Hurricane Irene

I thought I would give an update on the one thing I know will be all over the news by Thursday or Friday.  That would be Hurricane Irene.  Their is both good news and bad news with this hurricane.

The good news is that this storm is going to avoid Haiti as that nation has had many years of devastation from various tropical disturbances as well as the big earthquake a few years ago.

The bad news, is that as I type this Hurricane Irene is going through a period of rapid intensification.

Irene going through Rapid Intensification! (click to animation)

What this means is that she is going from being a Category 1 hurricane at 5pm to a Category 2 hurricane as of 8pm.  Their is a chance that she could reach category 3 intensity by 11pm.  If this isn't the case then I expect to see category 3 status by dawn tomorrow.

Current projections take Irene from its location just north of The Dominican Republin through the Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas towards the East coast of North America anywhere from Florida(less likely) to North Carolina(most likely at this point).  There is sitll a chance that she should completely curve out to sea and miss main land North America all together although not likely at this point in time.

I will be posting more on Hurricane Irene as things progress.