Rina Is Falling Apart As It Approaches The Yucatan Peninsula
Rob Lightbown of Crown Weather Services

October 27, 2011, 5:41 am

Hurricane Rina:

Rina has been extremely fickle over the past 24 hours. After weakening rapidly from a 110 mph borderline Category 2/Category 3 hurricane to a 85 mph Category 1 hurricane yesterday, it tried to make a comeback last evening, however, the latest satellite imagery and reconnaissance reports indicate that Rina is becoming very ragged and some more weakening has occurred according to reconnaissance reports. It appears that Rina is barely a hurricane this morning and some more weakening is likely as the storm encounters increasing wind shear and land interaction with the Yucatan Peninsula; in fact, it appears that Cancun and Cozumel probably will not even experience hurricane force winds, but tropical storm force winds are likely in both places today through tonight.

Rina is tracking northwestward at a forward speed of 6 mph this morning and it appears that since Rina is much weaker than previously expected, it will weaken rapidly this weekend and the end result will be quite similar to Hurricane Paula from last year where it weakened and dissipated near Cuba and never regenerated. It is looking more and more likely that south Florida will escape any effects from Rina, however, a frontal system crossing the Florida Peninsula will cause widespread showers and thunderstorms to much of the Florida Peninsula from Friday afternoon through Friday night.

It should be mentioned that the European model performed extremely well with the forecast of Rina falling apart as it approaches the Yucatan Peninsula and the latest European model forecast indicates that Rina will track inland into the northeastern Yucatan Peninsula as it weakens tonight into Friday and then be shunted back to the east-southeast into the northwestern Caribbean by Saturday where it sit right into the middle part of next week. In fact, the European model is forecasting some regeneration of Rina by about Wednesday as it approaches the Yucatan Peninsula once again. If this happens, then we may be tracking what is left of Rina for several more days.

Rina Information