hollywood, then.. at about 6:25 pm. missed the landfall point by 25 miles, and a day early.. eh, coulda done better. the inner core definition really improved this afternoon, so it's good that katrina is going ashore. had it come in later tonight it would have been significantly stronger. the eye should fill back up overnight. its going to rain like hell in south florida for much of the next 24 hours.. the wind should be pesky but not cause much structural damage. maybe this time tomorrow katrina will be moving back offshore near marco island or chokoloskee as a mid-range tropical storm. it will probably take 12-24 hrs for the inner core to spin back up, so by late saturday the storm should get back to hurricane. it still looks like a monday landfall.. in the panhandle. earlier progged the al/ms border area, but even though some guidance has lingered there or shifted back, i think clark had the general location right. the models taking katrina in near cedar key/apalachee bay are blowing up a spurious low off the east coast.
the canadian and euro are both showing a major hurricane at landfall. that was my initial though.. now seeing two globals putting it into the panhandle on monday have my blood up. i expect the nhc intensity forecast to continue slowly rising.. my range is cat 3. higher isn't out of the question, but anything higher than cat 3 is sufficiently rare that i'm hesitant to go there.
97L is still being called 97L. the center here/convection there problem is partially remedied in that some weak convection is blowing up near the center, and the main inflow band to the south has drawn closer in. the t-rating is too weak, but that's just based on the cloud signature.... there are likely 30-35 kt winds associated with the system. like i said last night, it may never be classified as a tropical cyclone since the nhc likes to ignore sheared fish spinner type systems.
the inverted trough south of katrina will have to be watched for whatever piles up around it.. the disturbance to the east is a can of corn with all that convection but not even a surface trough apparent. wave behind 97L still shown to develop on some plots.. and the one behind it on others. that's for another day.
HF 2242z25august