At the 9:00 am EDT advisory Hurricane Dennis has a sustained wind of 145 mph, a strong CAT 4 cyclone. He is at position 28.7 N 86.4 W with a minimum barometric pressure of 27.46". He is currently on a north heading or approximately 000 degrees at a speed of 16 mph. During the past 12 hours he has been wobbling on a heading between approximately 330-000 degrees.
Looking at the latest satellite imagery Dennis appears primed to undergo an eyewall replacement cycle and hopefully this will stop him from further strengthening. The wind shear that I had forecasted to develop and keep Dennis as a strong CAT 3 and only flirting with CAT 4 has not had an impact as of yet. But hopefully he will weaken back to a CAT 3 before landfall. A number of posts back I did state that Dennis was a similar stubborn storm like Ivan, in that it makes it's own rules and that's what Dennis has done.
After several days of holding firm on my predicted landfall window of between Pensacola and Fort Walton Beach on Sunday, I shifted the landfall window eastward to between Fort Walton Beach and Panama City. Well it looks like my original landfall forecast was correct, so I'm back to a Pensacola and Fort Walton Beach for the early afternoon today.
Of course the exact landfall point of the cyclone center is a mute point as a large area is going to be blasted with horrific wind and storm surge. Dennis is stronger than Charley and will probably be the worst landfalling storm in the U.S. since CAT 5 Andrew in 1992 and the worst on the Gulf Coast since CAT 5 Camille in 1969. This is truly a tragic situation that is unfolding in the Florida Panhandle.
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