The BBC has an amazing slide show of about ten photos on Felix here, including this shot from the AP:

The death toll has risen to 65, although it's expected to rise even further, and tens of thousands are homeless.

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Check out this image from inside the eye of Felix by Hurricane Hunter Randy Bynon.

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There's a number of interesting stories today relating to hurricanes and tropical weather. Not the least of which is Felix, which slammed into Nicaragua's coast as a category 5 storm. (This would be the first year two category five storms made landfall, I believe.) In addition to that record, Felix made landfall the same time as hurricane Henriette in the east Pacific (landing on the Cabos resorts of Baja California.) This is believed to be the first time that an Atlantic and East Pacific storm have made landfall on the same day. (Although Andrew and Lester hit within several hours of each other. Jesse will probably have more on this.)

Felix weakened quickly after hitting land, but the there's still a rainfall threat particularly over the mountainous terrain of Central America. The area hit by Felix is relatively remote, and it may be a while before we have a clear picture of what has happened. Nicaragua moved 12,000 people before the storm, and Honduras evacuated 5,000 residents and 3,000 tourists.

Felix round-up from Google News

The hurricane forecasting team of William Gray and Phil Klotzbach are still calling for more storms. They've downgraded their total by one, predicting six more storms which would be an above-average season. Of course, we're only on "F" and have set a few records.

And Canada of all places is being warned to be ready for a stormy autumn. Of course that's eastern Canada. The Canadian Hurricane Centre says that conditions are right for a busy end to the season for that country. They may be looking at the models calling for a storm to form off the east coast of the U.S. and (some models say) move north.

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Felix actually strengthen overnight and made landfall as a category 5 storm on the northeastern coast of Nicaragua. It's expected to have an 18' storm surge and produce 5-10 inches of rain, with up to 20 inches in the mountains. Here's a current sat shot:

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I'm definitely hurricane'd-out but wanted to post a few more thoughts before the evening is over. KHOU has an interesting article about the Honduran community in Houston and Hurricane Mitch. I think it's behind a free registration wall (I'm signed up with just about every one of these sites so it's hard to tell sometimes.) Here's the link. A brief quote:

LoveFM, which is a national radio station in Belize, has put together a Hurricane Felix page here. In addition to news it looks like they're going to pass along photos of Felix via Flickr. They have a NEMO update (no, not the fish) posted.

Lastly, it's possible the U.S. may be dealing with a tropical threat soon. The Model Spray™ is all over the, ah, map as it were. This is what it looks like at the moment:

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Here's a comparison of the tracks of Mitch in '98 and Felix:

I assume Mitch moved slower and that was part of the reason for the high rainfall rates. The NHC has Felix moving through Honduras in about 24 hours.

The latest NHC advisory has Felix as a category 4 storm, with winds of 145 mph and gusts to 165.

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Authorities in Honduras and Nicaragua and not mincing words about Hurricane Felix as they told coastal residents to 'flee for their lives' according to this IOL article. The storm is raising the specter of a Mitch-like disaster. Hurricane Mitch was the slow-moving 1998 category five storm that dropped up to 75 inches of rain (according to some unofficial reports) on parts of Honduras and Nicaragua. 11,000 people died and 8,000 were left missing by the end of 1998 - the second deadliest Atlantic hurricane in history.

The IOL article goes on to mention that one of the NOAA planes flying into Felix had to turn back because of a "rapid updraft-downdraft cycle" that put four Gs on the plane.

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I mentioned here that it seemed like Felix had intensified from 0 to category 5 fairly quickly. Dr. Jeff Masters at the WunderBlog says the following:

You can read his post here. I'm still checking with the folks on AccuWeather about the intensification, but I have no reason to doubt what Masters writes here. I imagine that Wilma will still hold a record for pressure drop although there may be a footnote on that record now.

This is also the only time since records have been kept that the first two hurricanes of the Atlantic season both went to category 5 - Dean and now Felix. That alone is amazing.

Some other folks following the storm:
Jesse at AccuWeather.com
Brendan Loy for Pajamas Media
Central Florida Hurricane Center

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The NHC, AccuWeather.com and various computer models living inside computers have all shifted their track of Felix south. As a result, it seems more likely now that the storm will hit land somewhere in northern Honduras, sparing the Belize coast the full brunt of a category 5 storm. You can find the latest tracks here:

AccuWeather.com
NHC
Model runs

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Felix has been upgraded to a Category 5. A NOAA Hurricane Hunter aircraft reports seeing a gigantic irradiated dinosaur somewhere near the eye.

Here's a recent sat shot of Felix. On the left is the unaltered image, on the right I've superimposed a circle over the storm. It's remarkable how symmetrical it is. When you see a storm this round, with an eye this defined you know you have a well-oiled meteorological monster. Sort of like Henry.

A Record for Felix?
I'm not sure but this storm may have set some sort of record for speed of development. The NHC issued a tropical storm declaration on Saturday September 1, 2007 at 5:00 AM AST (Atlantic Standard Time) and now has called it a Cat 5 on Sunday, September 2, 2007 at 8:00 PM EDT (Eastern). That would be a total of 40 hours or something? If anyone out there can do that math let me know. I'm trying to carry the one and whatnot but it's just not working out.

Update: I can't find any records for Atlantic hurricane intensification beyond the record set in 2005 for Wilma. Wilma dropped 97 millibars in 24 hours, beating Gilbert in 1988 which had dropped 72 millibars in the same time period. Nothing in terms of the elapsed time from depression to category 5. Wilma was a TD on October 15 and category 5 on October 19 - four days or so later.

More: Jesse points to this page which discusses the Wilma pressure drop. I remember the Schaads were in Disney World when Wilma formed - we woke up the next day and checked the news and it had gone from nothing to a category five that might hit Orlando. I've uploaded the Disney Vacation Blog to commemorate the occasion.

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Felix has been upgraded to a category 4 storm. Here's an impressive shot of the storm courtesy NOAA. I think you can see Anderson Cooper waving from in there, if you squint just so.