Clipping the edge of the Yucatan is pretty much a given right now, which is horribly bad for them, and probably good for us due to the interaction with land. Mitch did an incredible amount of damage to both property and life; this could be on that order or perhaps even worse. It is definitely not a good time to be in the resort areas of the peninsula.....

However, that does not mean that the recurvature won't happen - it just changes the shape of the parabola somewhat. Exactly how remains to be seen. I don't expect any significant shift in the track until the 12z models finish, which will happen sometime in the next few hours. We should see an update then in terms of the pattern.

I still think the "big day" in terms of figuring out exactly where this beast is going to head will come tomorrow, in that by then the upper level steering flow should be well-enough established to take a much better guess at the angle of approach. However, this is likely to remain a very dangerous situation in that due to the angle of approach to the coast small errors in that angle will lead to relatively large errors in the actual landfall point, as occurred with Charlie last year.

In addition, tomorrow is likely to be a very bad day for Mexico.... pray for those who can't get out....