katrina's center has gotten south of the tamiami trail in dade.. moving out into the glades. it's halfway across dade now. if the pace keeps up it will be moving out into florida bay about 15 mi SE of chokoloskee around 3-4am. if the recent track maintains, katrina will be offshore before sunup. could be back to hurricane strength tomorrow afternoon. the storm has been moving faster than anticipated.. makes me wonder if the monday landfall timeframe is off, and that sunday would be the day. also am fairly convinced now that katrina will strike again as a much stronger system. it will probably come off with a pressure 990-995mb.. that's something that will spin back to hurricane in a few hours. the waters in florida bay are shallower, but should get sufficiently deep by the afternoon to get things really rolling again.
miami got more than expected this evening. the storm slid sw down the coast, with its strongest convection on the southern side. it also continued to intensify as it made landfal.. the lowest reported pressure, 984 mb, was as the center moved past miami. just barely got my intensity forecast right... 982 was what i was thinking, but left a 2mb spread.
right now, during the sun/mon timeframe anywhere within 100 miles of either side of cape san blas looks like a bad place to be. the west coast of florida isn't out of the woods either, if katrina were to stall over the weekend, say.
six more days in august... lee hasn't magically appeared so meeting the forecast gray made for the month is going to be tight. i honestly believe 97L should be/should have been a rated system, but i don't make the calls. it still has a chance, but i'm doubting.
HF 0153z26august