Hurricane Felix now a Cat 4

By MARGARET WEVER | Associated Press Writer
4:51 PM CDT, September 2, 2007

ORANJESTAD, Aruba - Hurricane Felix strengthened into a dangerous Category 4 storm Sunday as it toppled trees and flooded homes on a cluster of Dutch islands before churning its way into the open waters of the Caribbean.

Felix lashed Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire with rains and heavy winds, causing scattered power outages and forcing thousands of tourists to take refuge in hotels. But residents expressed relief it did far less damage than feared as the storm's outer bands just grazed the tiny islands.

"Thankfully we didn't get a very bad storm. My dog slept peacefully through the night," said Bonaire medical administrator Siomara Albertus, who waited out the storm in her home.


Felix, packing maximum sustained winds of 140 mph, was now expected to spin over the open waters of the central Caribbean, before skirting Honduras' northern coastline on Tuesday and plowing into Belize on Wednesday as a huge hurricane capable of major damage.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-tropical-weather,1,6081604.story?coll=chi_tab01_layout

They almost never get hurricanes (in fact its a desert island) although its a naturally windy place but if they had gotten a lot of rain it could have been very bad. I was there last fall and I was shocked to see that Felix was that close....

For that reason they are never prepared.

Glad to see all three got off lightly. Really Aruba is one of my favorite places I have visited. Want to go back and check out all of the ABC islands...

but I love the Dutch cheese :D

That part of Mexico is getting hammered hard!

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/storm_graphics/AT06/refresh/AL0607W5_sm2+gif/204024W_sm.gif

It would only reach Cat 2 and now before I reply to this I saw it was cat 5.

This is the second hurricane that became stronger than they thought it would.

This is from the 5pm advisory last night.

THE INTENSITY FORECAST APPEARS TO BE STRAIGHT-FORWARD. THE MAIN
QUESTION IS HOW FAST THE STORM WILL INTENSIFY. ALL OF THE GLOBAL
MODELS SHOW AN EXTREMELY FAVORABLE UPPER-ENVIRONMENT AND THE WATERS
OF THE CARIBBEAN SEA ARE VERY WARM. IT IS A LITTLE PUZZLING WHY THE
GFDL/HWRF ARE SO SLOW TO STRENGTHEN THE SYSTEM. SO FAR...THE
STATISTICAL MODELS HAVE DONE VERY WELL WITH THIS STORM...AND THE
NHC INTENSITY FORECAST IS JUST A LITTLE BELOW THE SHIPS/LGEM
MODELS. IT IS OF NOTE THAT PROBABILITY OF RAPID INTENSIFICATION...
AS DIAGNOSED BY SHIPS...IS RATHER HIGH.

when I went to work this morning, it was a cat2..

www.cnn.com