All Majors present and accounted for. Floyd and Gert are now both major hurricanes. Floyd already demonstrating a small sample of his fury on Florida. FLOYD: Floyd is still an impressive and dangerous Category 4 hurricane. Since yesterday, a lot has happened regarding the track. He finally began interacting with the trough which has resulted in the anticipated NW turn... paralleling the Florida coastline. The eye went over several islands in extreme northern Bahamas today, but reports will be slow to trickle in from those stations. 35' waves are being churned up off the Florida coast, and this will only get worse with time. Recent IR imagery reveals a comeback in deep convection in the eyewall. Convection had decreased and eye structure suffered as the storm passed over the Bahamas. It appears that Floyd has recovered from that encounter and is possibly re- strengthening for the final showdown on the US coast tomorrow night. Satellite imagery also reveals the NW section of the storm is being smeared (sheared) over the entire Atlantic seaboard, as if Floyd were marking his territory with cloud cover. At 03Z on 9/15, Hurricane Floyd was located at 27.7N 77.9W and heading NW at 13mph. The maximum sustained winds are 140mph with gusts near 170mph. The MSLP was reported to be 933mb. The eye is now 58 miles in diameter... hurricane force winds (74+ mph) extend 125 miles from the center, and tropical storm force winds (40-73mph) extend 290 miles out from the center. This storm is BIG. The SST's under Floyd are 30C and vertical shear is increasing. The shear is currently about 12 m/s from the SW, but as he collides with the trough, the shear will continually increase. This should weaken Floyd slowly as he moves inland. But a storm this large won't go down easy. The NHC expects him to carry Tropical Storm force winds all the way into New Hampshire on Friday night. He could conceivably still have 70mph sustained winds as he enters southeastern PA late Thursday night into Friday. Now, as far as landfall goes, Wednesday night or even early Thursday morning still seems like the best timeframe. The location is a topic of great debate. Big cities in the target zone are Savannah, GA, Charleston, SC, and Wilmington, NC. These cities and everything in between should be prepared for one of the most devastating landfalls in US history. If the storm makes landfall directly on one of those major cities, the losses will be incredible... certainly in terms of property, but possibly in terms of life as well if evacuations aren't rushed to completion VERY soon. My personal opinion on landfall has been shifted from Savannah to just north of Charleston as a "weak" CAT4. However, I'm tempted to go for Wilmington for old time's sake! This shift came about once I saw how prematurely Floyd began the NW recurving. The eye didn't get as close to the FL coast as was expected, so, the overall track forecast needs to be updated accordingly. After making landfall, it still looks like it will get dragged NNE along the eastern states (SC, eastern NC, eastern VA, MD, DE, NJ, southeast PA, southern NY, and most of New England). Anyone living in these areas can expect damaging winds (weaker further north), flooding rains, and possibly powerful thunderstorms which could spawn tornadoes. The only thing that will bring relief to the NE states will be the speed of the storm... it will be racing by, so rainfall amounts will be limited only by how long the storm sticks around (but the forward motion adds to the surface wind speeds, so you lose there). GERT: Gert became the 4th major hurricane of the season at 21Z today. The storm has become much better organized and now a has a well-defined 29-mile-diameter eye. It's over 28.2C water and in 5 m/s vertical shear, so conditions are very favorable for futher intensification. Recent (03Z) IR satellite imagery shows very deep convection on the north side of the storm. As of 03Z on 9/15, the position was 17.3N 47.3W and heading W at 14mph. Max winds are 125mph and the minimum pressure is 952mb. 24 hours ago, the winds were 85mph and the pressure was 979mb, so Gert is indeed intensifying rather rapidly. The storm should soon begin heading WNW and eventually (during the weekend?) head NW to N... recurving into the open Atlantic. However, to leave possibilities open and to generate debate, she could avoid recurvature and enter the Caribbean. Brian ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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."