rita has continued to slowly spin down for the last 30 hours or so. pressure has come up 33mb from its lowest point... if a 1mb/hr rise continues, the landfall pressure would be in the neighborhood of 950-955mb. don't expect it to rise quite that high, but a landfall pressure 945-950mb seems feasible. based on the continued formation of our wind maxima and the slow expansion of the windfield, i'd expect that rita has lost its ability to reintensify. every eyewall cycle works dry air into the core and loosens it up, flattening the windfield. so, rita will be quite a windstorm, but not with the localized extreme destruction characteristic of storms like charley and andrew. on the other hand, it has been so strong for so long over the gulf that an ivan-like event near beaumont, over to cameron parish, is likely. high island is likely to be the equivalent of gulf shores last year, with beaumont taking pensacola's role. catastrophic damage no, but there is likely to be extensive wind and surge damage to the beaumont/port arthur/orange area. storm should landfall around daybreak saturday.. probably rated a 3, but with a pressure at or close to 4 status... and somewhat higher tides than normally assigned to a 3.
elsewhere philippe has nosed hard left around the deep layer low to the south and is edging bermuda. t.s. warnings were raised there at 9am. philippe is swinging into a higher shear zone, so it is likely to finally lose its definition, perhaps becoming absorbed into the subtropical system to the south. that could be stan in a day or two if it can develop a convective core... models still split on whether to send it ne, or stall it and send it west next week. most take it ne, or a very weak trough west.
gfs showing a scatter of potential systems, all appearing weak.. except for a consistently progged feature that develops near the end of the month in the eastern caribbean and drives wnw under a retrograding mid level ridge... forecast strong off along the east coast the first week of october. should this scenario occur, it is possible that a tropical system will threaten the s.e. us in around ten days time. some version of this feature has appeared in pretty much every recent run of the gfs.
there are other features appearing in the east atlantic on model runs as well.. not the least of which is the well-defined tropical wave near the cape verdes right now. it's late september, but that system looks good enough to develop, if it can maintain its integrity as it moves westward the next few days. there are also weak rumblings of a western caribbean feature in rita's wake... low-latitude westerly flow is backing over central america right now.. so once rita weakens the setup is there for surface low pressure to form. not much model support for this, however.
okay, what was the punchline? cat 4 less than a day from smacking beaumont as a weaker but still potent hurricane, and lots of little features that could potentially develop over the next week or two.
HF 1424z23september