roncli.com blog: Ike takes aim at Galveston

The 4 PM CDT forecast is in, and it's not pretty.

The storm is now forecast to come ashore ON Galveston island, 15 miles WSW of the city's dot on the map. This is also just 48 miles SSE of me in the Galleria area. This forecast path should take the eye almost right over me. Yikes.

Ike is still "only" a category 2 hurricane, with winds topping out at 100 mph. They are still forecasting strengthening to major hurricane status, but there are a lot of factors against this, such as dry air, cooler water temperatures, and a bit of wind sheer. But some of these factors are forecast to go away.

Again I must focus on NHC's inability to provide a reliable track. They keep moving the hurricane east, east, east. I don't understand why the models are predicting an immediate turn to the WNW when the hurricane is chugging along to the NW the whole time. If the models don't kick in as suggested, the hurricane may make it all the way to Beaumont, and we'll be on the better side of the hurricane.

However, with hurricane force winds spreading out over 115 miles from the center, there is no doubt that wherever this things strikes, this weekend's going to be a wet and windy one.

I'll post some more images and some vital stats on Ike in a moment. Google Earth is being a pain and crashing all the time lately. What the hell did they do with their app that it's so unstable these days?

Labels: Hurricane Ike, Life

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