Dean Radar, Buoy Info, Jamaica Next

Dean passed between the islands of Martinque and Saint Lucia last night. He looked pretty good on the Meteo France radar, showing an eye that wasn't well illustrated on satellite images. Webcams were not interesting and news was hard to come by Friday morning from the islands as the storm had knocked out phone communications. Dean is moving on to threaten other areas of the Caribbean and could seriously affect Jamaica Sunday night. Model tracks have stayed relatively steady.

The highest wind gust reported by the NHC was 59 mph at Fort-De-France, Martinique. The best way to measure a hurricane's wind is from buoys on the ocean, but these are few and far between. As reported yesterday, similar gusts were reported by a buoy (#41100) to the north of the storm. Dean's next closest pass to a buoy will be #42058 this weekend (unless the buoys to his north on the south shores of Puerto Rico and Hispanolia pick up anything interesting).