Irene is expected to become a Category 3 hurricane today or tomorrow. She’s still heading north-west and forecast to go in a more northerly direction towards the Carolinas – Edisto Island, one of my favorite vacation spots, has a big target on it, I’m afraid.

At the moment hurricane force winds spread out 50 miles from the center of circulation and tropical storm force winds about 205 miles. (There’s a 20% chance of tropical storm force winds affecting my book signing on Friday)
Now to storm surge – they separated wind strength and surge height this year. Previously wind force category and storm surge height were pretty much assumed to be linked very directly but then things started to happen – or, at least, get noticed. Hurricane Charley (the story line in the book) was a Cat 4 but brought with it a “Cat 2″ storm surge – still enough to flood downtown Punta Gorda – and Hurricane Ike made landfall as a Cat 2 but delivered a “Cat 5″ surge. Studies showed that it’s not just wind strength but time spent over water at different wind strengths and the overall speed at which the storm is travelling that also have an effect. So now wind and water are forecast separately. Today’s forecast for Irene as a Cat 2/3 storm is for S.E. and Central Bahamas to suffer a 9 to 13 foot surge above normal tides and the whole of the Dominican Republic is forecast to see a 2 to 4 feet above normal tides. Hide from wind, run from water.