Going into the eye of Ike

This is what it looks like when a weather buoy goes into the eye -- winds go up, air temperature and pressure drop dramatically. Unfortunately, that may have been the end of this buoy -- it had not reported for more than 2 hours after these readings.

This buoy is (maybe was) about 123 miles southeast of Galveston, about 13 miles from the 4 p.m. position of the Gulf-eating Hurricane.

-steve buser

Hurricane Ike splashing and spitting in Gulf

The buoy in the Gulf south of Dauphin Island, AL is giving us a good picture of the power of Hurricane Ike more than 200 miles away from it. The photo shows the wind speed and below are the readings (both at 8:50 a.m. CDT) Info from the National Data Buoy Center of NOAA.

	Wind Speed (WSPD):	29.1 kts
	Wind Gust (GST):	36.9 kts
	Wave Height (WVHT):	24.9 ft

--steve buser