Irene is ashore and maintaining it's strength at least from an advisory standpoint. Actually the pressure dropped a bit this AM for a few hours even after landfall. It should be noted that it came ashore in a swampy/marshy area with lots of water so it's not surprising that it's barely holding it's own right now. From a satellite perspective through it does look like she's decaying...slowly though. So far the death toll is up to 4 and 650,000 are without power in VA and NC...so far....

Landfall was @ Cape Lookout, NC...and she came ashore packing winds of 80-90 MPH with gusts to over 100. The highest wind gust was from Cedar Point Ferry Terminal, reporting a gust to 115 MPH. Atlantic Bch had a gust to 101 and New Bern topped of @ 84 MPH...

Rainfall is impressive 6-12" or so being reported...her is a doppler indicated image of the amount of rain that's fallen...

Click on all the images to make them larger...

From a satellite standpoint here is the storm a few hours after landfall...looks pretty impressive for sure...

Right now the storm is not far from Cape Hatteras, NC...and will be re-emerging back into the W Atlantic later today...

The latest from the NHC is...

ABOUT 45 MI...70 KM WNW OF CAPE HATTERAS NORTH CAROLINA
ABOUT 95 MI...155 KM S OF NORFOLK VIRGINIA
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...85 MPH...140 KM/H
PRESENT MOVEMENT...NNE OR 15 DEGREES AT 13 MPH...20 KM/H
MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...950 MB...28.05 INCHES

It should pass near or just to the east of NYC sometime tomorrow AM...winds should be in the 50-70 MPH range there...everything in NYC is now shut down...subways/trains/buses/arriving flights...the "city that never sleeps" is taking one big weekend nap it seems like. Rainfall amounts there are forecasted to be 5-10+"...with lesser amounts across the eastern part of the region, where the winds will be stronger...

The positive is that the storm will be moving along and won't stall creating insane amounts of rain. The bad news is that NYC just broke their August record for rainfall...old record was 12.36". I wonder if this may turn into their wettest month ever? Also points out with such saturated soils up there, why there may be lots of trees down hence power outages tomorrow.

More on Irene as I get information...and of course tonight @ 6/9/10...

Our weather today is tame. Readings as of this writing are close to 88 and we should finish the afternoon near 90 or above in some areas on the south side of town. A weak trof has just passed through, switching our winds to the N...also, in a nod to the wetness farther north of here, allowing the dewpoints to actually rise behind the wind shift line. Ahead of it...dews are in the 50s-65...behind it dews rise to the 70s, so it may get muggier as the afternoon goes along. As of this writing KCI dewpoint was 59, St Joe's was 71 and Fall City's was 75...all now with light north winds.

I'll still keep the rain chance in the forecast for tomorrow PM, as a small disturbance should ripple through the area...the NAM doesn't really give us anything, the GFS which never really did...now does...something is going on in there...timing would be from lunchtime onwards from NW to SE...

A perhaps better chance will come Monday night into Tuesday as a stronger disturbance along the leading edge of some hotter air moves into the region. There should be one pretty hot day on THU before a cold front moves through the area...

Joe