04 August 2012
Chase likely as Ernesto strengthens, heads for Yucatan.

After some fits and starts, the pieces seem to be falling in place today—and the iCyclone team is close to starting a chase mission for Ernesto.

But this is not an easy decision.  

First off, the computer models are still giving conflicting signals about Ernesto—with some of the important ones still showing a weak storm.  But the models have been conflicted from the very birth of this cyclone—and despite all that, Ernesto has slowly and steadily beat the odds.  Perhaps in recognition of this, the National Hurricane Center has held steady with their prediction of a hurricane on the Yucatan by midweek.

Satellite imagery this evening shows a nice outflow pattern and an explosion of deep convection near the center.  We think the next 24 hr is going to get very interesting.

Even within the iCyclone team, there are significant disagreements about the future of Ernesto, and we've had some heated behind-the-scenes debates.  

But at a certain point, we have to reach conensus and make a decision about whether to chase Ernesto on the Yucatan.

And we'll make that decicion overnight tonight.