Tropical Storm Dean
Today was a big one in the tropical weather world. The storm off the Africa coast that had been lighting up the GFS model the past week is now officially Tropical Storm Dean, beating Invest 91L in the Caribbean for that honor. That storm may become Tropical Storm Erin. Hurricane Flossie is coming closer to Hawaii and is stronger than predicted, causing the governor of Hawaii to declare a state of emergency. Hawaii has really had its problems. They had an R5.3 earthquake this morning, and there is a wildfire going on. The latter is something that Flossie can do something about.
So what do the models say? Here are today's GFS runs:
0Z - Skirts by the Carolina coasts, then suddenly turns left into them, charging up to Charlotte and western Virginia, where SUUSI is held every July.
6Z - Clobbers Miami head on then travels straight up the Florida Turnpike into Georgia and Tennessee.
12Z - Stays to the south again and hits Houston, causing a problem.
18Z - Stays to the south, this time hitting the LA/TX border, like Rita in 2005.
If one takes the type of each run (as defined in yesterday's Beyond the Wind) in a string, the result is 6512. So the overall string since August 8 is:
1749799326451000001686512
To me this is as volatile as the stock market has been lately. Now that the Gulf is threatened, oil prices are beginning to go up.
What do the other models say? NOGAPS is still struggling to make sense out of the storm. GFDL inexplicitly dropped the storm this morning, but now they show it again. The Canadians make it go fish, and UKMET takes it into the Caribbean. So the results are all over the place. The official forecast takes it to five days from now, when it strikes the middle of the Leeward islands and continues just south of the Caribbean islands. Where it goes from there is anybody's guess right now.
The Storm2k and other weather boards are heating up now. For some reason, someone insists on reporting on each GFS frame as it comes into view on the Web. If Dean strikes 7 days from now, that is 4x7x24 = 1,344 posts! They have disabled Search on that site, reducing its usefulness considerably. There are warnings about nonsense, chatty, or off-topic posts, because the managers of the forum fear that an onslaught of activity could slow it down to the point of inoperativeness. The meteorologists and media are picking the storm up, now, even calling it Dean before it became Dean. I hope they don't hype this storm.
So what do the models say? Here are today's GFS runs:
0Z - Skirts by the Carolina coasts, then suddenly turns left into them, charging up to Charlotte and western Virginia, where SUUSI is held every July.
6Z - Clobbers Miami head on then travels straight up the Florida Turnpike into Georgia and Tennessee.
12Z - Stays to the south again and hits Houston, causing a problem.
18Z - Stays to the south, this time hitting the LA/TX border, like Rita in 2005.
If one takes the type of each run (as defined in yesterday's Beyond the Wind) in a string, the result is 6512. So the overall string since August 8 is:
1749799326451000001686512
To me this is as volatile as the stock market has been lately. Now that the Gulf is threatened, oil prices are beginning to go up.
What do the other models say? NOGAPS is still struggling to make sense out of the storm. GFDL inexplicitly dropped the storm this morning, but now they show it again. The Canadians make it go fish, and UKMET takes it into the Caribbean. So the results are all over the place. The official forecast takes it to five days from now, when it strikes the middle of the Leeward islands and continues just south of the Caribbean islands. Where it goes from there is anybody's guess right now.
The Storm2k and other weather boards are heating up now. For some reason, someone insists on reporting on each GFS frame as it comes into view on the Web. If Dean strikes 7 days from now, that is 4x7x24 = 1,344 posts! They have disabled Search on that site, reducing its usefulness considerably. There are warnings about nonsense, chatty, or off-topic posts, because the managers of the forum fear that an onslaught of activity could slow it down to the point of inoperativeness. The meteorologists and media are picking the storm up, now, even calling it Dean before it became Dean. I hope they don't hype this storm.
posted by Jim at 8:59 PM
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