Hurricane Wow

"12Z GFS Wow!!". That is what one topic title was yesterday on Storm2k. That run showed a sizable hurricane north of Hispaniola on August 13 at 8 am EDT. This storm has been off and on a lot on the GFS and has also varied in date from about the 11th to about the 17th. Because of this reference, I now refer to it as Hurricane Wow. There is also another storm about the 3rd of August, next Friday, caused by the tail of a cold front too far south for this time of the year; I call this one Frontdragger.

So what is the status now? Today, 2007 July 29:

00Z - Frontdragger forms in Gulf of Mexico and wanders around there for a couple of days August 2-3. Wow just barely tries to form off the Carolina coast on August 13.
06Z - Frontdragger forms in Gulf of Mexico near Cedar Key August 7 at 8 pm. No trace of Wow.
12Z - Frontdragger indistinguishable from leftovers of front. Small storm skirts by Cuba August 5. Wow reappears as a big storm just barely brushing by the Outerbanks on August 13.
18Z - No trace of Frontdragger. August 9 storm hits Florida. Wow strikes southern Florida and goes into Gulf August 14 at 8am.

So it's been hither and thither, here and about, see and saw with these storms. So it is hard to predict what will happen. A storm could strike the Carolinas about August 13, or it may not. Same with the August 3 and 9 storms. The GFS is showing a shift in pattern from two weeks ago. Then the tongue of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) of storms spitting off the west coast of Africa was not doing much; now it is spitting off storms and hurricanes all over the place. This means we may have some tropical action about mid August.

Now a Possible Storm on August 3

The 2007 July 27 12Z GFS run is in. It shows the hurricane or tropical storm much weaker, and heading to southern Florida some time around August 14, just beyond coverage of the model.

But it shows something else. A cold front comes down from the south on July 31, next Tuesday. As it parts from the coast, it drags three storms behind it, one on August 2 by the Outer Banks, one on August 3 by the Outer Banks, and one on August 3 in the Gulf of Mexico. Are these just remnants of the front, or will there be a sudden development off the coast of Georgia and Carolinas on August 3? None of the official weather forecasts seem to have it.

Models Say Hurricane May Strike Carolinas Around August 12

Well, here it begins! Marine Summer (August, September, and October) is approaching, and already there is a threat on the weather model charts. For the past few days, the Global Forecasting System (GFS) has been calling for a storm to form off the coast of Africa, traverse the wide Atlantic Ocean, and curve north to hit the Carolinas sometime in the middle of August. Here is what the past few runs have said. These results are from the GFS North Atlantic model runs, the Precipitation last 6 hours chart (Z = Greenwich Mean Time):

2007 July 25 12Z, brushes by Outer Banks and Cape Cod August 7 8am
2007 July 25 18Z, hits Miami August 6 2pm, then Wilmington August 10 2am then into central and eastern Virginia
2007 July 26 00Z, goes out to sea after a near miss off Carolinas August 7 8pm
2007 July 26 06Z, strikes Wilmington around August 12 beyond model range; near Wilmington August 11 2am
2007 July 26 12Z, powerful Bermuda high forces storm to south, running just south of Cuba and into the Gulf of Mexico
2007 July 26 18Z, Possible storm sometime next week. Storm from Africa fizzles off US coast after cold front hits it, around August 10
2007 July 27 00Z, hits Wilmington, goes to western Virginia, then inland up the coast. In western Virginia August 11 8am.
2007 July 27 06Z, hits Florida, then Wilmington around August 13, beyond model range. South of Wilmington August 12 2am.

This seems like it is wildly bouncing back and forth, however, the trend seems to be consistent. Some sort of storm will form off the Africa coast, move westward across the Atlantic, and strike the US, probably somewhere near the Carolinas. There is a chance it will hit Florida instead, or even both, as some of these runs indicate.

We are 12 to 16 days from the supposed striking of this storm, and weather models have been notoriously bad this far out. The first run showing Isabel in 2003 striking the US showed it striking Rhode Island; instead it hit central Virginia and northeastern North Carolina. A storm threatening South Carolina in 2004 July vanished completely after a few runs of consistently showing the storm.

In this case, there may be something occurring. The sea waters are warm, as marine summer approaches, without an El Niño and with global warming. Sand in the air over the Atlantic seems less this year. The people on weather forums such as Storm2k are already buzzing over this. To top it off, other models such as ECMWF, UKMET, and the Canadian model are showing something developing off the coast of Africa. The media so far have ignored it and you can't get anything from the local meteorologists. Still there is a likelihood that this storm will come and approach the US, and then it will be all over the TV screens. To me it looks like something is going to develop, and it will begin to show on NHC's reports probably by this Sunday. This is my own forecast, and there is a lot of uncertainty, but it seems that we need to be prepared for some kind of tropical system approaching the US sometime around August 12.

The Warmest Day of the Year

Today is 2007 July 22. I found that our weather forecast here in Richmond was pleasant. A high in the 80s and lows this morning in the refreshing 50s, a rarity at this time of the year. It is summer. I looked up seasonal averages in Weather Underground. The graphs are neat in that they include normal and record highs and lows, and also a vertical line across the present date. Today this line is right in the middle of the summer high. We are at the warmest day of the year on the average. Today is the Weather Summer Solstice. After today, it is all downhill. Since January, the temperatures have been increasing; it has been getting warmer. Now it will get colder, as the already shortening days begin to be felt. It will be only slightly cooler in August, but in September, the really pleasant weather will begin, followed by winter.

It is not the peak of summer in all places. In Fairbanks, Alaska, it has already occurred in early July. In San Francisco, it will not be at the warmest until September. That is because September contains the Marine Summer Solstice, and San Franscisco weather is heavily influenced by the adjacent ocean. But here it is at the peak. And now the long downhill begins.