Hurricane Wilma continues to set records of sorts. She’s developed into a Category 5 hurricane, with winds of up to 175 miles an hour. This morning, the barometric pressure in the eye was 882 mb, or 26.05 inches of mercury. As the 21st named storm of the year, she ties a record set back 1933. And, after two major category five storms this year in Katrina and Rita, no one in Florida is taking any chances.

Click the picture of Wilma above to see a larger version, courtesy of NOAA.

While forecasters have been talking about Wilma striking the West coast of Florida sometime overnight Saturday night, her exact path ultimately depends on her interaction with a low pressure system currently over the midwest. The assumption that Wilma will strike Florida, and then move up the East Coast to New England is based on the idea that the low, by then over the Great Lakes, will draw Wilma up, essentially combining the two storms.

However, another possibility exists where the two storms don’t interact at all. If that were to happen, Wilma might not even make the Florida coast, stalling before she gets to the Gulf of Mexico, hitting the Yucatan peninsula, and then rotating towards Cuba.

The National Hurricane Center admits that it is not as confident of the path and timing of Wilma as it had been previously. Meanwhile, here in Georgia, we sit between the two storms, enjoying weather that is 10 degrees above normal. Enjoy it now, because after whatever weather we get this weekend, it’s going to be below normal through the middle of next week.

The Weather Service has identified a new tropical depression, TD 24, that expected to move into the Gulf of Mexico sometime late this week, and could affect Georgia’s weather next weekend.

The storm is expected to become Tropical Storm Wilma on Monday, and could be a hurricane by midweek:

The storm has 35 MPH winds, and is moving very slowly to the west. Development is presently being hindered by the high pressure system over the southeast that is bringing Georgia such wonderful weather, but conditions should switch by midweek and allow the storm to move towards the western tip of Cuba. From there, the GFS forecast has the storm moving towards the eastern Florida panhandle, then over middle Georgia to the Atlantic Ocean. After that, the storm moved up the east coast in a manner similar to what happened to the remnants of Tropical Storm Tammy, which brought 8 days of rain in a row to the New York and New Jersey areas. Here are some total rainfall amounts from Monday the 10th through Saturday the 15th:

Milford, CT: 14.00
New London, CT: 8.87
Ridgewood, NJ: 7.07
JFK Airport: 11.18
Central Park: 8.84

Wading River, Long Island appears to have had the most rainfall, with 17.82 inches between Tuesday afternoon and Saturday. This is the second wettest October, and the fourth wettest month of all time for Central Park. What New England doesn’t need is a third major rain event this month, but it looks like they might get it.

This morning’s low temperature dropped below 50 for the first time since May 8th. That puts us about right on schedule - the last few years have seen the first below 50 temperatures sometime early in the third week of the month. Things could be cooling down considerably after this week. By next Monday or Tuesday, highs could be in the 60s, with lows possibly down below 40 degrees.