When I was talking to you last night tropical depression 15 was looking to become tropical storm Omar... Well SURPRISE, Omar is now a Hurricane... Hurricane Omar is undergoing rapid deepening with the central pressure now down to 979mb... Last night at 10pm CT Omar was at 1001mb which means it has dropped 22mb in 24 hours... This is pretty darn impressive for a developing tropical cyclone!!! The movement is towards the NE at 6mph, and this general direction will continue... However the forward speed of Omar will increase as it begins to feel a trough of low pressure to its north.... It now looks like Omar will strike near the US Virgin Islands late Wednesday night as the trough pulls Omar more east than originally thought! Personally I feel this is directly related to Omar exploding like it did, which is allowing the upper level winds to influence(steer) it much more than if it was a weaker tropical storm...
I have learned in forecasting that the trend is your friend so I have no reason to argue Omar becoming a major hurricane before landfall in the US Virgin Islands... The 18z GFDL is showing this and I really have no reason to go against it! Puerto Rice does look to miss the worst of it as Omar will most likely miss them to the east... I don't think anyone saw this coming yesterday, which just proves to you how little we know about forecasting tropical intensity... I felt good that it would eventually become a hurricane, but there is no way in you know what that I thought Omar would go from a depression to a hurricane in 24 hours... Now there is a real chance the islands get hit by a major hurricane! CRAZY!!!
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