Big Brother, Big Sister. Floyd still a very powerful hurricane and threatening the US east coast. Gert expected to continue intensifying. Both storms headed WNW into warmer waters. FLOYD: Hurricane Floyd remains a strong Category 4 and is still headed directly for the southeastern coast within the next couple of days. The deep convection is well-organized, there is little to no vertical wind shear, and the SST's under Floyd are 29.9C. The only factor saving Miami from a head-on impact is a trough moving across the easrt US. This should provide adequate steering to push Floyd further north. At 03Z on 9/14, Floyd was located at 24.5N 74.7W and moving W at 13mph (actually moving slightly north of due west). Maximum sustained winds are 155mph and the MSLP is 924mb. The winds have been steady at 155mph for most of the day, but the pressure has fluctuated a bit, indicating that Floyd is still trying to adjust to the changing environmental conditions his rapid forward motion creates. Further fluctuations in intensity are likely, and I will stand by my forecast of him reaching CAT5 at some point (tomorrow most likely). Once he interacts with the trough and gets closer to land, the circulation will be disturbed and he will begin to weaken. The physical size of Floyd has decreased since yesterday, down to near 1000 miles in diameter. Of course, the size of the storm is not related to the intensity of the storm. In fact, the storm's winds increased since the circulation diameter decreased. Good luck trying to find a rule for this behavior though! The diameter of the eye is now approximately 29 miles and is nearly perfectly circular. As far as landfall goes, I will still agree with the majority of the models. Most models suggest landfall near Savannah, GA on Wednesday night as a CAT4. Miraculously, I agree with all of those factors... a rare occurrence indeed! Landfall is not the only thing that needs to be considered here though. Hurricane force winds extend 95 miles from the center, and tropical storm force winds extend 225 miles from the center. So, even if the hurricane scrapes a coastline, it will suffer flooding rains, a giant storm surge, and very powerful winds. After landfall, the storm should move up the spine of the Appalachians and into New England by Saturday. As I mentioned yesterday, anyone in FL, GA, SC, NC, VA, WV, MD, DE, NJ, PA, NY, MA, RI, VT, NH, CT, and ME should be prepared for tropical rains and potentially damaging winds. The NHC only brings Floyd down to TS status by the Mason-Dixon line on Thursday night! Some rainfall will soak the northeast states tomorrow in association with the trough that will steer Floyd into that same region. Also, good luck to photojournalist Allan Detrich from MESO (http://www.mcwar.org) who just flew to the east coast of Florida today. He and a reporter will be documenting the impact of Floyd. All efforts will be made to get these guys as close to the point of landfall as they desire. This storm is very intense and will cause substantial damage in several states. It will be one for the history books... joining the ranks of Camille, Hugo, Andrew, and others. GERT: TS Gert became the fifth hurricane of the season at 15Z on 9/13. As of 03Z on 9/14, max winds were 85mph and the pressure was 979mb. She is located at 16.3N 42.7W and heading due west at 16mph. The environment has greatly improved over the past 48 hours... SST's are 27.5C and getting warmer, and there is virtually no vertical wind shear through the system. Further intensification very likely... could become a major hurricane (the third of the season) by Wednesday night. The track is very questionable much past 3-4 days, but let me just state the options. One would be to recurve to the north into the open Atlantic. Another would be to almost trace Georges ('98) track and hit the Caribbean islands then creep into the Gulf of Mexico. Or, curve north, but not completely, such that she could also impact the eastern seaboard like Dennis and Floyd. Stay tuned for the latest on Gert's forecast track. Brian PS... Over the past few days, I've been receiving several comments and thank-you's back from recipients of this list regarding the updates. Some who just like to get short and sweet summaries (without having to rummage through the 100's of webpages out there all showing something different), others who use them as a primary source of warning friends and family, and still others who use them to chase these monsters. I appreciate any feedback, positive or negative; there's always room for improvement. Thanks for your interest! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Brian D. McNoldy Colorado State University Dept. of Atmospheric Science Fort Collins, CO 80523-1371 Phone: (970) 491-8398 Fax: (970) 491-8449 E-mail: mcnoldy@CIRA.colostate.edu URL: http://thor.cira.colostate.edu/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Don't drink and derive."