answer 1

The reason why it strenghtend a little after landfall was because it was on the verge of doing so before it made landfall.  It was gettting better organized.  It is just like if a car takes off at a stop full throttle, and gets to a 100 mph, it will take a while for the car to stop.  If the car was already slowing down, it wouldn't take so long.  Same with fay.  If it had not made landfall when it did, it would have probably reached major hurricane status, had it been over water about one more day or so.  It has weakend now though.  The last time i checked,(an hour ago) it was down to 50 mph winds and didn't look well organized at all.  And plus florida doesn't have high elevation.  That has a lot to do with it to.  A storm falls apart quicker when it is going over mountains that flatter land.  

Answer 2

The most likely reason was that even though Fay had made landfall and initially weakened a bit, the upper atmospheric conditions became more favorable for strengthening, thus allowing Fay to build a bit, though still remaining a tropical storm.  Until landfall, Fay was in an environment where the upper outflow from Fay was restricted by other nearby weather systems.  Tropical systems need good outflow conditions in order to exhaust the air that is converging in them from below, otherwise they basically get smothered.  When Fay made it to central Florida, it entered a much improved upper environment for strengthening.  Of course being over land worked against much strengthening.    

Answer 3

cyswxman's answer is very good, and valid.  But also, as you mentioned about the shallow waters of Okeechobee, there is something to that.  South Florida's land is less hostile to a storm than land usually is in other places, as it is flat and wet.  The Everglades are basically a huge river system from Okeechobee draining into the Florida Straights.  Even though it takes deep warm water to let a tropical cyclone intensify definitively, I believe the shallow warm waters are at least not as destructive to a weak-ish storm like Fay.  Fay traveled right over the wetter parts of So. Florida.  After it moved north of Okeechobee, the circulation began to diminish.  

(see the link below that the wet land hypothesis has been used before by NHC)

The upper level flow pattern helped ventilate the top of the storm, which then allows for better inflow near the surface, and better convection near Fay's center.  This was very important too, but it wouldn't have helped Fay if Fay had been over drier land.

A similar thing happened with Katrina.  First of all, it's fair to note that Katrina spent only 7 hours over South Florida.  The net effect of Katrina was slight weakening in winds as it crossed south Florida (because it was a stronger storm than Fay, it needed deeper water to maintain).  It was noted in the NHC discussion at 5 AM EDT (900Z) on the 26th of August in '05 that a favorable upper level pattern, and the moist terrain helped Katrina maintain intensity better than would normally be expected:

http://www.milli-bar.com/wsoldani/Katrin...

snippet of NHC discussion found in link above:

"DUE TO THE SOUTHWESTWARD PATH TAKEN BY KATRINA OVER EXTREME SOUTHERN

FLORIDA...ITS CENTER SPENT ONLY ABOUT SEVEN HOURS OVER LAND...AND

MUCH OF THAT TIME OVER THE RELATIVELY MOIST EVERGLADES. AS A RESULT

OF THIS AND THE FAVORABLE ATMOSPHERIC ENVIRONMENT... KATRINA DID

NOT WEAKEN ALL THAT MUCH OVERNIGHT..."