Just an aside: anyone in and around Tallahassee who happens to tune in to the FSU public radio station - not sure what it is on the FM dial - will likely get to hear my comments on T.S. Bonnie over the air. They called my boss, who had me come to the phone and talk about the latest developments at 11am (almost without having read the advisory -- had to use a special source to get it!) - sorta preparing me for on-the-fly responses in later life, I guess!

In other news, I thought Bonnie looked more ragged this morning than it did yesterday, but the hurricane hunters suggest otherwise. Goes to show you how much satellite interpretation is but one tool in identifying intensity of a storm; if only we could send recon out to more storms. However, things are still looking like a path somewhere between Apalachicola and Pensacola (as I told FSU headlines), but I'd really narrow that down a bit to Ft. Walton on the west side. Latest NHC path is a bit further east than the 5am path was.

Charlie is not shaping up to be a very friendly one, if you want to use those terms. The track was nudged quite a bit east for the first time with the 11am advisory, calling for a landfall in about 5 and a half days in the same general area as Bonnie. If the GFDL & GFS are to be believed, the storm could impact the Apalachicola area (GFDL says cat 3 intensity), which as I mentioned in another thread yesterday is a potentially disasterous path for the Wakulla County/St. Marks Wildlife Refuge area. I don't have the storm surge maps for North Florida handy - perhaps later today - but a Cat. 3 would put much of Wakulla under water just with the storm surge. Again, that's 5.5 days out and it's too early to tell what will happen, but it's never too early to be getting prepared - which is exactly what everyone from Galveston to Key West should be doing right now, particularly everyone along the NW Florida coast for what looks to be a landfall minimal hurricane in about two days' time.

Hope to have the storm surge maps for North Florida & some output from the FSU Superensemble later today, but don't hold me to it.