Sunday, August 17, 2008

New Thoughts

After watching Fay and reviewing the latest guidance, my original forecast of a Category 1 hurricane landfall in South Florida needs to be changed. I felt confident if Fay moved over Eastern Cuba that South Florida would be the likely destination. Now, however, Fay is near the southeastern coast of Cuba and is moving WNW. This pushes my landfall idea further west, and my current thinking is that Fay makes landfall in the big bend near Apalachicola as a weakening Category 3 hurricane. My thoughts on why later this afternoon...

2 comments:

Unknown said...

uh oh...the 18z runs took it way left of the previous runs. Clustered around your big bend forecast. It may end up even more west with the upgrade in speed. Plus moving over the flatter lands of western Cuba vs the higher terrain of eastern Cuba could be a big deal too. This is about to get dirty... 4PM update should be interesting

Justyn Jackson said...

Very good point with the difference in western vs. eastern Cuba. Not going over eastern Cuba looks like it has enabled the core to develop much faster and it appears that Fay is going to strengthen fairly quickly in the Gulf. Should be interesting to watch!