Hurricane Felix Bats an Eye

'implicate' ?
Where's the attribution study showing America is responsible for Hurricane Felix? Or did you mean: 'Any track change could of course imply a landfall in the United States.'?

Grammatical awkwardness aside, there is strikingly little evidence to support the claim that "any track change could of course implicate the United States." Felix is very far south and there is a strong ridge of high pressure that will prevent any major turns to the north over the next 2-3 days. At most, southern Texas is the only part of the US that is "implicate[d]" in current NHC projections.

I'm gonna go with the following definition for this use of implicate

3. to connect or relate to intimately; affect as a consequence

You're right, this storm is pretty unlikely to come up through the Yucatan Channel. I probably shouldn't have put it that way.

However I stand by my use of the word "implicate"

My apologies, Chris. I did not find anything like ks's definition 3 in the dictionary I checked.

In any case, the latest forecast discussion has:

I see no reason why Felix will not become a major hurricane within 12 hours or so.

and:

There is more uncertainty in the 4 and 5 day forecast locations. The gfs shows a 500 mb trough over the central u.s. in about 5 days. This feature could erode the high over the gulf of Mexico and result in a more northward track near the end of the forecast period. For this advisory package only a slight northward adjustment is made to the 96- and 120-hour forecasts. The current NHC track forecast is also a little slower than the previous one at 3-5 days. In any event it should be recalled that the average track errors at 4 and 5 days range from over 200 miles to nearly 300 miles respectively...so one should not be focusing on the exact track at these extended ranges.

I expect public advisory 8 A will be out before this comment posts, with potentially another increment in the estimated surface winds.

The greatest danger, as Jeff Masters points out is rain-triggered mudslides, as occurred with hurricanes like Fifi and Mitch, among the deadliest on record. Should Felix drop tons of rain on Central America, we may see the US media largely ignoring a hurricane much deadlier than Katrina.

Having once hosted an exchange student from Belize, this one makes me a bit nervous. I don't think Belize City would do too well from a cat4 direct hit. I'm sure the oil traders are parsing every word of the forcasters quidance and would conclude that, there is still some low probability of a northwards turn.

So if this does reach cat 4, we would already have a cat5 & a cat4 before the season is half over!