Environment

There were a lot of changes with Frances during the night. Sustained winds dropped to 120mph (making it a category 2 hurricane), and the eye became less organized.

It appears the Hi pressure system isn’t weakening, so the 11am storm track posted by the Hurricane Tracking Center has the center line shifted west some. This brings the storm closer to Tampa.

Here’s what’s going on at 8:00am Thursday in Tampa relative to Hurricane Frances

With large parts of Florida still trying to recover from Hurricane Charley, we now have to be worried about Frances. Frances is now skirting the eastern most islands of the Bahama s, and is most definitely headed this way with a huge wind mass nearly twice as large as Charley. Frances is packing sustained winds of 140 miles per hour, and may increase to a category 5 Hurricane by landfall Friday.