Ike Looks to Strike Cuba!!!

Hurricane Ike is a powerful 135mph Category 4 hurricane with a pressure of 947mb moving wsw at 15mph...  Unfortunately this monster is heading straight for eastern Cuba and my thoughts a prayers go out to those people...  This is horrible news for Cuba but great news for southern Florida...  Last night this looked imminent and now even looks like Ike will go south and west enough to have very limited effects in Key West...  The bad news is now Ike is going to be a Gulf storm...  The question is will it eventually make landfall along the northern Gulf coast or will it head even more west towards Texas???  Right now it's almost impossible to say for sure but the next 24-48 hours is key...  I will say the 0z early track is trending more and more west!

 

If Ike keeps heading wsw and quickly goes across Cuba, staying south of the Cuban coast, this will mean two things for the US....  First the more south and west Ike goes the more likely Ike will head more towards Texas...  The longer Ike stays onshore the more likely it will head towards the northern Gulf coast...  The reason why is the more north Ike goes the more likely the trough will pick up Ike and take it into the northern gulf coast...  The more south Ike goes the less likely the trough will pick up Ike allowing it to slowly head towards the Texas coast...  Second the faster Ike goes across Cuba the less likely Ike's core will be destroyed especially at it's current strength...  

So  it's a weird situation for the northern Gulf coast...  No one wants to see another hurricane but in my opinion the northern track will won't lead to near as powerful of a hurricane if it heads to Texas...  I still think it could get up to a weak Cat-3 if it heads towards the northern Gulf coast but if it heads towards Texas I think a solid Cat-4 is very possible...  It would have more time over extremely deep warm Gulf water allowing it to repair itself for a longer time...  You would think the longer time over the warm water the bigger problem we would have for the Gulf coast states...  Max Potential below seems to show the same thing as long as you have no dry air or wind shear...  Right now I just want to watch it as it heads across Cuba...  From there we will have a much better idea on the strength and track...  It's still too hard and too early to say anything for sure!!!