Dolly is getting ready to land on the US coastline at the Texas/Mexico border, near the mouth of the Rio Grande. The image below, taken at 9:15 on Wednesday clearly shows the hurricane’s eye:

She will be the first hurricane to affect the US coastline this year, and is likely to cause intense flooding along the Rio Grande valley. Maximum winds have reached 95 MPH, and the storm is likely to be border Category 2 when landfall occurs late this morning. Most areas will get 6-10 inches of rain with over a foot of precipitation in some locations.

Moist tropical air from Dolly is affecting Georgia, and was responsible for many of yesterday’s thunderstorms. As usual, amounts varied widely, with 1.19 inches in Marietta, .29 inches at Peachtree DeKalb, .28 inches at my Lawrenceville weather station and only .16 inches at Hartsfield airport. Athens remained dry.

Even though the rain amounts were less than what one might have hoped for in a drought, the sudden drop in temperatures–eight degrees in 11 minutes here–very gusty winds and at least five tornado warnings issued in Gwinnett County made it an interesting evening. Look for more of the same this afternoon as a cold front passes through.

Dolly has become the fourth named tropical system of 2008. Hurricane Center forecasters have been tracking this as a low pressure system since it was out in the Atlantic Ocean, and it recently caused heavy rainfall in Cuba and Jamaica.

Now located in the Caribbean Sea between Cuba and Honduras, Dolly is expected to cross the Yucatan Peninsula Sunday night before entering the Gulf of Mexico early Monday. By early Thursday, the storm is expected to make landfall somewhere near the Texas/Mexico border.

While it looks unlikely that Dolly will directly affect Georgia, she will tend to drive tropical moisture into the state, increasing the chance of thunderstorms as the week goes on. And, with landfall more than three days away, there’s still some potential for changes in the forecast path.