Floridians aren’t likely to experience anything close to the fury Hurricane Wilma unleashed Friday on Mexico’s northeastern Yucatan peninsula– a region dubbed the Mayan Riviera. The fickle late season atmospheric behemoth, only days ago the Atlantic Basin’s most intense hurricane in terms of barometric pressure, roared across Cozumel Island around 3:30 p.m. Friday. A NOAA weather buoy moored in the western Caribbean, 170 miles east of the Yucatan, clocked 96 m.p.h. gusts and detected 36 foot waves on Wilma’s periphery earlier in the day. Instrument payloads dropped by an Air Force Reserve reconnaissance flight suggests the vacation mecca of Cancun may well have absorbed catastrophic 150 m.p.h. winds.
Wilma’s energy-depleting encounter with the Yucatan lasts into Saturday. The storm should reach Florida toward Monday at Category 1 or 2 intensity (possessing 74-110 m.p.h. winds).
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Tom Skilling is chief meteorologist at WGN-TV. His forecasts can be seen Monday through Friday on WGN-TV News at noon and 9 p.m.
WGN-TV meteorologists Steve Kahn, Richard Koeneman and Paul Dailey plus weather producer Bill Snyder contribute to this page.
