Wilma Update

The forecast has changed a little bit....landfall in Florida is likely to be Monday night, rather than Saturday night.

The steering currents in the western Caribbean are weak at the moment, and so Wilma is likely to dither a long time on the Yucatan Peninsula, wrecking resorts like Cancun and Cozumel, but also losing some strength. The steering currents won't remain weak, though: the trough that is moving in from the western U.S., and digging southwards as it goes, is forecast to be the largest of the autumn season so far, and it will certainly grab Wilma and push it, hard, NE towards Florida.

The computer models, good and bad alike, continue to point the storm, laser-like, towards Punta Gorda, Florida. My thought is that Wilma will come into Florida as a Category 3 hurricane (the storm will weaken over the Yucatan, strengthen again over the Gulf, but won't be able to attain current strength because of too much wind shear along the frontal boundary of the trough).

South of the eye, storm surge is a big danger (particularly Key Largo, at the pointy end of Florida Bay).

North of the eye, where Tampa is, rainfall is the big danger. The cold front will be in the vicinity of Tampa when the storm comes through, which, when combined with a hurricane, means rains of Biblical proportion. The only saving grace is that Wilma will move across Florida rather quickly, so the heavy rains won't persist. In the Tampa area, sustained winds are likely to be in the 40-50 mph range, probably for about 10 hours.

Wilma will race up the Atlantic seaboard. Very heavy rains will parallel the coast, but are likely to intrude onto land significantly only in the Outer Banks of NC, at least until the storm becomes part of the trough itself, eventually wreaking damage on New England and Newfoundland.