Hurricane Screamer

Hurricane Rina is now losing strength as quickly as it gained it over the last few days. It’s also on track to loop around abruptly towards the south after Friday.

Currently, Rina is on the verge of being downgraded to a tropical storm. As of the 5 AM advisory, Rina had winds of 75 MPH and a central pressure of 988 MB. Rina is being sheared apart, is approaching land and is pulling in some drier air. The NHC predicts that Rina will steadily weaken over the next few days.

The track still looks strange to me, but at least there’s a loop instead of a bounce. Maybe it is that the frontal system that will push Rina southward was so far in the future, the models could not interpret the shape of the track accurately. Whatever the cause of the oddly shaped track, it still shows Rina heading due south after heading north. Rina is forecast to reach its northernmost point on Saturday.

I still have my doubts about the extent of the turn, but it’s looking less likely by the day that the US coast is in danger from Rina.

The area of storms named Invest 97 is showing less signs of organization, and the NHC is writing that there is a zero percent chance of it becoming a tropical storm. However, the system is still there, and still moving towards the northwest. It might move into a better environment, so I’m continuing to watch it.

Rina has gained so much strength since yesterday’s post, it’s rated as a category two storm. As of the 11 AM advisory, Hurricane Rina had winds of 105 MPH and a central pressure of 971 MB. Rina is forecast to gain even more strength – 120 MPH winds are expected by this time tomorrow.

The track forecast is very strange. Up to Friday, the storm is expected to take a gentle turn towards the northwest and then north. After that, the track looks like the storm is bouncing off of a ceiling as Rina suddenly turns back towards the south with no apparent slowing or looping. The tracks vary widely as to the eventual direction of Rina, but not the bounce.

I’m not entirely sold on this track, but I’ve been wrong before. I’m keeping an eye on it.

A storm system south of Hispaniola is trying to organize. It’s moving in a general northwest direction that will take it between the Yucatan and Cuba, and then out into the Gulf of Mexico. The system, called Invest97, is moving into a better environment (the same environment that spawned Rina) which will increase its chances, currently 30 percent, of becoming a named storm.

I didn’t see this one coming, but still, I shouldn’t be too surprised. We’re still at least a month away from the end of the tropical weather season.

Last evening at 5 PM, the NHC began advisories on Tropical Depression 18. As of 5 AM this morning, TD 18 has been upgraded to Tropical Storm Rina. At the moment, Rina is in the western Caribbean, several days away from the Yucatan. Initially, Rina is forecast to travel towards the Yucatan coast, and then make a sharp northern turn and head towards the eastern US Gulf coast.

This is a slow-moving storm and it will take at least another week for any danger to become apparent to the Gulf Coast. As of the 5 AM advisory, Rina had winds of 40 MPH and a central pressure of 1003 MB.

After I put up my post yesterday morning, I thought to check the Weather Underground’s tropical weather page to see if the storm was being tracked. In fact, it is, and under the name Invest 95.

Invest 95′s track now shows the storm moving either directly over St. Simons or just south in about 48 hours. This does not square with the forecast rainfall over the next two days which is to stop sometime on Wednesday. Either the forecast is wrong, in which case it will be updated and rain will continue through Thursday, or the storm will lose so much force as to just pass over us with no rain. I tend to trust the tracks too much to doubt those even though I know they will change.

As usual, we will have to wait for the future to see how it unfolds.

Is this how the 2011 season goes not – not with a whimper but with a bang?

There is a large cyclonic storm system with an embedded to of 1003 MB between western Cuba and eastern Cancun that is moving towards the north. That is, it’s moving directly towards Panama City, Florida. This storm system is not dangerous in the tropical storm sense, but it may produce a lot of rain tomorrow for coastal Georgia.

The local forecast for tomorrow predicts that we will get more than an inch of rain. A lot of that may depend on the direction of the storm over the next 48 hours. Yesterday, the storm was said to be moving towards the NW, today that has shifted towards the N. If that trend continues, the storm might turn more towards the NE and get closer to St. Simons.

I note that many northerly-moving storms that form in that area eventually turn towards the northeast. These storms usually form in June, not in October, but this season has been a little backwards.

The forecast shows the following rain amounts starting 2 AM Tuesday:

• 2 AM to 8 AM – .05 inches
• 8 AM to 2 PM – .35 inches
• 2 PM to 8 PM – .55 inches
• 8 PM to 2 AM – .42 inches

Wind speeds peak at about 16 MPH, and the cloud cover will be near 100%. The temperature is forecast to be in the high 70′s.

I would expect there to be flood watches warnings for Florida, Alabama and Georgia.

Stay dry!

TS Philippe is not forecast to be a hurricane before it becomes a post-tropical storm in five days, but since its track is due to turn towards the west, I’ve decided to focus on it a bit.

The NHC believes that Philippe will nudge around several weather formations which will steer the storm first towards the northwest and then the west. After that, the NHC expects the storm to be post-tropical. I’m interested in what happens after that.

If there are no steering currents after the five day forecast period, I would expect Philippe to turn towards the northwest and eventually northward. This would place the storm making a pass past coastal Georgia in about ten days. The storm would be at least several hundred miles off our coast.

This is not an official forecast in any way, I’m simply writing an educated guess. I will track this storm closely over the next week, and see if it presents a threat at that time.

I know it’s been a while since my last post, but time caught up with me, and I had to see to some important tasks, including:

• I turned 53, what a party;
• Finally, after 23 years, gained the right to drive again;
• Turned out the last page of the raw HUD-1 form;
• Caught up with my three-month business cycle and inventory

During this time, I’ve kept up with threats from the 2011 hurricane season every day, and now there’s a new one. An area in the far eastern Caribbean now has an 80% chance to re-organize into TS Ophelia. The track on this storm still has it going almost straight north and will probably pose no threat to the eastern coast of the United States, but you never know.

I’m still actively watching for developments, as there are still two months before the end of the hurricane season.

Apologies for the lack of posts – both connection problems and government paperwork have held me back.

TS Maria is now close enough to the coast of the United States to get a sense if the storm will affect the Georgia Coast, and it looks like the effects will be minimal. The current five day track shows that Maria will miss Glynn County by some 600 miles sometime Wednesday afternoon. Of course, the track could change, so I’ll keep an eye on it.

Hurricane Katia is now passing by the Canadian Maritimes and is forecast to pass north of Ireland by Monday as a post-tropical storm. Tropical Storm Nate is forecast to make landfall on the Gulf coast of Mexico by tomorrow afternoon as a tropical storm.

The remnants of Lee have been a huge story in Pennsylvania over the last three days. The storm has forced mass evacuations and there’s been very bad flooding. Here’s a link to News.Google.Com if you would like to follow news of the floods.

TD 14 has been upgraded to a tropical storm, and has been named Maria. As of the 11 AM advisory, Maria had winds of 50 MPH and a central pressure of 1003 MB. The five day forecast shows Maria being a strong tropical storm with 65 MPH winds.

Hurricane Katia is passing Glynn County as close as it ever will, and causing rip tides. TD 14 might make a close pass to the US coast next week. A new tropical depression might be forming in the Gulf of Mexico.

Hurricane Katia now has winds of 90 MPH and a central pressure of 973 MB. At the moment, Katia is approximately 700 miles from the Georgia coast and will get no closer. Katia is forecast to make a fairly sharp turn towards the north then the northeast and continue out into the northern Atlantic. That’s not to say we’re not getting an effect. There are rip tides and large swell warnings for the beaches here today which extend through at least tonight.

Tropical Depression 14 hasn’t really hit an good environment yet, but the NHC seems to think that it will soon, and become at least a tropical storm. What is worrisome about TD 14 is its track: it shows another near pass of the Bahamas and the US coast. If the track is actually followed, TD 14 will get very close to the Outer Banks in about ten days. Keep in mind that tracks change all the time. It could be very different in five days.

As of the 5 AM advisory, TD 14 had winds of 35 MPH and a central pressure of 1006 MB. The NHC is predicting that TD 14 will gain strength, even if only because of the area in which the storm is traveling. They write this morning that the reasons for TD 14 not already being a tropical storm are not clear. The forecast calls for TD 14 being a named storm by tomorrow, and a minimal hurricane in five days. If it does become a named storm it will be called Maria.

A new tropical depression may be forming in the southwest Gulf of Mexico. A Hurricane Hunter aircraft will be on station to observe the storm at around 2 PM ET. The tracks I have seen from Weather Underground show that the storm is likely to travel towards New Orleans, but I’ll wait for the official track from the NHC.