Hurricane Rina this morning is at Cat. 2 strength and struggling a little bit. It’s path is uncertain. Both Crown Weather and Weather Underground mention various scenarios and few of the models agree. There are so many ‘ifs’ the National Hurricane Centre (NHC) has a path graphic with a huge balloon ‘trapping’ where the hurricane will end up. From the Yucatan Peninsular, Cayman Islands to the Florida Keys! Anyone want to place a bet? Dr. Jeff Masters (Weather Underground) reports that Rina has “brought sporadic heavy rain squalls to the Cayman Islands; George Town on Grand Cayman has received 4.76″ of rain over the past three days from Rina, as of 9 am EDT this morning.”

The major concern to us is Invest 97L which the NHC this morning is showing a 30% chance of developing into a tropical depression by Thursday. When I left home most of the models were showing major development of the storm into a hurricane with a dead hit at the Cayman Islands. On arriving at the office only one was showing any major development! However, as Rob Lightbown of Crown Weather says, “None of the global models are spinning up this disturbance even though it is clearly showing signs of organisation and development.”

Wherever this one goes, and even if it remains as a low, 97L is going to bring more heavy rain to the Cayman Islands by Friday morning.

I leave you with Mr. Lightbown’s final words of yesterday morning, “I think there is enough evidence in the satellite presentation and the forecast favourable environmental conditions to say that Invest 97L needs to be watched very closely over the next couple of days and interests in the Cayman Islands should pay particularly close attention to this system.”

For the full weather discussion go to Crown Weather Services at www.crownweather.com and to the National Hurricane Centre at www.nhc.noaa.gov/. We wish to thank Crown Weather for the permission to use their information. Please support them. Also look for the local advisories from the C.I. Government at www.weather.gov.ky