Hurricane Joaquin and a Landmark Moment: October 1, Update A

What a topsy-turvey sort of day today turned out to be! I spent most of the day flying across the country (from DC to LA) and below me, The Good, The Ugly, And The Uglier was playing out! You have probably already heard about The Ugly (or The Uglier - the jury is still out) from Orgeon (something I will never understand!), but you may not have heard about The Good yet...  

... I have to take a moment to tell all of you wonderful amazing intelligent readers to grab a G&T, a wine, an ice cream, a cup of tea, some cheese, whatever you like that makes you happy, and partake! Today, because of YOU, the number of page views on my blog crossed the 100,000 level!! (Thanks to my husband for capturing the moment for me! :-))

Never did I imagine when I started this about 9 years ago that we would get to this point! And these numbers don't include the many years of having a separate list serve! For once, I may be a bit speechless (as evidenced by excessive use of exclamation marks)! (so I'll just have another sip of my G&T ;-)). 

Enough of that! Moving right along, and then we have The Uglier (I think, although we won't know until he leaves the Bahamas). Sigh. Hurricane Joaquin is a cat 3 storm, borderline cat 4 storm and is continuing to try and demolish the Bahamas - I have to say, it doesn't look too good for them. I'm not sure what will be left after he's done! The visible satellite image showed a clear and good looking eye during the day:

His current official wind speed is 130mph, central pressure is 935mb. This makes him barely a cat 4 storm (cat 4 range: 130-155mph). I missed most of today so I don't know if he got that strong, but I can say he was definitely a cat 3. It looks like he has diminished recently, and I don't see a clear eye anymore, so I would place him at the most as a cat 2 now, but I'm sure the NHC will decrease that slowly so he'll probably be downgraded to a cat 3. You can see that he's weakened from his infrared satellite imagery too:

His interaction with land is keeping him 'in check' - the little land that is the Bahamas, as well as the slightly larger land of Cuba and Hispaniola. 

The vorticity (circulation) remains very strong throughout the troposphere, which indicates that he is a well built storm. I haven't seen that decreasing yet, which means he will continue as a strong storm for now. 

As for his track, here's the latest... 

Oops, sorry, wrong file (thank Ai-Ning in North Carolina for that one!). You know it was only a matter of time before someone made this. Although to be more accurate, I think he's a hairier storm over the Bahamas than I think he will be to the north! 

The real track...

This shift to the east is a bit more realistic, although I still don't think we have a good handle on his track. We won't really until he clears the Bahama and starts to head north. He is currently at 22.9N, 74.6W, heading W at a measly 3 mph! I could probably walk faster than that! He is still pretty much stationary over the Bahamas, as expected. Ugh. 

If I were you on the east coast and Bermuda, I would be getting ready, just in case. The forecast has him on his northward trek late Friday/early Saturday, so we'll have a clearer idea by this time tomorrow. Hopefully.

That's about it. Oh, and before I sign off, to mark this landmark day in the life of this blog, and in case you are confused about hurricane intensity and what a cat 1 versus a cat 2 versus a cat 3 and so on looks like... here's a little pictorial clarification I received from Jen D. (also from North Carolina) today:

Cats... always popular on the internet! :-) 

Toodle Pip!!
J. 

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Twitter @JyovianStorm
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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.