DAY 124

Hurricane Ophelia has been slowly decreasing in strength today. She is down to a Category 2 hurricane at 967 mb with sustained winds of 90 mph. Ophelia has swelled up in size and her eye has been filled in with clouds.

(Hurricane Ophelia)

She is expected to still be a hurricane tomorrow when she hits Newfoundland. Even though her eye is not visible any more, Ophelia is still a formidable storm. 90 mph winds can damage structures and cause storm surge problems in Newfoundland. There is still about 12 hours for Ophelia to weaken before landfall. She will likely be down to a Cat 1 or a strong tropical storm with winds near 70 mph. You can see in the microwave image that Ophelia's eye-wall is still mostly intact. That is where the strongest winds will be located. The rest of the hurricane force winds are concentrated on the east side. As Ophelia interacts with a frontal boundary, there could be very high rain totals in Newfoundland as a result of this storm.

(Hurricane Ophelia Visual Satellite)

(Hurricane Ophelia Microwave Satellite)

 Tropical Storm Philippe spent a good part of the day separated from his convection. He started to fire up some nice convection that tried to move over the center of circulation, but after I created this loop in my blog, that convection was quickly blown away by persistent shear from the north. Philippe is expected to start moving west and then WNW which could help him escape some of the shearing out there. But it won't be until he turns back to the east that he can make some good gains in strength.

(Tropical Storm Philippe)