now probably 16 hours or so from bonnie's landfall. i threw down mexico beach as my spot a couple evenings ago, looks like i'll hit it close. the 95kt/972mb intensity is probably a tad high though.. don't think the pressure will drop 30mb overnight. that isn't going to be very close.. so will go with 70kt/990mb for 11am tomorrow.. same place. don't think the infringing westerlies will weaken the storm.. my guess is they will enhance it baroclinically. will probably be losing tropical characteristics this time tomorrow over georgia.
charley.. slowing down, should intensify and move mostly northward next 48hrs and impact the west coast of florida. other night flagged the area from tampa bay to naples.. will narrow it to around sanibel island +-30miles either way. i'm not ready to pin the intensity as it could go through a rapid intensification phase and be major by tomorrow, or just plodding along as a 985mb cat 1. intensity is hard to forecast.. not ready to call that yet. suffice to say i think it will be major. landfall timetable has moved up quite a bit (monday evening had it entering the gulf saturday.. looks like it will be entering the atlantic by then). steve earlier alluded to the 5pm track moving inland again on the lower s.c. coast. shouldn't be much of anything up here.. bonnie will probably have more effect where i am (near augusta ga) when it goes by very late thursday. charley could well affect the charleston area with hurricane force winds saturday.. florida deserves the hype, but don't discount other places likely to get whacked by hurricane conditions.
elsewhere in the basin.. large upper ridge in the central atlantic upstream of the trough may fester something along the frontal remnants.. several swirls present there. the easternmost one has moved ne and is under enough shear to keep it capped.. unless it slows and banks against the ridge it won't have a chance to do anything, just be a weak nontropical low.
not seeing much in the SE part of the basin.. wave energy should be meeting up with the stagnant low-shear itcz region over the next couple of days and kick off a disturbance or two. gfs likes a wave progged to come off early friday or so.. when we're rid of the B/C storms D may be in the works.
not sure what to make of the persistent troughing and strong westerlies progged in the long range by gfs. it was right about the strength of the current shortwave.. and is now pushing the persistence of this fall-like pattern with the atlantic ridge not flattening or backing eastward. the development of an atlantic-strike friendly pattern is doubtful at best right now.. atlantic development or not.
big issue needs to be seen to first:
will west florida have a 90mph, 120mph, or 140mph hurricane bearing down on it friday?
HF 2342z11august