Wilma Moving Northwest - FLHurricane.com

***The following is just conjecture and one person's opinion. I am not a meteorologist and this "forecast" is just a personal interpretation. It goes without saying that you shouldn't make any decisions based on this analysis unless that decision is only to be aware of the possibilities..***

Has anyone considered that if Wilma does not make a Yucatan landfall, that will actually cause it to retain its desire to move poleward? In other words, a Yucatan landfall would weaken Wilma and, thus, possibly make Wilma more susceptible to being pushed in a "hard right" fashion towards the Florida peninsula. Conversely, a narrow miss through the Yucatan Channel would cause her to retain her strength and make her a much more dominant system and give her the ability to create her own environment. Of course, she's not completely dominant at this time, but she could be if she can cough up the rest of the inner eyewall from the ERC and soak up some of that high heat content water that she's over. I have presented 3 options for what I think will happen after we know what will happen with the Yucatan.

Landfall on the Yucatan

If Wilma fully landfalls on the Yucatan, this would obviously be good news for the United States (and terrible for some of my favorite places on this planet). Wilma will weaken and probably take the hard right when the front swipes her up. She will probably hit south or central Florida as a Cat 1 or 2; with the outliers being a minimal Cat 3 or TS. My guess...Cat 2 in Sarasota.

A "Grazing" of the Yucatan

When I speak of grazing, I am talking about an eyewall landfall that causes the storm to ride up the coast in such a way that it only knocks it down a category or two. This would leave it as a strong 2 -3 storm. This probably will result in high Cat 2 or minimal Cat 3 striking in and around the Tampa area. Why?

Wilma misses the Yucatan completely

That said, I have great difficulty in deciding if she will make a landfall on the Yucatan and, if so, how prolonged it will be. I do believe, however, that if she misses the Yucatan completely, she will probably land much further north than originally indicated. In fact, I would put her north of Tampa and put her as far away as Mobile Bay or the Florida panhandle. Once again, this would all hinge on a non-landfall in the Yucatan. Wilma, of course, would probably weaken (but still be a major) before making such an impact.

I know what you're going to say about this. You're immediate reaction will be that this is not plausible because of the trough. So, what happens to the trough? Well, its slows down or stalls out. The trough waits on Wilma. I don't think it will be the other way around if Wilma goes Cat 5 again without hitting the Yucatan. Wilma has all of the ingredients necessary to become an annular Cat V. Will she have real estate? I don't know.

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