Jeff Snyder
EF5
Appears Ike has really pulled together during the past couple of hours and is developing more of an annular structure. I am a lot more concerned about Galveston and the bay area than I was earlier. This is going to be bad.
Tim
I agree in that the structure seems to be greatly improved compared to the past 48-72 hours. In fact, that "dead" zone between the inner and outer eyewalls appears to be filling in right now. However, if I loop the last ~1 hr of HGX radar data quickly, it certainly seems to me that the storm has lifted just north of NW lately. If the center manages to past east of Galveston (even by 15-20 miles), I think there will be a huge change in the damage potential in that community. Indeed, if Ike ends up landfalling just NE of Galveston, there will be strong offshore flow. In addition, RECON continues to find that the NE quad is the worst by some margin, so even wind destruction potential would be quite a bit reduced. I think there could be a multi-billion dollar difference if Ike manages to landfall NE of Galveston as opposed to landfalling SW of Galveston. It seems that most of the TX coast is still is ENE to NE winds, winds that are parallel to the shore, resulting in a lessened blow (so far) since there is some significant wind reduction associated with friction over the land. It looks to me that the worst conditions may well end up NE of Galveston now (between Port Arthur and Galveston). Of course, there only needs to be one wobble to the due west to bring Galveston back into the NE quad.
Galv. is sitting just outside the inner eyewall now...