Hurricane Paloma is now a dangerous Category 3 hurricane with sustained winds of 120mph... The central pressure is down to 958mb with a movement towards the NE at 8mph... This is well over a 1mb per hour drop which is about what I expected.... It really is similar to Omar in the rapid deepening... Unfortunately for Cuba Paloma is heading straight towards the central part of the country... There is still a 12 hour or so window for strengthening, as Paloma could become a Category 4 hurricane... Thankfully it looks like wind shear will increase dramatically in about 12-24 hours to near 30 knots...
While Paloma will still be a powerful hurricane at landfall at least it looks like it will be weakening as it comes ashore... This will make a big difference when it comes to fulfilling the max wind potential for Cuba... As I have talked before in older tropical posts, a strengthening hurricane will verify much higher surface winds than a weakening hurricane... It has to do with updraft strength and the ability to mix the faster winds aloft to the surface... While this is good news for Cuba this is not to say that Paloma won't be a powerful and deadly hurricane... Even if it weakens to a Cat-2, Paloma will still cause big problems for Cuba... The good news is it could have been worse... If it would have been 24 hours faster you would be looking at a rapidly strengthening major hurricane at landfall... Landfall should be early Saturday morning...
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