UPDATE: This is the new data through the 8^th, and they have shifted down from a top temperature of 33° to 32°. There is still a huge pool of warmer water in the Western Gulf.

This is what the Gulf looked like on the 6^th, and based on the new track forecasting for Ike which is pointing at central to south Texas, it isn’t good news for weakening the storm prior to landfall unless it is really moving slowly and churns up the Gulf, bringing up the cooler water underneath.

There is a ridge of high pressure that currently runs from Brownsville, Texas [26N,97W] across the Gulf to the Atlantic East of Lake Okeechobee [27N,81W -the big dot on the maps of South Florida]. Ike will be bouncing along that ridge, which is why all of the tracks now turn the storm from West-Northwest to West after it enters the Gulf.

Southern Command is reporting the diversion of the USS Kearsarge, a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship, to Haiti to assist in the relief operations on the island nation as the result of being hit or sideswiped by four tropical cyclones.

Dr. Jeff Masters recommended the Lambi Fund of Haiti if you would like to donate to the recovery because the Fund doesn’t just provide immediate relief, but has programs to remediate some of the environmental damage that makes heavy rain in Haiti so devastating.

Go over to MSNBC and read ‘Water bear’ survives naked in space

A tiny, six-legged critter that can suspend all biological activity in extreme environments survived a journey to space that would have instantly killed any human and most other life forms.

In the first test of its kind, researchers exposed the hardy segmented creatures, called “water bears,” to the open and harsh vacuum of space, with all its deadly radiation, on a spacecraft in low-Earth orbit. Many of them survived.

The definition of the environment necessary for life keeps changing.

Position: 21.9 N 81.5 W. [1 AM CDT 0600 UTC]
Movement: West-Northwest [290°] near 13 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 80 mph.
Wind Gusts: 95 mph.
Hurricane Wind Radius: 35 miles.
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 175 miles.
Minimum central pressure: 967 mb.

It is just offshore just South of the Zapata Peninsula.

It is moving along the Southern Coast of Cuba and is expected to go ashore on the Western tip of the island tomorrow.