Hello Dolly

[MClarkson]

Radar presentation almost always looks better than satellite, and vis looks better than IR. This storm looks great on radar... and yet the aicraft recon data indicates a clear cat 1. Pressure is only down a few mb in the last few hours... strengthening slowly but pretty tame by hurricane standards. Dolly is quickely running out of time to strengthen significantly. I still wouldnt completely rule out a last spurt of rapid intensification given the favorable upper level anticyclone. But those odds are now pretty slim.

A brownsville hit seems unavoidable at this point. This looks to be a great storm to get on the beach and film surge... its not going to be high enough to threaten lives, and there are enough solid buildings in a decent size town like BRO to shelter you if the winds get above what you are comfortable with. This will be a great learning storm for first time chasers that made the trip... a daytime landfall too.

EDIT: and there goes a 7mb drop and the eye is starting to come out on IR. Pretty slim just changed to 'slim... kindof'.

[Blake Michaleski]

Very cool mini supercell located in the western eyewall.

[cdcollura]

Good day all,

Now I am pissed because I am not near Brownsville as I called off this chase 2 days ago thinking Mexico was gonna be the "sweet spot".

Intensification has been steady during the night of 7-22 to 7-23. landfall will be indeed during the late morning / noon of 7-23 (Wednesday). The eye is clearing out nicely on both satellite AND radar. I see Dolly coming in as a nice category-2 storm.

Unfortunately, I see this sitting helplessly at my desk at work ;-(

[MClarkson]

Well pressure supports a cat 2, but recon winds havent caught up yet. Radar shoes gaps in the eyewall and the last plane confirmed this. KBRO is at tropical storm strength(G51) but is a little inland and a little on the weak-side. The eyewall is almost upon South Padre Island... i hope some of the chasers there are getting a nice daylight show.

[cdcollura]

Good day,

Latest advisory has 95 MPH ... Just about a min Cat-2 and 967 MB pressure.

Hurricane-forced winds are currently on the coast near Port Isabel.

On radar, a double-eyewall presentation is clearly visible (outer eyewall is closed, inner one is a bit open / ragged).

[Brendon Lindsey]

Hey CD I truly feel sorry for your choice not to go, because now the hurricane would be a fun one to experience. But I understand how you would gamble with it seeing its so close to Mexico... and passports and what not haha are no fun I assume.

[Charles Kuster]

As of 10am eastern, Dolly is now a cat 2 with 100mph winds and a central pressure of 964mb. The storm has not made much westward progress recently and still seems to be about 25 miles east of Port Isabel. However, the storm should move WNW or NW soon and should make landfall near Arroyo City.

The eye appears to be slightly more ragged than it used to be based on the latest IR satellite. Radar also shows that the inner eye wall is not closed and most of the western and northwestern side lacks deep convection. However, the storm should still make landfall as a cat 2 or maybe strong cat 1. Good luck to anyone chasing!

Just looking at the Corpus Christi radar and the Brownsville radar, the north side of the storm is looking very dry now. This bulk of the northern eye wall and storm is going to hit pretty much the best spot for it to hit, Kenedy County.

Just did a search about Kenedy County and found that there is nobody there. In 2000, the population was 414 people for a land mass and has the distinction of having the fourth lowest-population of any county in the United States. So Dolly is hitting the King Ranch which is 825,000 acres and is most of the County.

[cdcollura]

Good evening (EST) all...

Dolly inland now with 75 MPH winds, but still has a remarkedly clear eye for an "over land" system.

Also, I noticed a strange "soft spot" in the northern eyewall just at landfall earlier this afternoon. I noticed exactly the same thing as Katrina hit Florida on 8-25-2005.

I wonder if this was interaction with land, or some "northerly shear"? Just an interesting thing I noted. In 2005, the deepest convection was also displaced to the south as well (over Miami, FL). I noticed with Dolly today, the same convection was SOUTH of the center, over the Mexican border.

[Blake Michaleski]

Chris, as noted, both weakening in the north eyewall in Dolly and Katrina (FL)... these are both the right semicircle.

Hurricane Dennis in 2005 is a similar thing as well on the right semicircle, in this case the eastern eyewall as it came ashore just west of Navarre Beach, FL in the panhandle.

Not quite sure of the mechanism myself..... Dr Sytske Kimball of the University of South Alabama's Center for Hurricane Intensity and Landfall Investigation (CHILI) is heavily involved in the research of landfalling TCs and their interaction with land. In years to come we should know much more about these interactions.