With a potential landfall looming here on Florida's west coast, I was lured out of hiding to post here at CFHC. It appears that this upcoming weekend will be very interesting for Florida.

This evening's satellite imagery indicates increasing convection in TD 10's western quadrant with heavy activity directly over the surface circulation. While the system is still organizing itself, it is poised for rapid intensification. The upper low over the NW Caribbean continues to distance itself from TD 10 and an upper anticyclone is building overtop the system. Westerlies from an intensifying trough north of Puerto Rico are facilitating excellent ventilation for the depression. Considering these increasingly favorable conditions aloft and warm Caribbean SSTs, strengthening to hurricane status may be in short order after initial organization during the next 12 hours.

The current trough over the southern Plains will have little impact on TD 10. The second trough that will dig into the western Plains on Wednesday will eventually halt westward progress of our storm and turn it north and northeast. I see no reason to differ from TPC's forecast track. The storm will continue to track WNW for another 36-48 hours and will be moving NW as it nears western Cuba in 72 hours. Thereafter, it is just a matter of how sharp of a turn occurs. I am quite confident that this will be an east Gulf storm. I don't foresee any landfall west of 85 W. If anything, the forecast track may be shifted eastward with time. It looks like some part of Florida's west coast will be under the gun in 96 hours. My best bet right now is the SW coast. It will be interesting to see how much SW shear and intruding dry air the trough causes when our storm is in the SE Gulf.

That wlll be it for now.

God Bless,
Ronn