psu_met's Blog

Just have time for a quick update today. I'll try an get an update out tomorrow but between wiffle ball and work...

Hurricane Dean
As of 11pm, 8/17/07: Winds: 145mph G: 180mph
Movement: W 18mph
Pressure: 937 mb (27.66in.)
Position: 755 ESE of Kingston, Jamaica

Numerous Hurricane/Tropical Storm watches and warning have been issued.

Dean is now a very dangerous CAT 4 major hurricane. I think he will reach CAT 5 unless an eye-wall replacement cycle occurs. We are not able to forecast these until they have already begun. Confidence is high in the track for the next 2 days as Dean continues racing west near Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. After that 3 of the 4 main computer models take Dean over the Yucatan, into the Gulf of Mexico, and then have a second landfall near the Texas/Mexico border. The one outlier is the GFDL which takes Dean over extreme western Cuba and makes a second landfall in LA. While this model can't be ruled out (and we'll continue to watch to see if the other models shift this way at all), the best bet is to go with the consensus.

At 11pm, the recent model trends are taking Dean farther south into Mexico.  Either way the one thing that we are confident in is that Jamaica is on pace to get slammed by a CAT 4/5 hurricane.  Let's hope Dean can pull an Ivan and at the last minute just miss hitting the island directly.