Professor,

I'm digging now trying to get current information on Dean. Did it actually cross Cozumel? Do we know exactly when? If the tide was in and its a 914mb storm the island is only 45' tall at its highest. How much storm surge comes with pressure like that?

If this came to pass at high tide Cozumel could very well be Mexico's New Orleans. There are 71,000+ permanent residents and if they can't have evacuated all of them.

-SCT

It hasn't made landfall yet. The recon just measured 905 mb.

Where can we get current position and speed, preferably with a map of the area? The tracks I've seen so far put it going right over the top of San Miguel.

Oh, and Wikipedia says they took a direct hit from Wilma in 2005 - took the top 5' off every tree, ruined the sewers, basically scrubbed the island bare. And now they'll be getting it just as bad, if not worse, and that is before knowing if they'll be taking storm surge, too.

Lets hope their government is more competent than ours at dealing with such events.

Best place to look is easternuswx.com or wunderground.com (Jeff Masters' blog). They're the real weather geeks and they're talking about this all night, guaranteed.

Fly the flag a little whereever you guys go. We need news tips on this story, especially on those rigs and infrastructure.

Cozumel 20.30' 86.57'

Dean 2100 GMT 18.2' 84.2'
Dean 0300 GMT 18.4' 86.0'
Dean 0900 GMT 18.6' 87.8' (estimate)

Closest approach estimate 0800 GMT (as I post) - 1.75' x 1.25'- roughly 2 degrees or 138 miles? No surge, no eye, but still quite the mess.