Watches up for the Keys; Here comes Alpha

At 11 AM the Hurricane Center hoisted Hurricane watches for all of the Keys. Hints indicating that the watches will be extended northward were also dropped. Keep in mind that, at a minimum, we'll see Tropical Storm warnings and Hurricane watches for our part of the coast before this is all over.

Wilma is still on land, drifting slowly northward. Winds are down to 115 MPH, and the pressure is up to 946 mb. She is still expected to emerge from the Yucatan overnight tonight.

Official forecasts for Florida are essentially unchanged. Some of the models (alas, not models represented on the model track link on the right side of this page) are begining to hint at a track that is south of the official advisory, which would be good news for points north (us).

I've edited the previous post regarding the "mutant circle" wind thresholds on the Navy tracking chart. The circles are the forecast radii for 34 (tropical storm force), 50, and 64 (hurricane force) knot winds, respectively.

And then we have Tropical Depression 25, currently located south of Puerto Rico. This will probably be our next tropical storm later today; since we have exhausted the Atlantic names for 2005, we will begin to use the Greek alphabet to name storms for the rest of the year, making this one "Alpha". TD25 should be swept out to sea by the same upper level trough that will sweep Wilma past us on Monday.