#50 Published Wednesday July 06, 2005 at 6:15 pm EDT

At 6:00 pm EDT Dennis officially became a hurricane with sustained winds of 80 mph. He continues to move WNW or 295 degrees versus 290 degrees at 11:00 am EDT, at 14 mph but at times has wobbled to 305 degrees!!! During the day he has experienced a small amount of wind shear in it's western quadrants but is now primed for rapid intensification during the next 48 hours to a CAT 2-3 cyclone. I still think that at landfall Dennis will be a major CAT 3-4 cyclone.

Fortunately for the moment the official NHC TPC track has shifted to the left a bit with a Monday afternoon 07/11/05 landfall at Mobile Bay versus Pensacola, which would make the Florida peninsula a bit safer. Unfortunately though the confidence in the future track after the 2:00 pm Friday 07/08/05 position of 21.4 deg. N and 81.4 deg. W is virtually zero, so all of the west coast of Florida from Key West to Pensacola is still under the gun. Actually Key West to Biloxi, MS right now.

Why virtually zero? Well as an example the 2:00 pm EDT today run of the NAM model places Dennis across the southern Florida peninsula on Saturday 07/09/05. The 8:00 am EDT run of the Canadian GGEM model has Dennis running up and across the Florida peninsula into Georgia on Saturday. In the other extreme the 2:00 pm EDT run of the GFS places landfall in SE Louisiana early Monday morning 07/11/05.

Just a reminder that just three hours before CAT 4 Charley's landfall at Charlotte Harbor last year all of the models were placing landfall in and around Tampa Bay as a CAT 4-5 cyclone. In other words all of the models were wrong just three hours before landfall.

Bottom line? I think that the Bermuda high pressure ridge is going to weaken more than most of the models are forecasting. Right now I'm going with a landfall window a little to the right of my previous forecast to between Pensacola and Fort Walton Beach on Monday morning as a CAT 3-4.

Take Care,
Thomas F. Giella, KN4LF
Retired Meteorologist & Space Plasma Physicist
Plant City, FL, USA
kn4lf@arrl.net

NWS Tampa Bay, FL SKYWARN Observer #HIL-249

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