Fay crosses Cuba

As you can see from the eye-like feature north of Cuba on radar, Tropical Storm Fay’s center is now north of Cuba, and she’s looking a bit better organized. Maximum sustained winds are up to 60 mph as of 8:00 AM EDT, and further strengthening is likely.

I’m not certain whether this consistutes validation of my earlier speculation that Fay’s circulation center might “jump over” Cuba and relocate to the northeast (a scenario also discussed by TWC’s Dr. Stu Ostro), or whether the existing center simply crossed the island rather quickly. Hopefully the National Hurricane Center’s 11am discussion will clarify matters.

In either case, I wouldn’t be surprised if the 11am advisory also shifts the forecast track — again — to the right, and speeds up the timing of landfall. But we’ll see.

There’s also this, from Dr. Ostro:

Fay has a very interesting structure at the moment and is proving to be resilient. They say cats have nine lives, and if Fay was a feline it would have used up a few of ’em already. And some of the longer-range computer models are suggesting that the storm will have yet another life later in the week just off the southeast U.S. coast via getting blocked by a ridge of high pressure building to its north. If that were to verify, it’d be a long haul before the final chapter of this one is written …

Stay tuned, as they say.

UPDATE: Alan Sullivan, in Dania Beach, writes at 8:45 AM: “[Fay’s center] is drifting NNW, but the surface and mid level circulations are not aligned. The real energy of the storm continues to reside in banded convection NE of the center, now extending all the way to my locale. It will be a very long seige of rain and thundersqualls here. I hope the power stays on…”

Keep visiting Sullivan’s blog, Seablogger, for the latest liveblogging.

UPDATE 2: Dr. Jeff Masters has a full, detailed update on Fay.

P.S. See also the Miami Herald‘s Storm Reports. Let me know if you discover any other good Fay blogs!

P.P.S. Rich Willis in Kissimmee has set up a webcam and liveblog.