Dean Close to Category 5

The next recon flight into Dean will be early this afternoon, but other data shows that a single eye wall has become better defined. For the moment on the 10:00 a.m. advisory, the NHC will keep Dean at a Category 4, but they say he is approaching Category 5 and will probably reach that later today over the deep warm waters of the Western Caribbean.

When he moves across the Yucatan Peninsula, he will weaken considerably, even though he should retain hurricane force. So, the NHC has a Hurricane Warning for the west coast of the Yucatan in addition to the east coast.

Little or no change in the track forecast. The track forecast and all the model groupings agree very closely. We sometimes call the model groupings the spaghetti plot, because it is a mapped plot of all available hurricane and other models.

Peak gusts in Hurricane Dean now near 185 mph with sustained winds of 150. That is what will be on the 10:00 a.m. advisory. By the time it makes landfall on Yucatan, sustained winds are expected to be near 160 with gusts to around 195. That is clearly a Category 5 monster.

Category: Uncategorized