lili's appearance has improved dramatically since this morning. eye is now well cut, cdo a more circular ring. its really hard to predict how strong these things will get.. think this may max offshore as ssts will drop slightly near landfall. of course the bastardi gradient crunch effect could counter this or overrule it. will see.
the way i figure it, lili is dropping 20mb every 24hr. assume early landfall and put the storm in in 36 (thursday late morning).. and the storm is 30mb deeper.. 938mb at the overall rate of deepening. now consider.. lili is crossing the open gulf and will not have to contend with land.. and will probably get closer to 42hrs over the ocean... this could be a very mature hurricane.
kyle is my other note. still partially exposed low level center but much improved appearance since this morning, as with lili. convection is now almost half way around the llc.. should slowly intensify and begin to crawl westward under the ridge by tomorrow. so i think.
94L.. sputtering, maybe still going to try something.
nothing else looks any good tonight in the basin.. but with lili its not like anyone notices that.
by the way, steve, got my road atlas out and studied the louisiana coastline. i think youre too far east. but then again im probably too far west. though i'm not changing my beaumont take, lili may well come in between... cameron or vemillion parish. not much in the way of populace down there.. im sure they know to get out of the bayou when one of these babies comes roaring up out of the gulf.
beaumont, lake charles, lafayette.. one of these cities stands to take considerable damage from this storm.
HF 0209z02october