Tropical Depression 25 Forms While Prolonged Hurricane Force Winds Affect Cancun

10:45 am edt
Hurricane watches are now up for the Florida Keys, and may be further north along the west coast later today for Hurricane Wilma. Hurricane Wilma is forecast to near Florida as a category 1 to low 3 system during the day Monday. The forecast track hasn't changed since the prior advisory. Mandatory Evacuations of the Florida Keys are now in affect as of this morning. Everyone in the cone of uncertainty needs to watch this system, Wilma has a chance to have a large windfield as it approaches, and storm surge may be an issue along parts of the western Florida peninsula coast. Do not focus on a specific landfall point.

Collier county (Naples area) also has asked for evacuations in certain areas. See the county websites below or local officials media outlets there for more information.

Tropical Storm warnings are up for Hispaniola (Dominican Republic and Hati) and watches are up for the Southeastern Bahamas for TD#25.

9:30 AM edt
Tropical Depression 25 has formed in the Eastern Caribbean. Advisories are likely to begin at 11AM.

If it were to become a tropical storm (which is fairly likely) it would be called Alpha since the regular list of storm names for the year has been exhausted. Currently it looks like it will not affect the US, but will affect Hispaniola.

2005 is truly a record breaking year for tropical cyclones in the Atlantic in a variety of ways.

Wilma is still over the extreme northeastern Yucatan Peninsula. The situation setting up ahead of it may bring a large area under tropical storm force winds for Florida, the motion of the storm combined with the pressure gradient may create a unique situation over Florida regardless of where the actual system makes landfall. (although this still has an impact for the highest winds)

More to come later

Discussion topic for TD#25

Original Update
Cancun is getting nearly the worst combination of hurricane affects that it could possibly get. The storm is just to the south of it, moving slowly or not at all as a strong Category 3, the position for that coast brings the worst of the surge onto Cancun. (Which won't be as dramatic as Missippi during the Katrina because of the deeper sea floor along the Caribbean, but will still be quite bad)

However, the length of time it will be facing these conditions is unreal. Things will get weakend and eventually break from this prolonged exposure. Structures that normally would survive an hour of these type of conditions may fail. In general Cancun is not very pleasant today. Along the main hotel row, storm surge flooding has been reported as reaching into the lagoon.

Cancun could be in conditions like this all day, the storm surge could remain there all day until the eye passes. Playa del Carmen has been within the eye of the system for hours. A reporting station near Cancun has been reporting 90MPH or higher sustained winds for 9 hours.

Beyond this the forecast track has not changed as much, but the intensity may lower some. The forecast still is for a category 2 system making landfall.

More to come as is known.

Report Conditions from Wilma in your area here
Make your landfall prediction or forecast in this topic.

(full size)
Image courtesy SkeetobiteWeather.com Click here for full size image
Comments/Feedback on the maps look here.

Event Related Links

Stormcarib reports from Cozumel/Cancun (Includes Photos)
Stormcarib reports from the islands
Cancun Radar Animation (Flhurricane mirror) (Note: Radar hasn't sent a new image since 7:30 it will still continue to check, but the radar may be down due to Wilma)

Florida Keys Long Range Radar Loop
Tampa, FL Long Range Radar Loop
Miami, FL Long Range Radar
Melbourne, FL Long Range Radar

Emergency Management/County info
Florida County Websites (South to North along the West Coast):
Monroe County Emergency Management (Florida Keys)
Collier County, FL
Lee County, FL
Charlotte County, FL
Sarasota County, FL
Manatee County, FL
Pinellas County, FL

Other Florida County Emergency Management Websites

State of Florida Division of Emergency Management/floridadisaster.org

Forecast Discussions for (Show All Locations):
Tampa,Miami, Key West, Melbourne

"Spaghetti" style model plots from Colorado State / Jonathan Vigh

Local Newspapers/Websites
Naples News

Web based Video and Audio
Many websites require realplayer for video and audio, you can get real player here or an alternative real media player here (Ie WinXp64)

Jim Williams, from Hurricane City and West Palm Beach, will likely be doing his live audio show as Wilma approaches on hurricanecity. Listen here He usually starts at 8PM eastern and runs until the 11PM advisory comes out.

Marc Sudduth over at hurricanetrack.com is heading toward South Florida see some of his live streaming video and audio here

Hurricanenow - Former CNN hurricane Reporter Jeff Flock reports from the storm with video updates and live streaming
Weathervine.com storm chasers/video/audio
radioNHCWX (not affiliated with the real NHC)
Barometer Bob

WebCams
Royal Resorts Webcams in Cancun
The Royal Sands Animated WebCam (Flhurricane Mirrored)

Reply and let us know of other links.

Wilma

* NEW * Skeetobite Animated Model Graphic
South Florida Water Management District Animated model plot of Wilma - Static Image
Wilma Microwave Imagery Animation
Floater Satellite with storm track overlays
Weather Underground Model Plots
cimss page

TD#25

* NEW * Skeetobite Animated Model Graphic of TD#25
South Florida Water Management District Animated model plot of TD#25 - Static Image

Post Extras

Flhurricane.com - Central Florida Hurricane Center - Tracking Storms since 199530 Years of Hurricanes Without the Hype - Since 1995

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