My 7:30 PM update never posted to Pajamas Media; I’m not sure why. Anyway, I just submitted an 11:55 PM update, noting that according to the 11:00 PM advisory, Felix is expected to make landfall in the next 12 hours — and strengthen a bit en route to doing so. Meanwhile, the official forecast track now keeps Felix entirely over land.

I’m planning to get up early so I can write up a final pre-landfall update before going to work in the morning. In the mean time, you can follow Felix’s progress via the infrared and water vapor satellite loops. And of course, check out the various links in my right sidebar.

Brian Neudorff takes a closer look at Invest 99L, the disturbance off the Southeastern U.S. that could become a tropical storm later this week, and could threaten the East Coast.

From the latest update to my Pajamas Media post on Hurricane Felix:

Felix is down to 135 mph, a minimal Category 4, as of 5:00 PM. Of course, a “minimal Category 4″ is still one heck of a powerful storm. …

With landfall likely to occur in a relatively unpopulated area, flooding remains the principal threat, and [Alan] Sullivan “remain[s] optimistic that the storm is too small and quick moving to cause major loss of life from flooding in the more populous interior.” He hopes, however, that residents have been adequately warned: “That area is one of the poorest parts of our hemisphere, and communications are sparse.” Sullivan also suggests that Hurricane Watches for Belize are “overkill.” …

Meanwhile, Eric Berger notes that 2007 is only the fourth season in recorded history with two Category Five hurricanes.

I just submitted another “update” to my Pajamas Media post, noting Felix’s weakening to a Category 4 as of 2:00 PM, but also quoting Dr. Jeff Masters providing some historical perspective on its weekend intensification to Cat. 5 status: “Felix now holds the record for shortest time for an Atlantic storm to intensify to Category 5 strength. Felix required just 51 hours to reach Category 5 strength after it started as a tropical depression. That is a truly remarkable intensification rate, considering most tropical cyclones take 3-5 days to organize into a Category 1 hurricane.”

Read the whole thing from Dr. Masters — and read my whole post here.

Here is my first Pajamas Media post on Hurricane Felix. I submitted it at just after 1:30 AM, but it didn’t appear online until after 5:00 AM; I’m assured this was an unusual circumstance, and updates will normally appear much more quickly, even in the middle of the night. In any event, I’m allowed to post an excerpt here, so here goes:

Hurricane Felix has undergone a remarkable period of rapid intensification over the last two days, strengthening from a tropical depression with 35 mph winds at 2:00 AM Saturday into a Category Five hurricane with 165 mph winds at 8:00 PM Sunday — the Caribbean’s second Cat. 5 in two weeks. Further strengthening is possible as Felix barrels westward through the southern Caribbean, menacing Central America and perhaps eventually Mexico, but probably not the United States.

The storm’s minimum central pressure dropped 73 millibars in those 42 hours, from 1007 mb to 934 mb. The Atlantic has seen speedier bursts of intensification in recent years — Hurricane Wilma’s 8-hour, 69-millibar plunge in 2005 comes to mind — but still, going from a T.D. to a Cat. 5 in less than 48 hours is quite a feat …

Where will Felix go? A Hurricane Watch is up for the Honduras coast from the border with Nicaragua east to Limon, and the official forecast track brings the storm very close to the Honduras coast by Tuesday morning. Whether it actually makes landfall in Hondruas, or merely scrapes the coast as Hurricane Dean scraped Jamaica’s south shore, is difficult to predict. But even a glancing blow could be devastating.

To read the rest, you’ll have to visit Pajamas Media — where a new update will be posted shortly, at the top of the page, BTW.

UPDATE: The update has posted. Here’s an excerpt:

Hurricane Felix weakened ever-so-slightly overnight, its winds down from 165 to 160 mph and its pressure up from 934 to 940 mb as of 11:00 AM EDT. But that’s almost a distinction without a difference: Felix remains, in the National Hurricane Center’s words, a “potentially catastrophic hurricane” menacing Central America …

The Houston Chronicle’s Eric Berger discusses Felix’s likely impacts on Central America, and examines why it got so strong, so fast. He also states definitively that “the hurricane is no longer a threat to the United States.” Meanwwile, fellow weatherblogger Alan Sullivan looks at the targeted regions of Guatemala and Nicaragua, and notes that Felix — like Dean before it — may make landfall in a relatively unpopulated area. That would certainly be a blessing, especially as Felix’s hurricane-force winds are limited to a very compact area, no more than 30 miles from the center in any direction. Those 160 mph winds have catastrophic potential, but they will only impact a very small portion of the coastline.

Again, click here to read the whole thing.

We’re back from Buffalo… and greeted by this lovely image:

Remarkable. The second Category 5 hurricane in the Caribbean in the last two weeks, and this one exploded into being over the course of less than two days! I’m in the process of writing a full update — but it will appear first on Pajamas Media, with only an excerpt here at BrendanLoy.com. The management at PJM has asked me to do hurricane updates for them, and unlike the bum who runs this website, they’re going to pay me! :) I’m allowed to cross-post excerpts of my Pajamas posts here, and then after 48 hours I can include the whole thing. Anyway, stay tuned for the latest.

(Headline shamelessly stolen from Alan Sullivan.)

The 8 pm NHC advisory reports that Felix is now a Category 5.  Not unexpected, but it sure happened fast. 

REPORTS FROM A NOAA HURRICANE HUNTER AIRCRAFT INDICATE THAT FELIX CONTINUES TO RAPIDLY STRENGTHEN … MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 165 MPH… THE LATEST MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE ESTIMATED FROM RECONNAISSANCE DATA IS 934 MB

When we left Tim Horton’s an hour ago, Brian said, “By the time you get home, Felix will probably be a major hurricane.” Well, that was quick.

What with the baby shower, college football’s eventful opening Saturday, and hanging out with the SHA girls, I’ve barely been following Hurricane Felix at all in the last 24 hours. But it is now a hurricane, having attained that status at 8:00 PM — “going from a tropical depression to a Category 1 hurricane in less than 12 hours,” as Eric Berger points out. Felix is likely to continue strengthening: “It’s going to be a bad one,” writes Alan Sullivan. “That seems certain now.” And it is becoming a major danger to Central America. There also appears to be an increasing chance the storm will eventually work its way into the Gulf of Mexico; both Berger and Sullivan sound concerned about that possibility. (Here’s the current forecast track.) That’s a long way off, though. Meanwhile, the tropical wave I’m calling “proto-Gabrielle” could become Tropical Depression #7 tomorrow. It, too, could eventually pose a threat, but that’s even further off. So just stay tuned, as they say.

UPDATE, 11:30 AM: Welcome, InstaPundit readers! Felix attained Category 2 status overnight, and could be a major hurricane soon. Alan Sullivan and Eric Berger have both posted morning updates; here’s an except from Sullivan’s post:

Hurricane Felix continued to intensify overnight. … Top sustained winds in Felix were last reported at 100mph. Central pressure was 983mb, which is not all that low yet. Continued intensification seems likely; explosive intensification is possible. … [T]here is a strong model consensus on the track to Belize or Yucatan. The potential threat to Texas is diminishing. This storm is running at very low latitude.

But Berger, the Houston Chronicle writer, is unwilling yet to tell his Texas readers that the coast is clear:

Sometime next week the global models suggest a high-pressure system over the Gulf of Mexico — presently steering Felix on a westerly course — is forecast to shift to the east. When that happens it will open the door to tropical systems for northward movement. … [I]f Felix slows down, by the time it reaches the Bay of Campeche it could have a clear shot at moving north toward the Texas coast.

This remains unlikely, and Felix will be significantly weakened after interacting with Belize and/or the Yucatan. And the Bay of Campeche remains cooler because of Dean, so there isn’t the potential for explosive strengthening if the system lingers there. Still, we can’t ignore the possibility of a well-organized low-pressure system in the Western Gulf by next Friday.

In any event, everyone agrees that Felix is a serious threat to Central America. The official forecast calls for it to reach 145 mph, a strong Cat. 4, by Tuesday morning, at which time it will be near the coasts of Honduras and Nicaragua.

At 5am, Tropical Depression Six became Tropical Storm Felix… and as of 11am, it already has 65 mph winds! Felix is expected to continue strengthening as it treks westward across the southern Caribbean, and is forecast to be a major hurricane in four days as it approaches Belize or thereabouts.

Eric Berger asks: “Can we be confident it’s going to Belize? Probably. Felix is being steered due westward by a high pressure system that is unlikely to relent in the next four or five days. All of the important models bring the system into the southern Yucatan Peninsula, or points south. … In short, I do not think Felix is a threat in any way to the United States. That could change in the next couple of days, but I wouldn’t expect it to.”

However, Berger adds, “there is another wave out in the Atlantic, located about halfway between the Lesser Antilles and Africa, that could pose something more of a threat. It’s a bit further north than Felix, and could swing northwest toward Florida or the Gulf in the next week. … This wave could be a tropical depression in a couple of days as it moves through favorable conditions, or it could dissipate. Such are the vagaries of hurricane season. My guess, however, is that we’ll need to keep watching the wave closely during the next week.” Here’s a look at the two systems in question:

Tropical Depression 6 has formed. The forecast track takes it into the southern Caribbean.

Dr. Jeff Masters and Eric Berger have more.

The tropical wave 250 miles east of the Windward Islands may be developing into a tropical depression. Hurricane hunters are heading out to investigate.

Today is the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina’s landfall in Louisiana and Mississippi. Dr. Jeff Masters is blogging about it, and he links to Margie Kieper’s excellent, in-depth feature on Katrina’s Surge.

The Atlantic tropics remain preternaturally quiet as we hurtle toward the season’s climatological peak on September 10. Alan Sullivan continues to expect a subnormal storm count for the season; indeed, he says “I am beginning to suspect it may be lower than I had dared to hope, when I was bucking the consensus several months ago.”

But now there is at least something to talk about, for the first time since Hurricane Dean died out over Mexico: “Invest 94L,” a reasonably well-organized tropical wave in the eastern Atlantic. Dr. Jeff Masters says 94L is fighting against dry air, and the reliable computer models don’t develop it. On the other hand, the computer models do predict that a currently hypothetical tropical wave in roughly the same area will become a depression later this week:

The UKMET and GFS models are indicating the possible development of a tropical depression by Thursday or Friday off the coast of Africa. There is a large surge of moisture with at least one strong tropical wave embedded in it coming off the coast of Africa this week. This moister air should make a more favorable environment for a tropical depression to form in than the one 94L finds itself in.

Cape Verde storms are always ones to keep an eye on, so this bears watching. Even if there’s nothing to actually watch, as of yet. :)

Meanwhile, Eric Berger has posted a cool worldwide map of all tropical systems’ tracks since the mid-1800s.

As forecasted here (see “PS” at bottom of post, and Comment #6 :), the cyclone-scraped nation of Jamaica has bowed to Reality and postponed its scheduled August 27 election by a week.

In other Democracy-related news, the USofA’s Democratic National Committee’s Rules & Bylaws Committe has voted that millions of Florida Democrats’ ballots will be thrown out if they are cast on January 29 as decreed by Florida’s Republican-dominated legislature, rather than on February 5 (or later) as required by DNC Rules.

(Note: The foregoing paragraph is actually a massively-oversimplified distortion of a complex & important election-Law-vs.-party-Rules story; but what can I tell ya, I’m just feeling Fox-Newsy today. :)