Gustav's Remnant Low Continues To Bring Flooding Rain; Hanna Threatens The South Carolina Coast; Ike Becomes The Third Major Hurricane Of The Season, South Florida Watch Out...
TROPICAL OVERVIEW
There is three storms out in the busy Atlantic basin, Now the next most important system I would talk about is Hanna right? Not at all. Hanna will be brought up first due to its forecasted landfall on Friday evening, however its only going to be a Category 1 hurricane at landfall. Yes wind damage, and heavy rain will occur but Ike will take away the headlines for a while. Josephine will likely drift back out to sea and be nothing significant.
TROPICAL STORM HANNA
As stated Hanna will be mentioned first only due to her "near" future landfall on Friday. Currently Hanna has sustained winds of 65MPH with higher gusts. Minimum central pressure is at 989 millibars. Hanna has just recently started taking a very slight northwestward turn, allowing its heading to be classified as North-Northwest. Hanna may turn slightly more to the Northwest until it becomes within 100 miles of Coastal Georgia. Hanna will then turn more Northerly and eventually Northeasterly. Hanna will likely make landfall near the South Carolina/ North Carolina border as a Category 1 Hurricane. Hanna will then ride up the east coast as a tropical storm bringing heavy rains to the mid-Atlantic, and northeast through Sunday morning before it moves up into Canada. This storm will bring its share of wind and rain, but wont be anything overly significant.
MAJOR HURRICANE IKE
Now Hurricane Ike is the storm to talk about, and to be worried about. Hurricane Ike has become the third major hurricane of the season. Of more concern is that Ike is now an extremely dangerous Category 4 Hurricane. Ike has gone from a Strong Tropical Storm with sustained winds of 70MPH and a minimum central pressure of 991 millibars at 11AM this morning to a Category 4 Hurricane with sustained winds of 135MPH with gusts to 160MPH and a minimum central pressure of 948 millibars at 11PM this evening. This storm has clearly exploded. This intensification is phenomenal. If you do the math since 11AM this morning Ike has been intensifying at a rate of 3.6 millibars an hour for 12 hours, dropping an impressive 43 millibars in 12 hours. Intensification is likely not over yet, as the eye which was rather ragged continued to become more and more symmetrical. I would not be surprised to see Ike become a Category 5 hurricane for a short period of time. I will have to admit though, the track of Ike concerns me a lot. I don't want to scare anyone, but I just want to quickly mention Hurricane Andrew. Is this track similar? Not really. Andrew went across the southern tip of Florida and into the Gulf of Mexico. The reason I mention Andrew is because there is some potential that Ike could make landfall on the Southern Florida Peninsula, and it could be rather strong. Its been a long while since we have had a land falling Category 5 Hurricane in the United States. The last I do believe was Andrew, could Ike be the next, making a similar landfall in South Florida? This is a situation that needs to be watched. Models indicate some shear to attempt to weaken Ike in a few days, after that shear is expected to weaken quite a bit, but still there will be some weak shear, so a Category 5 hurricane by then will be less likely. If Ike becomes a Category 5 Hurricane it will be in the area it is now. Never-the-less I still want to make it a note that Ike could very well hit South Florida as a strong hurricane, Only time will tell. Models indicate that Ike will make it up to the Bahamas, but they then disagree on where it goes from there, will it continue towards Florida, or will it re-curve out to sea just before reaching Florida? It should come very close to south Florida, a landfall though is not exact, we will have to wait for further model runs to come in to determine that.
TROPICAL STORM JOSEPHINE
Last but not least is Tropical Storm Josephine. Currently sustained winds are at 50MPH with some higher gusts. Minimum central pressure is only 1000 millibars. This storm currently looks like it may not become all that impressive. It appears cooler waters and shear will have a hard impact on Josephine, and this storm will be nothing impressive. Models indicate a turn to the Northwest in around 96 - 120 hours, this is likely the beginning of re-curvature. So if Josephine makes it through the shear and cooler water, she will likely just head back out to sea anyway. Stay tuned for further updates on all tropical systems.
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