Hurricane Dolly: July 23 Update A

She'll make landfall within the next four hours. The eye is just
off-shore from Brownsville - at 8am this morning it was ~40 miles east.
She is now centered at 26N, 96.9W and was traveling NW at 8mph at the
8am advisory. Although the eye will make landfall in that part of Texas,
she's a big storm so there will be some rough weather with the outer
bands over most of the coastal (and some inland) areas of Texas and Mexico.

The eye is easily visible and winds at the 8am advisory this morning
were at 95 mph, making her a strong cat 1 (74-95mph), almost cat 2
(96-110mph). Central pressure is estimated to be 967mb. It does not look
like she has improved since then - there are fewer bands of really
strong convection and the eye is a little cloudier than before, so she
may remain a strong cat 1 storm at landfall. But the wind speed
difference between a cat 1 and 2 at this stage is so minuscule that it
really makes little difference. There is a lot of rain and stormy
weather in the bands.

From the observations, the closest location to Brownsville that we have
data from is also where the highest storm surge is at the moment: it is
~3 ft above normal at Port Isabel, which is near South Padre Island, and
about 22 miles NE of the center of Brownsville (isn't mapquest great?).
I had a quick look at a number of other stations in Texas, and they were
all showing less than that.

I'll send out a note when she's made landfall.
J.

Blogs archived at: http://www.jyotikastorms.blogspot.com/
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DISCLAIMER:
These remarks are just what I think/see regarding tropical storms - not
the opinion of any organization I represent. If you are making an
evacuation decision, please heed your local emergency management and
the National Hurricane Center's official forecast and the National Weather
Service announcements. This is not an official forecast. If I "run away,
run away" (Monty Python), I'll let you know.
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