Hurricane Charley

Pre-Landfall 2 | Summary
Posting Date: August 11, 2004, 4:00:00 PM

Hurricane Charley, the third named storm of the 2004 Atlantic hurricane season, was upgraded this afternoon from tropical storm status to a Category 1 hurricane. As of 2 p.m. EDT, the eye of Hurricane Charley was located about 90 miles (150 km) south of Kingston, Jamaica. Charley is moving west-northwest at about 18 mph (30 kph). NOAA’s National Hurricane Center expects a gradual turn to the northwest over the next 24 hours with Charley passing just to the west of Jamaica, threading between the Cayman Islands, and across Cuba. Forecasts indicate that Charley will cross the Florida Keys on Friday morning, making a landfall of Florida’s west coast on Friday afternoon. Maximum sustained winds are currently near 75 mph (120 kph), with tropical storm force winds extending outward up to 115 miles (185 km) from the center. The latest reported minimum central pressure is 993 mb (29.31 in). Tropical storm warnings are issued for Jamaica and hurricane warnings for the Cayman Islands. A hurricane watch is in effect for western Cuba and the Florida Keys. The National Hurricane Center expects Charley to continue to strengthen over the next 24 hours. Using the most recent information about the meteorological parameters of this storm, the AIR tropical cyclone modeling team has run hundreds of scenarios representing a variety of assumptions about the storm’s future track and intensity. Five of these are now posted on the scenarios page of this web site, where CATRADER® and CLASIC/2™ clients can view wind speed and loss maps. Please note that the loss estimates provided are for the U.S. and Caribbean combined. In addition, event sets representing the full range of simulated scenarios are now available for download. Please note that there is still considerable uncertainty surrounding the future track and meteorological parameters of this storm. AIR will continue to monitor Charley and will post additional information as warranted.

Pre-Landfall 2 | Downloads
Posting Date: August 11, 2004, 4:00:00 PM