I missed Hurricane Beta - I was busy Halloween weekend - but they're still coming. Tropical depression 27 will be TS/H GAMMA if it strengthens as expected.

This year has broken every tropical storm record since we started tracking. I wonder if there's a La Nina going on - that can reinforce the Atlantic Multidecadal Mode (AMM) that's causing the rise in number of hurricanes and their intensities. Nope, ENSO-neutral all summer. That means while this was an unusually active year, it could easily have been worse.

I wish I could be alive in a hundred years, when we have a couple of complete AMMs recorded. We only caught the last half of the last one - it started in the 20s, but we didn't start tracking the weather consistently until the 40s.

Anyone who wants to get into the more technical aspects, this is a place to start for the AMM: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/atlantic/, and this is great for ENSO/El Nino:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/MJO/enso.shtml#link

Baby, you're much too fast...

Woke up this morning, and Wilma was a cat5. Went from Cat1 at 4:30pm yesterday to a Cat2 at 10:30pm, then zoom - a Cat5 by 4:30. WTF? Musta been some really hot water.

Fortunately, it is unlikely to hit land at this power. Projection is for it to slide between Yucatan and Cuba, then curve left for Florida, weakening all the way. If it slips to one side or the other in the Yucatan straights, someone could be hurting.

So far, no other masses of clouds that look like potential hurricanes in the Atlantic. According to forecaster Avila (my favorite) "Tropical storm formation is not expected through Thursday." Pooh. I want to see an Alpha! It's already a hurricane season like no other - let's make it a once-in-a-lifetime experience (we wish...).

So, Rita's going to stay over the Loop current longer than they thought. Current central pressure is estimated at 897mb. Lower means more intense, a worse storm. The lowest pressure at landfall was 892, the 1935 Florida Keys hurricane, which killed 600 people. Camille, the second lowest at landfall, was 909, and still a cat5. Thanks to the increased forecasting ability, she only killed 256 people.

The 11am update predicts Rita has peaked as a cat5, winds 145 knots (170mph). In 36hrs, she's expected to be a medium cat4 with winds of 125 knots (cat3 = 96 to 113kts, cat4 = 114 to 135kts); at 48hrs she should be over land and a low cat3 at 100kts. Landfall looks to be about 4am, or 41 hours from 11am this morning.

Given the evacuations seem to be proceeding apace, I'm going to predict a high cat3 with impact similar to Andrew: high property damage, low death toll. Until Katrina, he was the most expensive, but because of the forecasting and evacuations, the official death toll is relatively low, though there are rumors of unofficial deaths. For comparison (from NOAA):

Hurricane	Category (landfall)	Deaths	Damage	Notes
Andrew	5	<50	26b	Forecast missed actual landfall by less than 30mi - considered very good
Fran	3	37	3.2b
Floyd	2	77	4.5b	Slow moving, a lot of rain. Most of the damage and deaths were from flooding.

I think this shows that the impact is not always directly related to the strength of the winds. The preparedness and response make a difference.

And it all still pales in comparison to the tsunami.