Frances rapidly becomes a hurricane...

At 21Z today, Frances was upgraded to a hurricane, the 4th of the
season, based on satellite appearance.  The CDO is growing and
maintaining cloud top temperatures around -75C.  I suspect that
microwave imagery will soon reveal an eye/eyewall forming under the
CDO.  The 21Z position is 13.7N 46.4W and heading WNW at 14kts. 
Intensity has jumped to 70kts and 983mb (35kts and 22mb stronger than 24
hours ago!).

The forecast is for significant intensification, reaching CAT2 status by
Friday morning and CAT3 status by Saturday morning.  If it achieves CAT3
anytime by the end of the month, a new record will be set in the
Atlantic... never has there been an August with 3 major hurricanes.  The
future track is still tricky, because it will be slowing down.  In 5
days, it should be just north of the Lesser Antilles, so interests on
shore (Bahamas, Bermda, or US) will certainly have a peaceful weekend
and first half of next week at least.

Elsewhere, there's little of interest to mention.  There's a weak
tropical wave near the Cape Verde Islands, and another one exiting the
African coast right now.

You'll find the most current satellite imagery, track forecast,
advisories, and more at http://mcwar.org/tropics/

I will be out of town until Sept 6, but Jonathan Vigh will be filling in
for me.  Jonathan is a graduate student at CSU Atmospheric Science in
the same Tropical Dynamics research group that I'm a part of and is very
knowledgeable on the subject.

Please visit my tropical Atlantic headquarters.