The National Hurricane Centre has issued its final Public Advisory on Tropical Depression Ike which is racing North-eastward 50 MPH. The Low pressure system that was Ike is still throwing down 3 - 5 inches of rain a long its track. There's still a slight risk of tornadoes in the area that Ike is forecast to speed through

Ike was an extremely costly hurricane. Many sites estimate the insuredl damages in Texas and Louisiana to be around $9 billion. You can add around $3 billion to that total thanks to the damage caused to the many oil platforms out in the gUlf of Mexico. Total hurricane damages is normally around double of the insured damages so that would make the total damage of Ike to around $26 billion. This would make Ike the third costliest hurricane in history and only two other hurricanes have caused more dmamage, Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Amazingly, the death toll from Hurricane Ike has been low. Hopefully it will stay that way as the damage is cleared up.

Elsewhere in the Tropics

We are now into a long awaited quite period for the Tropics. The area of disturbed weather (91L) which I mentioned briefly in my last blog has been completely destroyed by wind shear and dry air. however, there's another area of disturbed weather (92L) half way between Africa and the Lesser Antilles Islands. Around 25 knots of wind shear is over this area and it has got dry air to its west. The National Hurricane Center is giving this system a Low chance of developing into something significant. Conditions will remain unfavourable for the next five days.