From the Sun-Sentinel weather blog: Keys orders mandatory evacuation of visitors

As Hurricane Ike maintains a course toward the Florida Keys, officials in the island chain this afternoon ordered a mandatory evacuation of visitors beginning at 9 a.m. Saturday.

A phased evacuation of all residents begins Sunday at 8 a.m.

Times and regions are as follows:

• Lower Keys and Key West: 8 a.m.;
• Middle Keys including Marathon: Noon;
• Upper Keys including Key Largo, Islamorada and mainland Monroe County: 4 p.m.

The recent shift in the track of Hurricane Ike makes this necessary.

From Dr. Jeff Masters we learn: The U.S. is getting pummeled this hurricane season

With hurricane season less than half over, it’s clear that the U.S. is taking an unusually harsh beating this year. Already, we’ve had two Category 2 hurricanes (Dolly and Gustav), two strong tropical storms (Edouard and Fay), and now a third strong tropical storm or Category 1 hurricane (Hanna). Hanna is the fifth consecutive named storm to hit the U.S., tying a record. The other years this happened (kudos to NOAA’s Ryan Sharp for compiling this):

2004 (Frances, Gaston, Hermine, Ivan, and Jeanne)
2002 (Edouard, Fay, Gustav, Hanna, and Isidore)
1985 (Gloria, Henri, Isabel, Juan, and Kate)
1979 (Bob, Claudette, David, Elena, and Frederic)
1971 (Doria, Edith, Fern, Ginger, Heidi)

There’s good chance that Ike will make it six consecutive strikes.

Is this where we start chanting USA! USA!

In the late 1980’s or early 90’s I got conned by a friend into doing some work at an attorney’s office. My contract when working for attorneys affords them fewer rights than the Microsoft End User License Agreement, essentially saying I will show up, they will pay me every time I show up, they have no expectation of anything actually happening as the result of my showing up. I am not interested in having definition arguments or law suits, so I avoid working for attorneys.

One of the partners at the firm was a woman who collected female attorney jokes. She may have been planning a book, or was just weird. In SoCal both are possibilities.

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Position: 33.3 N 78.8 W. [1 AM CDT]
Movement: North-Northeast [015°] near 21 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 70 mph.
Wind Gusts: 85 mph.
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 260 miles.
Minimum central pressure: 983 mb.

It is 30 miles south of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and 60 miles Southwest of Wilmington, North Carolina, just offshore.

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Position: 22.5 N 66.1 W. [1 AM CDT]
Movement: West-Southwest [255°] near 16 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 115 mph.
Wind Gusts: 140 mph.
Hurricane Wind Radius: 45 miles.
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 120 miles.
Minimum central pressure: 962 mb.

It is about 330 miles East-Northeast of Grand Turk island.

Tropical Depression Josephine
Position: 16.3 N 35.8 W. [10 PM CDT]
Movement: West-Northwest [295°] near 7 mph.
Maximum sustained winds: 35 mph.
Wind Gusts: 45 mph.
Minimum central pressure: 1006 mb.

It is 785 miles West of the Cape Verde Islands.

It has been downgraded.

Dot-ing Eyes

You have to sleep sometime.

[Editor: I haven’t taken a picture of Dot is some time because she was very slow to recover from an infection and I haven’t wanted to stress her. Well, she has been beating up the other cats for a week and looks much better. Yes, I had to use the flash, because my place is dark. I have excellent night vision, and lighting increases the cost of air conditioning. The camera is the only thing that wants a lot of light.]

Friday Ark