Hurricane Ike: September 12 Update B

After a day of very strong convection and very cold clouds in the Gulf,
Ike has been interacting with the LA/TX coast for the past few hours and
cloud tops have begun to warm up again, which means convection has
decreased and signals a (very slowly) weakening storm. It may not seem
like much consolation to those along that coastline, because there is
still quite a lot of heavy rain, thunderstorms, and possible tornadoes,
and winds are at Tropical Storm levels (39-73 mph), around 45 mph at the
moment, and will obviously get stronger as the storm gets closer.

Wind speed max. is still 105 mph (central pressure 955mb), keeping him
at the cat 2 level (range: 96-110 mph), and he is moving generally NW
towards the Galveston area at 12 mph - he's about 135 miles SE of the
city. The 'eye' is very broad, so the official center is at 27.7N, 93.5W.

Storm surge at the moment is between 6-8 feet in the Galveston area, and
peaked at just over 9 ft in parts of LA. The only bit of good news I
suppose is that the high tide is over and so the predicted tides are now
decreasing, so total water levels will not increase as rapidly for the
next few hours. However, 8-10 feet of water is pretty darn tootin' bad!

Really not much more to say for now... just watching and waiting with
bated breath like everyone else. I might send out another update later
this evening with conditions in that area.
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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