Here are some good sites to watch a hurricane:
There's a whole list of links elsewhere on ambergriscaye.com

http://www.midatlanticwx.com/modelmap.htm

http://megaopps.8m.com/models.html

http://www.nrlmry.navy.mil/tc_pages/tc_home.html

http://www.crownweather.com/tropical.html

http://weather.msfc.nasa.gov/GOES/goeseasthurrir.html


//AmbergrisCaye.com/hurricane/links.html

Thank you Cap'n Jesse

Thanks. Yes, I found some other good links too.

They say Ivan will pull-up towards us. I know Jesse is trying to keep hurricane hysterics to a minimum, but this one came in on a classic low-track. So far he has gone south of the "official forecaster's" predictions and is now 150 miles further south than where our National Hurricane Center placed him 48 hours ago.

Am I screaming a warning to Belize - no, he'll probably do what they say. Still though, if I were down there I would want to be looking at it.

I spent several hours today jerry-rigging some plywood patches into our open roof vent. After Charley blew the cover back, he at least left the top part sealed to the roof for diverting rain. Frances was only 50mph here on the SW coast of Florida, but was here for 30 hours! It ripped the remaining top flap off and let the rain pour down into the vent hole like a drain! So I took some plywood and cut approximate patches and then screwed some cross-members in for bracing. I managed to slip the cross members snug between the roof plywood and the zinc and then injected foam into the gaps. The spray foam expanded and set and should at least keep the tropical downpours out.

Pretty boring stuff, except for the fact that we started to get wallboard damage 3 weeks after the hurricane. You can't get contractors for small jobs. There are literally hundreds of thousands of people looking for roofing help. The state is a disaster area from Gainsville south to Ft Lauderdale. If I had a 45 foot ladder I could do it myself.

Ivan spun-up just prior to hitting Grenada. Reports say he destroyed the Prime Minister's house as well as the emergency operations center. 9 deaths at first count. He then got 15mph stronger after leaving Grenada. Official comment said damage in St George capitol was "incalculable"...

As I live the dream and own my little piece of heaven on Bonaire, Ivan is a huge worry, and is doing the unexpected. There has not been a hurricane near there for almost 70 years. I was just on the phone with folks there, and they report that it is very dark, and very still. They say it is a serious situation for them. Island electricity will be planned shut-off in a few hours, a very smart thing to do. My prayers go out to those on this tiny island, and I hope somehow a miracle happens and they do not take a direct hit. A tropical wave there a few years ago damaged alot of the leeward waterfront. I hope to find my house still standing. Mother nature has a crazy sense of humor. I think the folks in Belize take all tropical weather seriously, and will be watching closely, and I hope it takes a path away from the area. The sad thing though is that everytime you wish it away from on area, you are wishing devastation on some place else. The price of paradise sometimes comes high.

Very true DB.
--Lee

Ivan is getting very serious now at 150mph and improving in appearance. He could match some historic storms in intensity at this point in this location.

From the satellite animation I would suggest Bonaire was just clipped by lesser hurricane winds on the outer edge of the weaker west side of the cyclone. There were probably huge waves on the north shore. The eye missed the island to the north by about 100 miles.

Dr Steve Lyons of The Weather Channel suggests Ivan is behaving like many classic low-tracking powerful Caribbean storms and cutting its own path through the steering currents. These storms tend to keep going straight towards Central America.

Today's return to a mostly west heading should notch up concern in Yucatan areas to start watching with interest. The storm is expected to pull-up towards Jamaica and head NW towards the Gulf Of Mexico, however Ivan has now defied official track predictions for 3 straight days and stayed south of predicted course.

Ivan is settling at 150mph and 938 pressure before entering an area of the Caribbean known to strengthen storms. Every possibility should be allowed for Ivan to become a cyclone of Gilbert or Mitch-like strength in the next day...

Until Ivan pulls north all Caribbean interests should be on alert...

So whats your gut telling you Jesse?
I know we have seen these before. A hunch? Wild ass guess? dart board?
cool the jets till friday?

FROM CH5TV:
Is Hurricane Ivan a threat to Belize?

It's still a long way across the Caribbean but a look back into history, both near and far, tells us that Hurricane Ivan, located just north of the Dutch ABC Islands, bears close watching. News 5's Stewart Krohn did some research and found that the only thing we really know about hurricane forecasting...is that we don't know.

While conventional wisdom, not to mention the Weather Channel, invariably has hurricanes that begin in the Atlantic tracking to the north through Hispaniola, Jamaica or Cuba, a look at the paths of major storms affecting Belize shows that many stay on a westerly heading right up to landfall. The great-unnamed hurricane of 1931, for example, made only the gentlest of northerly swings before slamming into Belize City on September 10th. Hurricane Janet, in 1955, had almost the exact same origins as today’s Ivan, hitting both Barbados and Grenada before devastating Corozal Town . Hattie in 1961, proved that no hurricane can be trusted, as it made an abrupt left turn as if drawn by a magnet to the Belize coast. Even more erratic was the killer called Mitch that literally made a circle of devastation around Belize as if some unseen force ordained that 1998 would not be our year for pain. Our luck was short lived, of course, as Hurricane Keith pounded the north in 2000, Iris massacred the South in 2001 and Tropical Storm Chantal flooded Orange Walk and Corozal that same year. In 1974, Fifi and Carmen demonstrated that hurricanes can maintain long westerly tracks while Greta did the same thing in 1978. What all this data means is simply that even with all their satellites, radar and super computers, scientists still cannot tell us with much confidence where today’s hurricane will be in two or three days time.

Stewart Krohn for News 5.

The best website to find the tracks of past hurricanes is www.csc.noaa.gov. Viewers are advised to pay close attention to the official forecasts from Belize's Meteorology Department, as, unlike U.S. based weather services, our experts are paying prime attention to Belize's interests and not those of Uncle Sam. By this time Thursday we should have a pretty good idea of what kind of plans we'll need to make for the long holiday weekend