Tropical Storm Ernesto 3

Now this storm has taken a sudden twist. It had gone up the Florida peninsula as predicted, as a tropical depression. Last night (2006 August 30) it went out into the sea, but the forecasters were not predicting any great wind out of it. What they were predicting was a lot of rain. Channel 8's meteorologists (WRIC), the Global Forecasting System (GFS) and the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) were all predicting about 9 inches of rain for Richmond. That's a lot of rain. The downtown areas of Richmond got 10-14 inches with Gaston, flooding Shockoe Bottom and Falling Creek. The biggest amount of rain I have seen with a hurricane was 4.5 inches with Floyd in 1999.

This morning, I heard the storm strengthened from 40 to 50 mph. I found out why. It is going east of the earlier projected track. Instead of making landfall near Charleston or Myrtle Beach, it will now hit North Carolina instead, somewhere near Cape Fear. At 11 am on 2006 August 31, the wind speed was quoted as 60 mph by the National Hurricane Center, making it a Class 3 tropical storm. Will it make hurricane strength by landfall? And what is its affect on us, now? I notice that wind has crept into Richmond's forecast.

I compared Bertha in 1996, which struck just as SUUSI was beginning, with Floyd in 1999, which caused huge hog waste floods in eastern North Carolina. I copied their tracks from Weather Underground and added the two images together, using Paint Shop Pro. They had almost the same identical track. Even the intensities were comparable. If anything, Bertha came a little closer to here. However, the affects of the storms were markedly different in Richmond. Bertha only caused 25 mph winds, and I did not notice anything much when I looked at the storm that night. Floyd caused howling winds and blew down a few trees, causing many power outages. Why the difference? And which one is Earnesto like?

How about Charley in 2004? It came up the same way but farther west. It seemed to follow the same path as Ernesto now is. Charley did not affect us much, only the Tidewater area.

I think the difference between Bertha and Floyd may be that Floyd was much larger. It was a huge storm. So how large is Ernesto? To me it looks medium-sized. So I think this storm will not be as severe as Floyd, but maybe produce a lot more rain than Bertha did.

And yes, Typhoon Ioke. This is still on track to clobber Japan. Right now it is washing over Wake Island and making it part of the sea. Every run of GFS since Ioke became a typhoon has said that Ioke would strike Japan. The Japanese need to prepare for this one.

1700 EDT. I got some new data in. This storm's center is going practically over my house. So much of the wind and rain will be to the east of here, in Williamsburg and the Tidewater area. Also I note that unlike Bertha, Floyd, and Charley, this one is supposed to turn left and head towards us once it hits Cape Fear. I don't know why it's going to do that. But that would definitely increase its severity here.

Tropical Storm Ernesto 3

Now this storm has taken a sudden twist. It had gone up the Florida peninsula as predicted, as a tropical depression. Last night (2006 August 30) it went out into the sea, but the forecasters were not predicting any great wind out of it. What they were predicting was a lot of rain. Channel 8's meteorologists (WRIC), the Global Forecasting System (GFS) and the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) were all predicting about 9 inches of rain for Richmond. That's a lot of rain. The downtown areas of Richmond got 10-14 inches with Gaston, flooding Shockoe Bottom and Falling Creek. The biggest amount of rain I have seen with a hurricane was 4.5 inches with Floyd in 1999.

This morning, I heard the storm strengthened from 40 to 50 mph. I found out why. It is going east of the earlier projected track. Instead of making landfall near Charleston or Myrtle Beach, it will now hit North Carolina instead, somewhere near Cape Fear. At 11 am on 2006 August 31, the wind speed was quoted as 60 mph by the National Hurricane Center, making it a Class 3 tropical storm. Will it make hurricane strength by landfall? And what is its affect on us, now? I notice that wind has crept into Richmond's forecast.

I compared Bertha in 1996, which struck just as SUUSI was beginning, with Floyd in 1999, which caused huge hog waste floods in eastern North Carolina. I copied their tracks from Weather Underground and added the two images together, using Paint Shop Pro. They had almost the same identical track. Even the intensities were comparable. If anything, Bertha came a little closer to here. However, the affects of the storms were markedly different in Richmond. Bertha only caused 25 mph winds, and I did not notice anything much when I looked at the storm that night. Floyd caused howling winds and blew down a few trees, causing many power outages. Why the difference? And which one is Earnesto like?

How about Charley in 2004? It came up the same way but farther west. It seemed to follow the same path as Ernesto now is. Charley did not affect us much, only the Tidewater area.

I think the difference between Bertha and Floyd may be that Floyd was much larger. It was a huge storm. So how large is Ernesto? To me it looks medium-sized. So I think this storm will not be as severe as Floyd, but maybe produce a lot more rain than Bertha did.

And yes, Typhoon Ioke. This is still on track to clobber Japan. Right now it is washing over Wake Island and making it part of the sea. Every run of GFS since Ioke became a typhoon has said that Ioke would strike Japan. The Japanese need to prepare for this one.

1700 EDT. I got some new data in. This storm's center is going practically over my house. So much of the wind and rain will be to the east of here, in Williamsburg and the Tidewater area. Also I note that unlike Bertha, Floyd, and Charley, this one is supposed to turn left and head towards us once it hits Cape Fear. I don't know why it's going to do that. But that would definitely increase its severity here.

Super Typhoon Ioke

An update on this storm. Sure enough, Hurricane Ioke crossed the International Date Line and became Typhoon Ioke, with 150 mph winds. This caused some of the models to goof up, especially UKMET, and some displays (e.g., Wunderground) could not display west of 180 degrees. A few days later it displayed only west of 180 degrees and shows a course that takes it southwest, then northwest. This brings it out of earshot of all the models (I had especially been looking at GFDL) except GFS. Consistently over the runs, GFS has shown this typhoon will hit Japan, possibly with high winds, probably around September 7. Right now its target is Wake Island, which Ioke will probably flood the entire island and destroy everything on it.

Tropical storm Ernesto 2

This storm has turned away from the Gulf of Mexico. It is now headed our way, in Central Virginia. The latest guidance says, however, that it will not become a hurricane again. Its maximum strength will be a Class 4 Tropical storm, or storm storm (maximum speed between 64 and 73 mph), just shy of a hurricane, when it makes landfall in South Carolina. It then would go up into western Central Virginia near Lynchburg and continue on to the Great Lakes.

This is what the GFDL (Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory) model has been saying all along. This model is dependent not only upon the time in the future and the place, but the storm as well. Each storm has its own model run. The Ernesto GFDL runs first showed it going to eastern Texas. Then it shifted eastward to a Mobile strike, and then to crossing the Florida peninsula and coming up the Atlantic coast. But while the other models show it staying off the coast, GFDL consistently predicted it to go inland and disappear. That is what the current track says it will do.

What happens in Central Virginia if it takes this track? Comparing it with Isabel, I note that Ernesto is coming in a better angle. Isabel came off the ocean, struck just to the west of Ocracoke Island, then continued northwest by north into Central Virginia and on to the Ohio-Pennsylvania border at Lake Erie. It sturck as a Category 2 hurricane, and was down to storm storm strength when it struck Central Virginia, causing powerful winds. In 2003 Central Virginia had been getting rain, rain, rain all summer long, and Tropical storm Henri just the previous weekend dumped a pile of rain on top fo that. So when Isabel struck with high tropical storm force winds, it toppled trees all over the place and caused massive power outages.

By comparison, Ernesto is coming in from the west after striking well to the south. It will strike as a storm storm in South Carolina and will be down to a strong gale storm (Class 2) when it gets here, with 45 mph winds. Here it will be about 40-45 mph, or less than the 50 mph or so winds that came with Floyd and Fran and certainly less than the 72 mph winds that came with Isabel. The morning paper said that we could have 4-8 inches of rain, flooding some places, especially Shockoe Bottom, so this storm could have severe political impact. I would think this could happen, and in addition, we could have tornadoes, as we will be in the northeast quadrant of the storm.

So this does not look like that powerful a storm for us. It will ruin the weekend weather. However, there is another one coming, and I think this one will be named Florence, because I see nothing else out there. The latest run of Florence has it going out to sea, but this one needs to be watched, and I hope it does not come here - the trees will be weakened by the heavy rains of Ernesto.

Tropical Storm Ernesto 1

The mess east of the Antilles has become a depression, and now a tropical storm. Tropical Storm Ernesto, or maybe Ernie for short. This storm is of note now because some models predict it to head towards places on the US Gulf Coast. If so, it may cause more misery for New Orleans and if it hits enough rigs and refineries, it will cause gasoline and natural gas prices to soar.

The GFDL this morning called for a hit on the Texas-Louisiana border, like Rita last year. Then it called for a hit east of Mobile, making this another Dennis instead. The GFS insists else Kingdom Come that this storm is going to fizzle. Finally it tries to do something with it, fizzling it then bringing it back several times. It shows Ernesto hitting the Big Bend area of Florida, then crossing Florida and George to go out in the Atlantic and hug the Outer Banks. NOGAPS calls for a Mobile landing, and the Canadian model calls for it to hit Houma, LA, then ride the coast to the east, meaning everyone gets hit. MM5 calls for a Mobile hit. The official NHC forecast at 2006 August 27 2300 EDT calls for the storm to weaken from hitting Cuba (a slight northern jog) then strengthen to Category 3 and head for Pensacola. A cold front is bombing out of Canada towards the southeast, and this could force Ernesto to the east.

This storm is not very good news. If it hits New Orleans, that's it for that town. It will shrink to a small city the size of Houma, as people say, "to heck with it" and move out. The question is: is FEMA ready for this one? After the hoopla over Katrina last year, they should be. If it hits New Orleans and FEMA flubs it up again, we will have a Democratic Congress in January.

It could hit oil facilities, in the gulf itself and on the coast. The gulf mainly has oil rigs; the coastal area mainly refineries. It is already threatening the gulf, and this has caused the price of oil to rise. The worst thing it could do is hit Houston and Galveston. If it does that, oil prices will plummet and gasoline prices will soar; there could be shortages. I would predict the price of gasoline to go to $3.50/gallon. It would not be good to hit elsewhere in Texas, Louisiana, or Mississippi either, as these areas are wall to wall rigs and refineries.

We will have to wait and see what happens when it gets into the Gulf. In the meantime, prepare for the storm and for much higher energy prices, should it strike the central or western Gulf Coast.

Typhicane Ioke

The last few years has presented us with its share of unusual tropical storms. These include the first South Atlantic hurricane ever, a season that used up all the letters and then went seven letters into the Greek alphabet (including the one they found after the season was over), and superpowerful Hurricane Katrina. Now it is a typhicane. I defined this non-word a few years ago to mean a tropical storm with winds at least 65 knots straddling the International Date Line. Storms to the west of the date line are called typhoons; those to the east are hurricanes. There have been typhicanes in the past, namely Ele and Huko. They typically have Hawaiian names, since they form in the Central Atlantic, although it would really be something for a storm to form off the Mexican coast and journey all the way over to China.

And so we now have such a storm: Typhicane Ioke. As I type this, it is officially a hurricane, as its center is still is east of 180 degrees. The western parts are now a typhoon, since they are west of 180 degrees, and the storm as a whole is a typhicane. This is one huge storm. It is packing winds of 150 mph or more, and it looks like Katrina on the radar. However, it appears to be threatening nobody and annoying only fish and an occasional ship. The GFDL forecasts it to continue due west, which will cause it to become Super Typhoon Ioke, and at one frame, this typhoon was shown to have 179 knot (206 mph) winds! That is a Category 6 hurricane easily, approaching Category 7. Or it is an F4. It's a big tornado.

Where is Typhoon Ioke going to go? The GFDL suggests it may be headed to Hokkaido island in Japan, but it is too early to tell. Enigmatically, Japan has issued a warning: TYPHOON WARNING, and then describing its winds. From this far out? It is still a hurricane. Maybe they mean interests in the path of the storm; the next little placelet to be hit will be Wake Island.

We will keep a watch on Typhicane Ioke because it is so unusual. But the real threat is now from Tropical Storm Ernesto, which I describe in another blog.

Aha! A Hurricane?

I have been watching with keen interest developments in the Atlantic Basin as of late. In particular, since mid-July, models have been consistently showing a storm charging out of the mass of clouds and storms coming off the coast of Africa, going across the Atlantic, and possibly threatening the US East Coast and a few islands. The latest few runs of the Global Forecasting System (GFS) show this storm going "fish"; that is, out to sea. (from "fishspinner", a term for a hurricane that stays out at sea and does nothing more than spin the fish around). But I am still keeping an eye on it.

But now we have another threat. A bunch of storms to the east of the Leeward Islands has formed a tropical storm, christened Chris. (I suppose Beryl was berylled and Alberto was alberted). The GFS has shown this for a few days, as a little squibbler of a storm that peters out in the Atlantic. We now have a tropical storm, but the models don't show it much. I can't get anything on the storm out of UK-Meterological Services (UKMET), Canadian Meteorological Centre (CMC), MM5, or Navy Operational Global Atmospheric Prediction System (NOGAPS). The Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory model (GFDL) does show it, but it shows it petering out in the Bahamas. Not much of a storm, then?

For some reason, the National Hurricane Center thinks it is going to become a Category 1 hurricane with winds of about 80 mph. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. GFS shows it stronger this morning but still shows it petering out into a small light green area in the Gulf of Mexico that may not even generate showers. But "hurricane" is all that people need. The hypermedia is all of a sudden screaming "Hurricane, Hurricane!" and the markets are reacting. The price of crude oil jumped over a dollar today to around 75 1/2 dollars a barrel.

If you are into trading day by day with oil-related securities, here's a good opportunity to rake in a profit. Wait a day or two for oil to climb higher, then sell out. If indeed the models are correct and this storm fizzles out, oil and related investments will plummet. After that, buy back in. But this is not good for people investing in the long run.

We will see what happens. I know that we have been through a lot with hurricanes. But I feel this storm has more hype than bite to it. I am more concerned about the storms coming around the middle of the month (Debby, Ernesto), that are right now building just off the west coast of Africa.