Hurricane "W"ilma comes from a place in the alphabet where hurricanes rarely emerge, though meterologists correctly predicted several late season storms this year. The 21st storm of the 2005 season ties this year with with 1969, which holds the record for number of hurricanes.
The storm is ferocious enough to wow former Hurricane Hunters who note with aplomb the stomach churning difficulties of flying into the hurricane eye:
"it's really tough to hit a 2 mile wide eye when you're flying crabbed over at a 30 degree yaw angle fighting horizontal flight level winds of 185 mph and severe turbulence".
I bet. Currently the forecasters predict that the storm will *weaken* to a Category 3 or Category 4 before hitting Florida then will track the NE coast perhaps to New England. It is now smaller then Katrina but that could change; optimistically, it is not estimated to generate the storm surge that Rita or Katrina did. There is more information at NOAA and here with intimidating satellite photos.
