Frances Weakens a Bit - Ivan forms in East Atlantic

4:00PM
Recon reporting pressure dropping again which confirms that the weakening phase is over. Unfortunately back down to 959 mb

2:30PM
Storm pressure is up higher, going through bit of a weakening trend, may weaken a little more before it stabilizes. Still a category 3.

Do not focus on one point, track errors may be large.

Thanks skeetobite again.
Original Update
Tropical Storm Ivan has formed east of the Caribbean Islands. More to come on it later.

Hurricane Frances, still a category 3 system, is being disrupted a bit this morning, from slight shear that has formed from the southwest. This is some relief to the Bahama islands, some of which have been ravaged so far.

Reminder this is just a guide, don't be fixatted ont he point of landfall.

The good news is that a large system like Frances can take a longer time to recover from distruptions like these, but the bad news is that the waters on the far side of the Bahamas are very warm from the Gulf Stream, add the sloward forward motion into the equation and it could recoup its strength again.

There will most likely be more surprises like this as well. It's not over yet. The east coast of Florida has prepared for the most part excellently for the storm, and the chance for a strong landfall is most definitely still there. I hope it does not, but although it could dip to Category 2 a bit, I think Frances will have enough time to recover before landfalling in Florida. Shear likely will help keep the recovery phase down until just before landfall, which is good news.

More to come during the day.

Hurricane Local Statements for Weather Offices in:

Melbourne (East Central Florida) - Long Range Radar Loop
Miami (South Florida) - Long Range Radar Loop
Key West (Florida Keys)Long Range Radar Loop
Tampa Bay (West Central Florida)Long Range Radar Loop
[url=http://flhurricane.com/cyclone/wxstatement.php?t=HLS&l=JAX]
Jacksonville (North Florida)[/url] - Long Range Radar Loop

Local county by county information will no longer be updated unles there is breaking news here -- it's just impossible to keep up because of the size of the area under Hurricane Watch. Use the links in the last article to view county emergency management webpages. Florida Disaster.org is the state em page, with links to locals as well.

Definitely more to come later...

** SITE NOTE ** This website is receiving way beyond record traffic today, it will be slow, it will go down ocasionally, but should be back up shortly when that happens. We've done everything we can to help this along short of dumping zillions into bandwidth and hardware to keep it going. Apologies in advance.

Jim Williams over at Hurricane City will be doing live broadcasts about Hurricane Frances startiing tonight at 8PM EST.

Event RelatedLinks
Miami Radar Long Range loop (Note the Miami NWS Radar hardware is having issues and may be down)
Frances Models -- This image animated over time
TD#9 Models -- This image animated over time
All model "Spaghetti" for Frances from hurricanealley
The Caribbean Hurricane Page - updates from the islands
Caribbean Island Weather Reports
Nice color satellite image of Frances approach (Animated Version)
High Speed Satellite Loops of Frances (Click floater)

General Links
Current Aircraft Recon Info

NRL Monterey Marine Meteorology Division Forecast Track of Active Systems (Good Forecast Track Graphic and Satellite Photos)

Check the Storm Forum from time to time for comments on any new developing system.

Follow worldwide SST evolution here:

Global SST Animation

NASA GHCC Interactive Satellite images at:

North Atlantic Visible (Daytime Only), Infrared, Water Vapor
LSU Sat images

Some forecast models:
NGM, AVN, MRF, ETA ECMWF
AVN, CMC, GFDL, JMA, NOGAPS, UKMET

DoD Weather Models (NOGAPS, AVN, MRF)

Multi-model plots from WREL
Other commentary at Independentwx.com, Robert Lightbown/Crown Weather Tropical Update Accuweather's Joe Bastardi (now subcriber only unfortunately), Hurricane Alley North Atlantic Page, HurricaneVille, Cyclomax (Rich B.), Hurricane City , mpittweather , WXRisk, Gary Gray's Millennium Weather, storm2k, Barometer Bob's Hurricane Hollow, Snonut,

Even more on the links page.

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