Hurricane Isaias Wind Map: Where the 100+ MPH Gusts Actually Hit

Isaias came ashore near Destin at 8:30 p.m. Central on Friday, October 9, as a Category 2 hurricane with 105 mph sustained winds. Most of the coverage since then has focused on the landfall point. The gust reports tell a different story. The highest numbers on the National Weather Service's storm reports came from Santa Rosa County and the east side of Escambia, between Gulf Breeze and Milton, while Panama City, 50 miles east of landfall, stayed below 85 mph.

That matters if you own a home in the Panhandle, because the wind your roof actually took is a better guide to what you'll find up there than the distance to the eye.

The Hurricane Isaias wind map

Each dot on the map is a real measurement from a National Weather Service local storm report, out of the NWS offices in Mobile and Tallahassee. The colored bands are our estimate of what fell between those stations. We left areas blank where no station was close enough to say anything useful, because guessing there would do more harm than good.

Every Isaias wind gust, by community

Times are converted from the UTC timestamps in the reports. A few stations around Destin, Eglin and Fort Walton Beach only reported hours before landfall, so they are left out of this table and shown as hollow dots on the map. More on that below.

Santa Rosa Sound, Gulf Breeze and Navarre: the strongest gusts of the storm

The two highest readings of the entire storm, 117 and 116 mph, came within a couple of miles of each other on Santa Rosa Sound near Oriole Beach, between 7:30 and 7:45 p.m. Navarre's station hit 105 mph an hour later, and the station just west of Gulf Breeze recorded 97. On our map that whole strip, from the Gulf Breeze peninsula east to Navarre, sits in the 90+ band.

Waterfront and barrier-island homes take wind with nothing to slow it down, so this is where we expect the most roof damage per street: missing shingles, lifted ridge caps and soffit and fascia pulled off the eaves.

Milton, Pace and north Santa Rosa: hurricane gusts well inland

This is the surprise in the data. The AWOS station 2 miles south of Milton measured 114 mph at 8:37 p.m., more than 20 miles from the Gulf. Allentown recorded 101, the station northeast of Chumuckla 95 and Jay 89. Inland homeowners often assume the coast took the worst of it, and in this storm that assumption is wrong for most of Santa Rosa County.

Pace sits between the Milton readings and the 105 mph station east of Ferry Pass, which puts it inside the 90+ band on our map. The National Weather Service damage reports from Pace included multiple large trees down.

Pensacola and Escambia County

Pensacola's highest readings came early in the evening, between 6 and 7 p.m.: 102 mph at City Hall, 92 at Pensacola International Airport and 105 mph at the StickNet station 5 miles east of Ferry Pass. The beach stations were lower than you might expect, at 89 and 75 mph.

Pensacola also had the biggest power loss. Escambia County alone had more than 114,000 customers out Friday night, and the state reported about 448,000 Florida customers without power by Saturday morning.

Destin, Fort Walton Beach and Okaloosa County: the data gap

Here's the uncomfortable part. Isaias came ashore near Destin, and yet we have no gust measurement from Okaloosa County after landfall. The Destin airport station reported 76 mph about two hours before the eye arrived, Eglin 77 mph, and the station southeast of Fort Walton Beach 84 mph three hours early. None of them are in the reports for the hours that mattered.

That doesn't mean Okaloosa got off easy. It means nobody measured it. If you live in Destin, Fort Walton Beach, Mary Esther or Niceville, judge your roof by what you can see and what an inspection finds, not by the colors on any wind map, including ours.

Walton County, Panama City and Bay County

East of landfall the picture is mixed. The WeatherSTEM station 3 miles north-northeast of Blue Mountain Beach measured 110 mph near 9 p.m., and Choctaw Beach on the bay side recorded 91. Other South Walton stations were much lower: 72 to 75 mph around Santa Rosa Beach, 65 at Inlet Beach and 62 at Miramar Beach.

In Bay County, the highest reading was 83 mph north of Magnolia Beach, with 80 mph at Edgewater Gulf Beach and 72 mph near Saint Andrews in Panama City. Those are still hurricane-force gusts, and Panama City Beach also dealt with water rising about 5.6 feet above the average high tide, but the wind there was a step below what Santa Rosa County took.

What 100 mph gusts do to a roof

Asphalt shingles are sold with a wind rating from one of two lab tests. Under ASTM D3161 the classes are A (60 mph), D (90 mph) and F (110 mph). Under ASTM D7158 they are Class D (90 mph), G (120 mph) and H (150 mph). Most architectural shingles on the market today are rated Class F or Class H.

A rating only holds when the shingle is installed the way the manufacturer specifies and its seal strip has bonded to the course below. On an older roof, sealant gets brittle and the nails may sit in the wrong spot, and tabs can lift at gusts well below the number on the bundle. A 114 mph gust over a 20-year-old roof is a real test, even if nothing is missing when you look up from the yard.

What to look for after Isaias

• Missing or flipped shingles, especially along the ridge, the rakes and the eaves, where wind gets its grip first.
• Shingle pieces and granules in the yard, gutters or downspouts.
• Creased tabs. A shingle that lifted and slapped back down leaves a horizontal crease. You usually can't see it from the ground, but it breaks the seal and the shingle will leak or blow off next time.
• Stains or daylight in the attic, and any new ceiling spots inside.
• Bent flashing, loose vents and pulled soffit.

If you find any of that, take photos before anything gets moved, and get the open areas covered. Our guide to the Isaias insurance help center in Destin covers what to bring, the claim deadlines and the hurricane deductible. A free roof inspection gets someone on the roof to find what you can't see from below, and our storm damage repair crews handle tarping and repairs.

How we built this map

We pulled every wind gust report the National Weather Service offices in Mobile and Tallahassee logged for October 9 and 10, 2026, through the Iowa Environmental Mesonet's storm report archive. Each measured gust became a point. Between points, we estimated values with a distance-weighted interpolation (Gaussian weights on a 10 km scale) and masked out anywhere more than 20 km from the nearest station. Stations that only reported before landfall were kept on the map as hollow dots but left out of the interpolation, because they don't capture the storm's peak.

This is an estimate built from public data, not an official National Weather Service product. Gust readings come from different station types (airport ASOS and AWOS, university StickNet towers, WeatherSTEM and mesonet stations), and a missing reading means a missing measurement, not calm weather. If the NWS publishes a revised survey or a station gets corrected, we'll update this post.

Hurricane Isaias winds: frequently asked questions