Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Wilma Stronger Than Katrina?

Yesterday afternoon Wilma was upgraded to Category I hurricane. Fine, I thought, a smallish storm to finish the season then hopefully we can be done with this one. Not much chance of that now.

000
WTNT34 KNHC 191158
TCPAT4
BULLETIN
HURRICANE WILMA INTERMEDIATE ADVISORY NUMBER 16A
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
8 AM EDT WED OCT 19 2005

...WILMA MAINTAINING CATEGORY FIVE STATUS...RECORD PRESSURE
CONFIRMED BY AIRCRAFT CREW...

[snip]

BASED ON DROPSONDE AND FLIGHT-LEVEL DATA FROM AN AIR FORCE PLANE
JUST RETURNING FROM ITS MISSION IN WILMA...THE MINIMUM CENTRAL
PRESSURE IS ESTIMATED TO BE 882 MB...26.05 INCHES. THIS IS THE
LOWEST PRESSURE ON RECORD FOR A HURRICANE IN THE ATLANTIC BASIN.
All of my immediate family is well within the land-fall prediction cone. Good thing BushCo. has assured us that there's no such thing as Global Warming.

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