Unfortunately it looks like the worst case scenario is about to occur.
Instead of being a weakening Cat 3 storm heading into Florida, Wilma has
become a strengthening Cat 4 storm very similar to Charley, yet with a
much larger wind field. I don't know the veracity of this, but I heard
that only about 20% of Key West residents evacuated, and that
evacuations in most places weren't taken seriously. That's hard to
believe after what happened with Katrina, but I've seen some reports of
this floating around the net.
Winds are 135 knots at Flight Level which equates to about 140mph at the
surface. This is the WORST thing that could have happened, because
landfall is imminent in the next 6 hours. Katrina, Rita, and other
storms didn't cause as much *extreme* wind damage because the core was
becoming unwound and the energy was dissipating over a more broad area.
This is similar to what Charley did, and we all know what happened to
Port Charlotte and Punta Gorda.
The satellite shows extreme deepening of the eye wall, which leads me to
believe it is in a completely strengthening stage. I don't believe there
is time for an ERC to weaken it, either. Pressure is down to 952mb.
We were wrong, it is apparent it recovered much more than the Mets or
others thought, and it did it at the worst time. It is always better for
there to be a weakening storm at landfall -- regardless of what people
say about it "spreading the winds out." There's no doubt that once a
landfall is made a Hurricane does that ANYWAY. Florida is going to get
it on both coasts, but the amount of damage and people affected depends
on the track. If it tracks more over population centers we could be
dealing with major power outages and damage again.
So far the models aren't recurving it into New England again, but that's
based on data before landfall. Who knows what interaction with land will
do, or what the steering currents and systems over the CONUS will effect
the Storm. Bad situation for those folks, I was really hoping it was
going to make landfall as a minimal 3. My brother lives in Orlando, so
they are hoping it stays to the south when it crosses the State.