#Ike Category 4 and not weakening overnight [OVERNIGHT SATELLITE IMAGE + 5 Day Track]

Aove: Note the mass of Hurricane Ike tracking east of southern Florida.

NVDL: This is very very worrying. Ike is scheduled to weaken from Category 4 (now) to Category 2 on Tuesday before strengthening again. The critical issue right now is that vital weakening forecast must actually take place. If Ike does not weaken substantially this storm will enter the Gulf and strengthen even further into an absolute monster.

Ike has become a large system packing 135mph winds overnight and overland. Minimum central pressure is quite low at 949mb. Ike is moving westward at 15mph. Ike is expected to track northwards on Monday, after clearing Cuba and finally entering the Gulf. Isolated areas may get 20 inches of rain.

clipped from news.yahoo.com PROVIDENCIALES, Turks and Caicos - Hurricane Ike damaged most of the homes on Grand Turk island as it roared onto the Bahamas, raked Haiti's flooded cities with rain and threatened the Florida Keys on its way to Cuba as a ferocious Category 4 storm Sunday. People have been cowering in closets and under stairwells and "just holding on for life. They got hit really, really bad," he told The Associated Press Sunday morning. "It's looking terrible," said reserve police officer Henry Nixon from inside a shelter on the Bahamas' Great Inagua Island, where about 85 people huddled around a radio. "All we can do is hunker down and pray." "Everybody is very concerned because of the strength of this one.