Pretty impressive!

Hurricane Earl is looking pretty impressive tonight!

The central pressure is down to 930 mb, the lowest it's been the entire life cycle. Several microwave wavelength satellite images are showing a secondary eyewall (at least in the southern semicircle), which could lead to weakening in the next 12 hrs. Hopefully it will pass east of Cape Hatteras and spare the island a direct impact... if not, a storm like that could easily open up another inlet, similar to what a much weaker Isabel did (although Isabel's orthogonal approach probably did much more to pile water into Pamlico Sound... and I suspect it wasn't the in-rush of water, but rather the out-rush behind the storm, that cut the inlet during Isabel... Earl won't have that same impact). For reference, the other 2 storms that passed by Hatteras at Category 2 or 3 intensity (at least those that come to mind!) are Bob 1991 and Emily 1993. Both gave a glancing blow- and Earl will probably end up doing similar things.





I also hope it will pass far enough east of Maryland so as to not spook US Airways into canceling any of their flights into DCA, where I'm supposed to land Friday afternoon. We should be in fairly calm conditions-- the "col" before the cold front that's helping to push Earl out to sea and the strong boundary layer winds of Earl himself.