I'll I got to say is WOW!!! Rapid intensification doesn't do it justice, IKE EXPLODED!!!
5pm: 984mb at 80mph
8pm: 960mb at 115mph
11pm: 948mb at 135mph
That's a 36mb drop in 6 hours!!! Truly amazing and just goes to show you how fast a hurricane can deepen... This is now a very dangerous hurricane that is primed to strike the US... Of course the million dollar questions is where? The models generally take Ike into the Bahamas and then things get tricky... Does Ike keep west and hit Florida, or does it turn north into the Carolina's??? It still way too far out to say for sure, but again Hanna may give us a clue... One thing that makes me want to lean towards a Florida hit is the fact they we could have 2 major hurricanes on our hands... Say Hanna gets to a Cat-3 and Ike gets to a Cat-5, think how much latent heat is being released into the atmosphere! All this is going to do is pump up the ridge and help Ike more west... Ike should eventually turn north but I wonder if all that extra heat will help it just enough west to make landfall in Florida?
Either way we have a BIG problem on our hands... Is it going to be an Andrew like strike or a Hugo like strike... Of course I pray Ike doesn't get near as strong at landfall as those two killer storms, but honestly it's very possible... Especially if the ridge does build in more than the models show... Not only will Ike get pushed into Florida it will be under ideal conditions for a Cat-4/5 especially when you think about the heat content in the Bahamas!!! If the ridge is weaker and the trough gets Ike we still will have a bad situation on our hands, but usually when a trough picks up a hurricane it elongates the storm some, spreading out the wind field... This doesn't mean it won't be a major hurricane, but the risk for a Cat-4/5 is usually much less... It's still way too far out to know for sure but the more I look at Ike the more he scares me... As my good friend Justyn Jackson would say, it's a BUZZ SAW!!!
My feelings on Hanna haven't changed much since my last update... It continues to get better organized and I still think it will be a hurricane by tomorrow... From there I see it intensifying fairly quick Thursday night into Friday... I'm sticking with a 115mph Cat-3 landfall near Wilmington, NC... It could be a little east and maybe a little weaker, but I think that's going to be pretty darn close... We will see though?
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All that ridge building is having knock on effects for the European weather as well...we have been very wet in England this summer and the long-rangers were finally building a blocking high over Scandinavia that would bring us some settled weather. However, now with all that heat being pumped into the ridge, it really shoves it up into Greenland, the knock on effect is instead of lows going up over that and into northern parts of Scandinavia, they are now forced over the backside of the High right into Britain...so just goes to show you, that tropical activity can really have an effect on the weather even in Europe.
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