#58 Published Friday July 08, 2005 at 6:15 pm EDT
I just got back online the WWW after a 7 hour outage thanks to my broadband ISP Roadrunner, ggggrrrr!!!!
At the 5:00 pm EDT advisory Hurricane Dennis is ashore in central Cuba and has weakened some as expected, with a sustained wind of 135 mph which is down from 150 mph but still a powerful CAT 4 cyclone. He is at position 22.6 N 81.1 W with a minimum barometric pressure of 28.02", up from 27.70". He continues on a NW heading or approximately 310 degrees at a speed of 18 mph. During the past 6 hours he has been wobbling on a heading between about 300-320 degrees, as he has undergone eyewall reformation cycles and also interacted with land.
What is interesting to note is that even with the land interaction Dennis had continued to strengthen to just short of a CAT 5 cyclone prior to landfall in central Cuba, much like Ivan did last summer. As he came ashore his heading shifted more north of west due to speed divergence. A shift back more to west of north is expected as he enters the Florida Straits later tonight. Dennis is a small cyclone like Charley so more easily moves around so to speak. It was speed divergence that caused CAT 4 Charley to abruptly turn right and go ashore in the Charlotte Harbor area of SW Florida but I don't think that Dennis will get close enough to the land mass of Florida to pull another Charley.
Where is he headed? The models have shifted slightly left and right during the last 24 hours and the NHC TPC forecast track has pretty much done the same. At the latest advisory the track has shifted a little to the left again with official landfall still forecasted near Pensacola at approximately 2:00 pm EDT on Sunday.
It does appear that the southern Florida Keys will experience near or hurricane conditions on Saturday. The whole of the west "coast" of Florida be in the most dangerous NE quadrant of the cyclone and will experience at least gale force wind conditions, storm surge of 3-5 feet, heavy rainfall and waterspouts. Inland areas of the western peninsula will experience wind gusts to gale force, very heavy rainfall and tornadoes in feeder bands. A track a little further west and the impact is less, a track a little further east and the impact is more.
Actual intensity of Dennis as it passes over or just west of Key West is a tough call. It entered Cuba as a strong CAT 4 and will probably exit a CAT 3, it all depends on how long the cyclone stays over land.
Bottom line? The Bermuda high pressure ridge over and east of Florida still shows no "further" sign of weakening at this time. So no change in my forecast, it's still a landfall window between Pensacola and Fort Walton Beach on Sunday afternoon. Once in the Gulf Of Mexico Dennis will reach CAT 4 status again and maybe even flirt with CAT 5 status but should weaken to a CAT 3 by landfall due to less favorable conditions.
Thomas F. Giella, KN4LF
Retired Meteorologist & Space Plasma Physicist
Plant City, FL, USA
kn4lf@arrl.net
NWS Tampa Bay, FL SKYWARN Observer #HIL-249
Florida Daily Weather Discussion Blog: http://www.kn4lf.com/flwx1.htm
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