It is a circle 350 miles across of at least tropical storm force winds. Inside is another circle 120 miles across of hurricane force winds. The winds around the eye are a sustained 160 mph.

The central pressure is 914 millibars and it is moving west [275°] at 20 mph.

The 10PM CDT position is 18.4N 86.0W or about 150 miles east of Chetumal Mexico and about 310 miles east-southeast of Campeche Mexico.

The tropical storm force winds are already hitting the coast of the Yucatan.

Update: the National Weather Service now says that a Hurricane Hunter aircraft is reporting sustained winds of 160 mph, making Dean a Category 5 storm [Hauptsturmfury in my terminology].

The National Weather Service isn’t going to give an inch or a measly 1 mph.

At 800 PM EDT the center of Hurricane Dean was located near latitude 18.2 north, longitude 85.1 west or about 210 miles east of Chetumal, Mexico. [Chetumal in on the border with Belize. It is the capital of Quintana Roo state, and has a population of 137,000.]

Hurricane force winds extend outward up to 60 miles from the center and tropical storm force winds extend outward up to 175 miles.

Maximum sustained winds: 155 mph. [Category 5 starts at 156.]

Minimum central pressure: 915 mb. [Without wind data, anything less than 920 would be considered Category 5.]

Movement: West at 19 mph.

Once it was clear that Dean was coming into the Gulf, and for a while Texas looked like a target things started to happen:

Texas Gov. Rick Perry mobilized the National Guard and search-and-rescue teams, shipped 60,000 to 80,000 barrels of gasoline to gas stations in the Rio Grande Valley, and got a pre-emptive federal disaster declaration from President Bush. The state also sent six C-130 aircraft to Cameron County in case any critically ill patients needed to be evacuated. Hundreds of buses were on standby for possible evacuations.

[Read more →]

They may be the MNF-I instead of MAC-V, and in a desert country instead of a jungle, but the this is the same agitprop that was being shoveled out to the press when Dick’s last name was Nixon, not Cheney.

McClatchy reports: U.S. says Iranians train Iraqi insurgents

BAGHDAD – For the first time, the U.S. military said on Sunday that Iranian soldiers are in Iraq training insurgents to attack American forces.

Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, a top U.S. commander who is in charge of a large swath of Iraq south of Baghdad, believes there are about 50 members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps in his battlefield area, military spokeswoman Maj. Alayne Conway said.

[Read more →]

Dean has left Jamaica behind but is still subjecting the Cayman Islands to tropical storm force winds, and is moving across the deep warm waters of the northwestern Caribbean. At 10AM CDT Dean is maintaining 150 mph sustained winds with gusts to 185. It is currently moving West [285°] at 20 mph. That extra 5° brings Bahia de la Ascensión back into Dean’s sights as it is tracking a little more to the north.

It is still on track for strengthening to a Cat 5.

Oh, people on the Atlantic Coast need to start checking as Invest 92L has appeared out to the East. With the weird weather, it may recurve and strike Italy, but something to keep in mind.

4PM Update: it is now moving West [275°] at 19 mph. This brings it ashore further south between Ascensión and the border.