HC Emily may be a repeat of HC Gilbert of 88'

[Brent]

Weather Underground sucks... this uses the NHC best track which shows a Cat 5 hitting the Yucatan:

[CaptinCrunch]

Your right, I was looking at the C4 Mexico landfall rather the C5 Yucatun landfall.....

But when you compare the two paths Gilbert and Emily both share the C1 statas at about the same place.

[HurricaneBill]

It made landfall as a 900 mb storm(wouldnt that be the most intense landfalling TC ever).

The 1935 Labor Day Hurricane landfalled at 892 mb.

[Hurricaneman]

1935 Landfalled at 892 MB

[Normandy]

How did Cozumel survive?

[Hurricaneman]

They were pretty much flattened, but the people must have evacuated south or something like that

[Scorpion]

Doesnt seem that it was flattened. I visited there recently, lots of new buildings but also lots of old ones. Also lots of trees.

[hicksta]

gilbert was in 88.

[JenBayles]

Dave & I went to Cozumel one year after Gilbert. Many places on the island still looked like a disaster area. Really really sad. I also remember being amazed at the flooding on the west end of Galveston Island due to Gilbert. As far away as that storm was, it really chewed up a lot of beach.

[CaptinCrunch]

...EMILY STRENGTHENING IN THE EASTERN CARIBBEAN...NOW A CATEGORY TWO
HURRICANE...

[canegrl04]

Will be interesting to see where the cone is pointing in 24 hours.Will it be a little more toward the north,or even farther south? It could be BIG trouble for Texas if Emily takes a slightly more north track

[HurriCat]

How are the mechanics of the stuff holding that critter south of Florida and the GOM holding up? We are talking Yuc-Peninsula and Meh-hee-ko and Tey-hahs, but Emily is still a good ways west.

Not -removed-, either - I want that you-know-what anywhere BUT more northwest!

[x-y-no]

Hopefully this is nowhere near as strong as Gilbert, probably wont be

Emily's windfield is much smaller than Gilbert's, and isn't forecast to get terribly big.

[soonertwister]

There's a reporter's eyewitness account, with pictures, of going through the Gilbert landfall on Cancun.

Bear in mind that the island was on the left side of the center of Gilbert, conditions would have been significantly worse a little farther north. In particular, if the hurricane had tracked just a little more to the south, storm surge likely would have killed hundreds, at a bare minimum.

http://www2.sptimes.com/weather/HG.5.html

Why anyone would go to an off-shore island to report on a land-falling category 5 hurricane is beyond my capacity to understand.

[otowntiger]

Actually Gilbert was further north at this point than Emily. So I'd have to say that if I was comparing to the two literally then I'd surmize that she will hit the lower Yucatan and not even make it to the Bay of Campeche. Also regarding Cozumel and Gilbert, I was totally amazed that there wasn't more damage than there was considering the ridiculous intensity at landfall and the fact that he hit south of there placing Cozumel squarely in the worst quadrant. However I have a couple of friends that were there during the storm and they talked about how bad it was but in my opinion, it sounded like it could have been a whole lot worse. Thier hotel only sustained relatively minor damage and they got home in one peice.

[TexasStooge]

Hurricane Emily could threaten Texas

ST. GEORGE'S, Grenada (AP) — Hurricane Emily pounded Grenada early Thursday, packing sustained winds of about 90 mph.

"They took a major portion of the brunt of the storm," said Trisha Wallace, a forecaster with the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

The storm was heading west, and a tropical storm watch was in effect for Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao, which Wallace said could expect heavy rain. According to the current forecast track, the storm could hit the southern coast of Texas by early next week.

Grenadians had rushed home or to shelters under heavy rain Wednesday, forming traffic jams in the capital of St. George's as the storm approached. The government had declared a state of emergency as a precaution.

The struggle to recover from last year's Hurricane Ivan had prevented Grenada from thoroughly preparing for this year's hurricane season. Amid a shortage of construction supplies, many islanders still have no roofs and some children are still taught under tarps.

At 5 a.m. Thursday, the center of Hurricane Emily was about 45 miles northwest of Grenada, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. It was heading northwest at about 18 mph.

Commerce halted across much of the eastern Caribbean as Emily bore down.

BP oil company evacuated nonessential staff from its 14 offshore oil platforms in Trinidad, leaving 11 employees to operate two platforms to fulfill its contractual obligations to provide gas for the country, the company said.

In St. Vincent, people placed boards over window and businesses. "We've got to be prepared and that's what we're doing," said Cordell Roberts, 39, a fisherman who was helping to pull boats from the water in the capital, Kingstown.

Emily trails Hurricane Dennis, which destroyed crops and killed at least 25 people in Haiti and 16 in Cuba last week, according to authorities in the two countries.

[soonertwister]

I inadvertently referred to Cancun as an island while thinking of Cozumel.

The center of Cancun is actually a little ways inland from the ocean, and well north of the island of Cozumel.

[soonertwister]

I read a report from someone living on Grenada who said that the island came through Emily with only minor damage evident. Report was on stormcarib.com.

[Nimbus]

There is a lot of bridging going on and Emily is likely to build a huge high pressure dome once she hits cat 2 and the bottom drops out.

Once the models get initialized with that kind of data they will start recurving the track back towards the right.

[EDR1222]

Hopefully this is nowhere near as strong as Gilbert, probably wont be

Odds are 1 to 1.000,000 in won't be. Remember Gilbert was the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Atalntic Basin. Lowest pressure

I agree. It is highly unlikely it gets anywhere near that strength, IMHO.