Water Temperature Update
UPDATE: This is the new data through the 8th, 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 6th, 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.
