[UPDATE, 3:00 AM: Welcome, InstaPundit readers! My latest posts on Dean are here and here. And again, if you want to view all my latest Dean-related posts in one place, constantly updated, go to my hurricane category. Or my homepage, really — I doubt I’ll be blogging about much else today!]

The computer models — including the formerly recalcitrant GFDL — are now unanimous in predicting that Hurricane Dean will not hit the United States. The latest official NHC forecast track, in response to this strengthening consensus, has shifted to the left, and now predicts a final landfall about 210 miles south of the Texas border. Brownsville and Corpus Christi are still within the “cone of uncertainty,” but it appears increasingly likely that this country will be spared Dean’s fury. The Houston Chronicle’s Eric Berger has an excellent discussion of this. He concludes:

South Texas should remain on alert, but if the consensus among the models holds, it’s likely the United States could escape serious harm from an extremely powerful and damaging hurricane. We’re not there yet, but that’s the trend.

Should that come to pass I would hope Texas and the rest of the country would do what it could to help Jamaica and Mexico, as these two nations appear set to bear the brunt of the most intense hurricane to form since 2005’s Wilma.

Here are the current NHC forecast track map and Weather Underground model map:

In other news, the Space Shuttle will return home a day early because of Dean.

P.S. Meanwhile, Alan Sullivan offers a poetic prayer for Jamaica:

Merciful Lord, spare Kingston’s ramshackle port,
spare Spanish Town and even Montego Bay.
Hammer the sea, but keep your storm offshore.
Let vessels safely reach their quays, and crewmen
lash them down. Let shantytowns stay roofed,
and coconuts not cannonball through walls.

Almighty, if it pleases you to rip
the tamarinds with sheets of windblown tin
and whip the alleyways with sparking wires,
if afterward a plague of flies and boils
afflicts the islanders, vouchsafe them faith
that they may build anew, yet believe in You.

(Hat tip: InstaPundit, who is also blogging heavily about the threat to the Cayman Islands.)

P.P.S. The Palm Beach Post’s Bob King points out: “Anyone looking for news from Jamaica can turn to the Internet radio stream from Power 106FM in Kingston, which is mixing reggae with frequent updates on Dean and advice on how to stay safe and sane.” I’ve added the link to my blogroll at right. Thanks, Bob!

Two firefighters are killed battling a blaze at an abandoned building just south of Ground Zero, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says.

Visit CNN for the latest.

According to the 8:00 PM EDT intermediate advisory, the aircraft reconaissance flight currently in Hurricane Dean just reported a minimum central pressure of 920 millibars — down 10 mb from the last reading. Dean is strengthening again. The NHC isn’t reporting any change in the top wind speed yet, which may be because they’re waiting for additional recon data before making the call, or because it’s taking Dean’s winds a while to “catch up” with the falling pressure, or some combination of the two. Either way, I presume there will be a wind-speed bump in the 11:00 PM advisory, if not sooner in a special “update.” If it’s just a 5-mph bump, from 150 to 155, Dean will remain a Cat. 4. Otherwise, he’ll cross into Cat. 5 territory.

Is there a silver lining in this? Maybe. The deepening presumably means the eyewall replacement cycle is over. That’s a little sooner than I thought, and perhaps there will be time for Dean to start another cycle before landfall tomorrow afternoon. That could prevent the calamity of a landfall on the island as a strengthening Category 5 hurricane. But regardless, it ain’t going to be pretty in Jamaica tomorrow.

UPDATE/CORRECTION, 9:43 PM: On the other hand… if I’m reading the reconaissance report correctly, the aircraft is reporting a minimum central pressure of 918 millibars… but a maximum flight-level wind of just 123 knots! That’s 141 mph, which would normally translate to around 127 mph at the surface. Is Dean a 918-millibar Category 3?? I suppose I shouldn’t be so surprised — I remember some of the ‘05 hurricanes went through similar phases while their wind fields were expanding and their eyewalls were cycling.

Speaking of which: the aircraft reports that the strongest winds were in the “outer eyewall.” Apparently the eyewall replacement cycle isn’t over yet. So I guess you can forget my “silver lining” comment. But here’s a different silver lining: meteorologist and fellow weatherblogger Brian Neudorff comments that it “looks like there is some drier air getting into Dean. This seems to be consistent with what Accuweather’s Joe Bastardi was saying in his recent post. ‘Dean may weaken a bit the next 24 hours as dry air from the mountains of Hispaniola is drawn into the storm’.” If I’m not mistaken, hurricanes going through eyewall replacement cycles are especially vulnerable to disruption caused by dry-air entrainment. So that makes sense.

In any event, it will be very interesting to see what the NHC does at 11:00 PM. It appears we have ourselves a deepening, yet weakening, hurricane! Though to be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if they hold the intensity at 150 mph, not wanting to downgrade it on the basis of a single recon report (which might have missed the strongest winds) only to upgrade it again in a few hours’ time.

UPDATE, 10:47 PM: The 11:00 PM advisory bumped the winds down only slightly, to 145 mph. Waiting for the discussion to post.

UPDATE, 11:06 PM: Here’s what the discussion says about Dean’s intensity:

THE INNER CORE OF DEAN APPEARS TO BE UNDERGOING SOME CHANGES. RADAR IMAGERY ONBOARD THE AIR FORCE RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT DEPICTS CONCENTRIC EYEWALLS AT RADII OF ABOUT 10 AND 20 N MI…WITH THE OUTER EYEWALL RECENTLY BECOMING A LITTLE BETTER DEFINED. FLIGHT-LEVEL WINDS HAVE ALSO REVEALED DOUBLE MAXIMA. WIND DATA AT FLIGHT LEVEL…FROM THE SFMR…AND FROM DROPSONDES DIRECTLY SUPPORT AN INTENSITY OF NO MORE THAN ABOUT 115 KT. THE CENTRAL PRESSURE…HOWEVER…HAS BEEN GRADUALLY DROPPING AND WAS MOST RECENTLY MEASURED AT 918 MB. ASSUMING THAT THE MAXIMUM WIND HAS NOT BEEN SAMPLED…THE ADVISORY INTENSITY IS SET TO 125 KT…BUT THIS COULD BE A BIT ON THE HIGH SIDE. THE AIRCRAFT WILL CONTINUE TO INVESTIGATE DEAN FOR A FEW MORE HOURS TO SEE IF THE WINDS COME BACK UP.

Later, it adds, “THE SHORT-TERM INTENSITY FORECAST IS A BIT UNCERTAIN GIVEN THE DOUBLE EYEWALL STRUCTURE…BUT THE CENTRAL PRESSURE IS QUITE LOW AND THE INNER CORE COULD QUICKLY REORGANIZE AT ANY TIME…SO ANY DIP IN THE INTENSITY WILL PROBABLY BE SHORT-LIVED.”

More significantly, the track forecast keeps Dean just offshore of Jamaica. Hopefully that holds up.

The 5:00 PM advisory is out. Dean remains steady at 150 mph, according to the NHC. The discussion says, “THERE HAVE BEEN NO SIGNIFICANT CHANGES IN THE STRUCTURE OF DEAN DURING THE PAST SEVERAL HOURS.” The forecast, too, remains essentially unchanged, though the track’s “center line” has shifted ever so slightly to the left. Jamaica is still very much in the bull’s eye, however.

Alan Sullivan’s update on Dean is largely text-free. Instead, he’s offering three pictures worth 1,000 words each.

Meanwhile, Eric Berger is trying to give his readers “a sense of the near-historic intensification that Dean could undergo after crossing Jamaica.” He thinks Dean could rival the 2005 trifecta of Katrina, Rita and Wilma — the latter of which set the all-time record for lowest pressure recorded in the Atlantic basin.

P.S. Myself, I’m still worried about the intensification that Dean could undergo immediately before crossing Jamaica. I mentioned yesterday that the waters just east of the island are extremely warm, and “just as the Gulf Stream and the Loop Current tend to supercharge hurricanes that pass over them, I fear Dean could get a final, deadly burst of energy” from that bit of bathtub-like water. Alan Sullivan concurs. And the timing of the current eyewall replacement cycle makes things worse: as Margie Kieper commented earlier, “It appears [the cycle] will have time to complete before the hurricane reaches Jamaica.” Hurricanes generally weaken a bit during replacement cycles (though any weakening of Dean has yet to register in the NHC’s advisories), but they often strengthen once the cycle is over — and if the end of this cycle coincides with Dean’s arrival in the superheated water off Jamaica, the result could be disastrous. It would be sort of like throwing gasoline on a fire just as a gust of wind blows by. Boom!

The U.S. Gulf Coast has been spared the worst of several recent hurricanes, including Katrina, because of a combination of cooler water near shore and well-timed eyewall replacement cycles. With Dean and Jamaica, by contrast, the cycle timing is just awful, and the water near shore is anything but cool. I don’t want to be unduly alarmist or feed hysterical hype. But I fear the worst. As I said yesterday, “The only thing worse than a Category 5 hurricane making landfall is a strengthening Category 5 hurricane making landfall.” That’s precisely what I fear Dean will be for the people of that island.

In Sullivan’s words, “What can one say, except pray?”

Laughing too hard to make a good joke on this one. Though I suppose it really could have been quite a more serious matter.

[UPDATE, 4:43 PM: Welcome, InstaPundit readers! My newest post on Dean is here. All my latest posts on Dean, as they appear, can be found here.]

Just a quick update on Hurricane Dean this afternoon. The storm appears to be going through an eyewall replacement cycle, and may weaken a bit as the cycle continues. The 2:00 PM advisory is calling for “fluctuations in intensity” during the next 24 hours. For now, Dean is still at 150 mph with a 930 mb central pressure.

Some folks, like Dr. Jeff Masters, believe Dean has “peaked” for now, while others, like Alan Sullivan, think intensification is likely once the current cycle ends. Sullivan predicts that Dean will become Cat. 5 overnight tonight. Myself, I continue to worry about a final burst of intensification tomorrow, right before it hits Jamaica, due to the extremely warm waters just east of the island.

Whether or not Dean has “peaked” for the time being, a second “peak” is likely in between Jamaica and the Yucatan, as the waters are warmer in the western Caribbean than in the eastern Caribbean. (Indeed, as Sullivan noted yesterday, Dean’s development so far is remarkable, given its location; hurricanes don’t usually get this strong in the eastern Caribbean.) The official forecast calls for slight weakening over Jamaica, followed by strengthening to a Cat. 5 with 160 mph winds in 48 hours, en route to a second landfall near Cancun.

The extent of weakening over Jamaica is a big deal, though, and highly unpredictable. Because the island is so mountainous, the weakening could be significant. It all depends on Dean’s exact track over the island. The NHC is back to forecasting a tip-to-tip direct hit on the island, but as I said yesterday, it will likely be impossible to predict the storm’s exact course vis a vis Jamaica until landfall is imminent or occurring, because of last-minute “wobbles” and such. Sullivan notes that the island itself could cause the storm to wobble: “A spinning coin on a flat surface will bounce off an obstacle. Hurricanes do this too, sometimes, though such wobbles are less likely with a fast moving storm. … Will Dean march straight over Jamaica, or swerve just enough to reduce the destruction ashore?” And later: “Dean appears to be aiming directly at Jamaica; but the Blue Mountains are like a great wedge, and they may deflect the core to one side or the other.”

The question of Dean’s exact path over (or past) Jamaica is relevant not just to the destruction on the island, and not just to Dean’s future intensity, but to Dean’s future track as well. Again, I quote Sullivan:

If Dean wobbles south of Jamaica, then it will likely cross Yucatan and head for NE Mexico, as most models predict. If Dean wobbles north of Jamaica, it will pass much closer to Cuba, perhaps even crossing the island’s western tip. In that case Texas and Louisiana will be at risk later, as a few models indicate.

The models actually came into much better agreement overnight on a final landfall between Tampico, Mexico and Corpus Christi, Texas. Even the pesky GFDL agrees now. The improved consensus is probably a result of the fact that Dean is now moving in tandem with the upper low near Florida, as you can see on the satellite loop. The hurricane slowed down, the low sped up, and now they’re in sync. This makes things a bit easier for the computers to predict. The only northern “outlier” is CLP5, which isn’t really a forecasting model at all, as explained here. All in all, the central Gulf looks much safer today than yesterday. Indeed, the Houston-Galveston area and points east are “outside the cone.”

Still, as Sullivan notes, small wobbles can have big implications, and it would behoove everyone in the Gulf to keep paying attention. It was, after all, a wholly unexpected leftward wobble over the Florida peninsula that sealed New Orleans’s fate in 2005, sending Katrina hurtling toward the central Gulf instead of the panhandle.

One final note: I’ve added some new links to my “Dean blogroll” at right. Easily the three best sources for updates, though, are the first three on the list: Jeff Masters, Eric Berger and Alan Sullivan. So if you’re looking for the latest on Dean, and I haven’t updated my blog in a while, I highly recommend their sites. As you may have noticed, at least two-thirds of my information is stolen quoted from them anyway. :)

P.S. An interesting little tidbit from the 5:00 AM discussion:

NEAR [1:00 AM EDT]…AN AIR FORCE RESERVE HURRICANE HUNTER AIRCRAFT REPORTED [177 MPH] FLIGHT-LEVEL WINDS IN THE NORTHERN EYEWALL OF DEAN…AND ALSO REPORTED THAT THE CENTRAL PRESSURE FELL TO 930 MB. THE FLIGHT-LEVEL WINDS COULD HAVE JUSTIFIED CALLING DEAN A CATEGORY FIVE HURRICANE. [177 mph flight levels winds would normally translate, using the standard 90% reduction formula, to 159 mph surface-level winds. -ed.] HOWEVER…DATA FROM DROPSONDES…THE STEPPED-FREQUENCY MICROWAVE RADIOMETER…AND SATELLITE INTENSITY ESTIMATES DID NOT SUPPORT THAT STATUS. THE INTENSITY WAS THUS SET [as of the 2:00 AM intermediate advisory -ed.] TO A SLIGHTLY MORE CONSERVATIVE [150 MPH]. THERE HAS BEEN LITTLE CHANGE IN THE SATELLITE APPEARANCE OF DEAN SINCE THE AIRCRAFT LEFT…SO [150 MPH] IS THE INITIAL INTENSITY FOR THIS ADVISORY.