Paloma was upgraded to hurricane status yesterday during the evening.  It is now a category 1 storm with sustained winds of 90mph.  The minimum central pressure is 974mb (millibars).  Remember the lower the pressure, the stronger the storm.  It is on a NNE track at 6mph.  It’s still forecast to move towards central Cuba.  However, the models (in general) are coming in a little stronger.  It’s possible now that the hurricane may reach major (category 3+) status.  The National Hurricane Center comments on this, and specifically mentions the GFDL and HWRF models.  Forecasts are for Paloma to weaken before landfall, but it is still forecast to make landfall as a hurricane.  Again, I mentioned in my previous post the beating that Cuba has had from tropical systems already this year. 

I’ve looked at the the tracks of the models and I still don’t see any indications of it heading towards us in the long term.