On Tuesday morning, Greg Machos posted an update to the home page at Hurricaneville, and stated in his update that while Fay would probably weaken due to the fact that it was over land, there was a possibility of it maintaining its strength since it was projected to move over the marshes of the Everglades.

During the day, not only did it maintain its strength, but Fay also increased in intensity to have winds of 65 miles per hour. According to the advisories posted in the NHC archive section, the increase in sustained winds put Fay at its highest strength during its lifetime.

Within hours of attaining that milestone, Fay began to weaken as it moved away from the moisture laden marshes of the Everglades, and into firmer land areas of Southern and Central Florida. Hurricaneville gave the indication that Fay could sustain itself over Florida on Tuesday based upon past experiences. Back in the relatively hurricane free season of 1997, Hurricane Danny was a minimal hurricane, which came ashore near Mobile, Alabama, and moved inland, where it became a remnant low.

However, flooding in portions of North Carolina provided moisture for the strong and clear circulation of Danny to sustain itself so when it moved out over the warmer waters of the Atlantic, it became a tropical storm again. Hurricane Andrew did not diminish that much over South Florida for the same reason. The southern portion of the Sunshine state is flat land unlike the rugged terrain of Cuba and Hispanola.

What happens with hurricanes as they encounter land mass is that they bump into friction. When air encounters a land mass, particularly a barrier, it has to go over it. As the air goes up its temperature drops according to either the dry adiabatic lapse rate, or the moist adiabatic lapse rate depending on the moisture content of the air. As the temperature drops to its dew point the level of condensation equals the level of evaporation, and you have saturation.

The air condenses, and that releases heat energy, which warms the colder cloud tops that are prominent when a tropical storm or hurricane its at peak intensity. Consequently, the storm loses punch, and weakens. However, it does still produce disastrous effects. The orographic lifting that forces the air over a topological barrier such as a mountain can cause tremendous rainfall like what was seen in October 1998 when Hurricane Mitch went into Honduras and Nicaragua.