Emily now a major hurricane...

Based on aircraft recon data, Emily was upgraded to the second hurricane 
of the season at 03Z today.  During the late afternoon yesterday through 
this morning, the storm experienced a period of rapid intensification.  
In the past 12 hours, the central pressure has fallen 23mb, and in the 
past 24 hours it has fallen 35mb.  It is now the second major hurricane 
of the season.

At 21Z today, Emily was located at 13.3N 65.9W and tracking WNW at 18kts.  
Maximum sustained winds are up to 100kts, and the central pressure is 
968mb.  Jamaica has just issued a Hurricane Watch, and Tropical Storm 
Warnings are in effect for the southern coast of Hispaniola and the 
northern coast of Venezuela.

Conditions ahead of Emily are not just favorable for further development, 
but extraordinary.  The SSTs are at least 29C and are quite deep in her 
forecast track, and the wind shear should remain fairly low over the 
next few days... the first impediment will come at landfall on the 
Yucatan Peninsula on Sunday evening.  The second landfall is still 
likely for the area around Brownsville mid-week (Wednesday or so).  
This could very well be another major hurricane at both landfalls.

2005 has now set the all-time record in the Atlantic for the highest NTC 
by August 1 (and we're still adding onto it!).  Recall from a previous 
post that NTC is an index that utilizes actual and climatological values 
for number of storms, intensities, and longevity.  At 21Z, this season 
reached 44.1%, and the previous record was set in 1966 at 42.6%.  A 
complete "average" season would be 100%.

The tropical wave behind Emily is still there, now at about 17N 42W.  It 
could still develop, but it's been very slow to do so thus far.  Since 
yesterday at this time, it has a bit more deep convection associated 
with it.

Please visit my tropical Atlantic headquarters.