Hurricanes Shary and Tomas bring a surge of activity to the end of October...

Shortly after recurving away from Bermuda, Shary intensified to a 65kt minimal hurricane and is still headed out to the hurricane graveyard that is the north-central Atlantic.  This makes it the 11th hurricane of the season.  It's 580 miles ENE of Bermuda and racing away from the island at 35kts.  It is rapidly on its way to becoming an extratropical cyclone and will get absorbed into the mid-latitude westerlies.

As I suggested in my update yesterday, the disturbance near the Windward Islands was indeed upgraded to TS Tomas once the aircraft got there to investigate it.  Then, today at 15Z, it was upgraded to Hurricane Tomas, the 12th of the season.  The latest intensity is 65kts/993mb and on a very definite strengthening trend.  It's crossing the Windward Islands as I type this, and will head into the Caribbean, quite likely bound to become the season's 6th major hurricane in the coming days.  There is a long radar loop of the hurricane at bmcnoldy.rsmas.miami.edu/tropics/tomas10/Tomas_30-31Oct10.gif.  Tomas is heading WNW at 13kts and this motion is expected to continue, bringing it near Jamaica in 5 days, probably as a major hurricane.  All interests in the Caribbean should be watching this very closely.  The latest watches, warnings, and track forecast can be found at http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/storm_graphics/AT21/refresh/AL2110W5+gif/

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