Hurricane Warnings for Parts of the Florida Peninsula

Looking at the WV imagery you see the trough that will be steering Wilma quite clearly, along with the high building in behind it.

The cold front that was over Tampa has reversed and is now a warm front buckling northward. This front's motion, and the speed with which the axis tilts more N-S will determine the eventual path up the coast.

It certainly appears that the impact in Florida of the actual center will be more to the south than I had expected - however, this does not mean that you're "clear" north of there by any means. The weather is likely to be downright NASTY anywhere near and south of the frontal boundary, and with that boundary now moving northward, the possibility exists for the turn more poleward will occur sooner rather than later.

In any event it looks like my view is a bust, although the fat lady has not yet sung on this. The slower Wilma moves, given the retrogression of that front, the more northward she will turn.

I would not breathe a "sigh of relief" until this storm is past. The acceleration that was prognosticated was predicated on a diving southward frontal boundary draped mostly E-W. We now have, at least over Florida, a regressing northward-moving one, which may dissolve, and the gradient that's behind it has a much more poleward tilt to it. This may slow forward motion some, which is both good and bad - good, in that it will prevent as much amplification from forward motion to windspeed, and bad, in that it may draw the storm a bit further north.

Marco Island looks to be "ground zero" from the NHC's point of view. This is horiffically bad for the Keys, given the windfield of this storm, in that it will essentially "rake" them on the dirty side, especially if the track deviates a bit further south. If further strengthening does occur, there will liklely be widespread trouble there.

Looks like I'm going to eat my crow on a somewhat-more-northward impact point, but that's ok. I just hope that those further north don't see the interaction that will kick off too many tornadoes. In some ways the retrogression of that front may be a blessing in this regard, in that it may take some of the energy out of what would otherwise be a bad tornado event. Bottom line is that the N-S tilt I expected to develop didn't on time - which augers for more eastward than poleward motion.

But, it does look like its going to happen - just another day late (the story of our lives on this storm - everything feature-wise always seems to show up later than expected!)

This leaves me a bit more concerned about the possibility of Wilma being left behind by this first front and ending up getting picked up by the second low and its trough now over Ohio. That could be very bad for the NE US States - last night it looked to me like this was unlikely, but this morning, with the front inverting and the possibility of that boundary dissolving, to be replaced by the one behind it, I'm getting more concerned about that again.....

Finally, I've heard little about damage assessment in Cozumel and Cancun thus far - hope they're ok down there......

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