Keith has all the makings of a big one. There is plenty of warm
wet air around him. He was pulling from the Pacific and the Gulf even
before he became much of a tropical storm. He could go Cat 5 or 200
mph.


Why hasn't he? Well, he's working on it, but he's close to land. He's
been wandering more or less toward land. Ambergris Caye and
northwards, that is. The land imposes friction on some of his winds.


As long as he keeps doing that, or if he turns northwestward or
north-northwestward and starts going somewhere, he's dead meat. He's
going over land and going to fizzle.


But the sonofabitch, despite all predictions, won't cooperate. As per the last post, he seems to have shifted his center to the SOUTHwest a few miles. Should he stay
out at sea, he'll continue to strengthen. Should he go out further,
which nobody believes will happen but nobody can be perfectly sure
won't happen, he could go Cat 5 and cause all sorts of hell.


The most likely probabilities are his blundering into land, somewhere
north of Belize City and south of Cozumel, before he strengthens above
100 miles an hour. That's the bet most of the island people are
making.


Frankly, on balance, this is no place for amateurs right now. First,
if folks are not here now, they're probably not going to be able to get
here for a while. Probably tomorrow is out of the question, too.
Monday, possibly, also. But anyway, amateurs wander around and
sightsee. Seasoned storm hands bunker up and sleep or otherwise
disport themselves, keep an eye on reports. People get guillotined by
flying roof tin, and that doesn't even take 50 mile an hour winds.


The thing started getting serious around sundown yesterday. The storm intensified during the night, as expected. By daybreak, flying and boating were scary, but feasible. The storm keeps building. By noontime, flying and boating will
probably be impossible. So the folks on the island are going to have to surf
what comes, hope the high probabilities turn out to be what happens.


[This message has been edited by Marty (edited 09-30-2000).]