Bastardi issued his eagerly awaited landfall intensity forecast today. I read the text but I haven't had time to view the videos yet. His synopsis is fairly interesting this year as many members of this board, if he verifies, are going to see at least tropical storm conditions and possibly more. You're getting a super condensed version here. If you want it all, you can go sign up for the 30 day free trial at Accuweather. The way the landfall intensity scale works is that numbers are assigned based on pressure at landfall with 50% of the NHC's call weighted in to diffuse any bias or agenda.

1 = 1000-1010mb (T.D.)
2 = 990-1000mb (T.S.)
4 = 975-990mb (Cat 1)
8 = 960-975mb (Cat 2)
16 = 940-960mb (Cat 3)
32 = 920-940mb (Cat 4)
64 = < 920mb (Cat 5)

He had originally hinted that his landfall # (based on the pressure of a storm at landfall) was set to be somewhat above normal (normal = 36.7 points). But it looks like he ramped it up even higher than last year and values overall landfall intensity for the US and Canada at quite a bit more than double the average.

Joe's highest threat area this year is Cape San Blas southward to Key Largo on the Gulf Coast side of Florida. The implications are for the equivalent of a major hurricane hit, though he can't say that it's going to be an aggregate of more than one storm or simply a Cat 3. The second highest potential (Cat 2 aggregate) is for the Texas Gulf Coast. 3rd highest is the coasts of NC & SC with > Cat 2 aggregate potential. 4th highest threat is the Mouth of the Mississippi River to Cape San Blas.

It should be noted that no area from Brownsville to the Canadian Maritimes is listed below normal for the year though Joe sees Louisiana and SE Florida only as normal. That means every other zone should see effects (and that doesn't mean a direct landfall because the effects from a landfall outside of a zone can still affect that zone) from the tropics at greater than normal.

Anyway, if you want the meat of the forecast, go ahead and sign up for their 30 day free trial. You can always cancel it after your 30 days are up, but you get the benefit of the forecast as well as 4 weeks worth of streaming videos and columns. You can't go wrong with that.

Enjoy.

Steve