Whoa! What a difference a day makes! (It is now 12:30 PM Hawaii Time as I write, we're 6 hours behind Florida)

( COMMENTS IN CAPS FROM LATEST NHC ADVISORY )

Hurricane Felicia has keyed into the huge heat reserves stored in the very warm waters it's now traversing, and the resulting ocean/atmosphere gyre we call a 'Major Hurricane' is exhibiting itself this morning in all it's awesome and frightening splendor, with sustained winds of 125 mph and gusts up to 155 mph !! (See photo below)

>> DEEP CONVECTION CONTINUES TO FIRE IN THE EASTERN AND SOUTHEASTERN SEMICIRCLES AROUND A WELL-DEFINED EYE. THEREFORE... RAISED THE INITIAL INTENSITY A LITTLE FURTHER TO 110 KTS WHILE DECREASING THE CENTRAL PRESSURE TO 940 MB.

This 5-frame loop is for the duration 8AM to 10:30AM, Hawaii time, just a few hours ago as I write ...

You may notice a *startling evolution*, just in this 2 1/2 hour span! The structure of Felicia transforms from a compact 'Cheese Wheel' feature into the more traditional 'Spiral Galaxy' configuration, as plummeting central pressures and eyewall replacement cycles make their presence felt, and the cyclone responds by expanding and enlarging it's windfield of hurricane and tropical storm force winds, as the attendant far-flung spiral rain bands begin to manifest and make their presence obvious, due to the increasingly convergent, cyclonic flow around the perhiphery of the intensifying, expanding cyclone. And in just 2-1/2 hours!

Also, as expected, Felicia continued to undergo 'explosive intensification' overnight, considering the convective max cycles' predictable effects and especially the high-energy oceanic heat content that's available for the cyclone to draw upon.

>> THE ENVIRONMENT AROUND FELICIA REMAINS CONDUCIVE FOR THE STORM TO MAINTAIN ITS CURRENT INTENSITY OR STRENGTHEN A BIT MORE OVER THE NEXT DAY AS A MID-LEVEL CUT-OFF LOW NEAR CALIFORNIA IS INDUCING DIFFLUENCE ALOFT WHILE VERTICAL SHEAR IS EXPECTED TO REMAIN LIGHT. OCEANIC HEAT CONTENT SHOULD REMAIN SUFFICIENT FOR AT LEAST THE NEXT 36 HOURS.

It'll be interesting to see how large and powerful Major Hurricane Felicia will grow in the next day or two, while she's still over the 'pocket' of very warm water it's currently tracking over. This might turn out to be a "Monster 'Cane" of huge proportions!

The following image is from the passive-microwave imaging sensors aboard polar-orbiting satellites that occassionally happen to make a direct passage over a storm on their appointed rounds (pun intended).

You can easily notice a concentric eyewall feature, as Felicia has already undergone several eyewall replacement cycles, as evidenced from a series of microwave images from several different polar-orbiting satellites.

In this photo, deep convection (thunderstorms) shows up as bright red ... the brighter the red, the more intense the storms. You will notice the central convective core, with it's dual concentric eyewalls. Also readily apparent is the pinwheeling spirals of lines of showery cumulus cloud streets, shown as light blue against a darker blue and green background, as they gently spiral inwards into the area of lowering pressure. These are not thunderstorms, but do serve to give a larger appearance to the hurricane than the inner core alone would suggest from this particular photo. Compare with the visible photo above it.

Hurricane DONNA exhibited a dual, concentric eyewall feature as she made landfall across the Everglades & Southern Florida back in 1960, as "proudly displayed" on the then-new specialized weather radar scopes. My, how far we've come in 50 years! But I digress ...

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Hurricane Felicia is likely to dominate the news (*certainly* the local news ... Hawaii is already buzzing!) by this weekend as Felicia draws a bead on the Islands.

The BIG question is, just how near and just how strong will she be at the closest point of approach ?!?

Let's pray that significant shear kicks in and the cooler SST's really do take their toll and knock Felicia down to a more manageable tropical storm again!!

I've seen systems that were just so large and 'wound up', it takes a *good while* for the resultant wind field to spin down, even after being totally sheared apart for days and chugging for many miles over much cooler waters in the shallow tradewind flow.

While the Islands could certainly use some drenching rains, let's all hope and pray that big, bad Felicia will be but a shadow of her former self by the time she spins on by (through?) the Islands.

More later as I find the time ...