The Bear

The hurricane threat still remains. Some of the Global Forecasting System runs have been strange. Most of them have something going on in the Pacific Ocean south of Nicaragua, crossing Central America and moving north, developing into a storm which heads towards Florida, and then to the Gulf of Mexico, up the Atlantic seaboard, or out to Atlantic sea, depending on the run. One weird run has it splitting in half in the Gulf of Mexico, with one half heading towards Houston, and the other to peninsular Florida, and then out into the Atlantic. The GFS now shows the storm forming on May 31 near Central America, hitting Florida on June 3 and Virginia in the wee hours of the morning of June 6.

None of the local weather people or public forecasts of NOAA say much about the storm, but the meteorologists are aware of it. Here is what the Area Forecast Discussion says about the storm at 2008 May 25 14:46 CDT today:

THE GFS AND ECMWF WERE DIFFERING IN THEIR HANDLING OF THE TROPICS BY DAY SEVEN. THE GFS HAS A WEAKNESS IN THE UPPER RIDGE PRESENT OVER THE ENTIRE GULF COAST STATES. THE ECMWF HAD A STRONGER RIDGE IN PLACE FROM MEXICO ALL THE WAY EAST INTO FLORIDA. THE GFS AND ECMWF DEVELOP A SURFACE LOW IN THE SOUTHERN CARIBBEAN BY THE UPCOMING WEEKEND...WITH BOTH MODELS THEN GOING IN DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS WITH THE SYSTEM. GIVEN THE TIME OF YEAR IT IS BEST TO SAY THAT THE TROPICS BEAR WATCHING.

That's right. They say the tropics bear watching. So I am going to name this storm The Bear, until it gets an official name, if it will get one. If it gets a name, it would be called Arthur. That sounds cute: Arthur the Bear. The adventures of Arthur the Bear.

With this type of storm already persistently showing up in the GFS, it looks like a bad hurricane season may be ominating this year. We have warmer temperatures, cold air to the north, and warm sea temperatures, all of which mean an active season. The Bear probably will come about because of a cold front that dragged too far south for this time of the year. I hope it stays away from us. We have already had problems with bears recently, including Bear Stearns and a bear in the Richmond area that wandered around before being clobbered on I-95 by a tractor trailer. We have also had problems with power outages. My area used to be safe from such outages, getting them only in the worst hurricanes and ice storms. We have had an 8-hour and a 12-hour power outage this year from ordinary storms and their wind, scarcely gale force. So please stay away, Bear.

Tornado? Wow!!

Tornado in Colorado 2008 May 22

Arthur on June 2?

Winter is over now. I recorded 34 storms or lows which created forecasts containing wintry precipitation in them this past winter, but nothing produced more than a dusting or perhaps an inch of snow. The most dangerous was a brief sprinklet lasting about an hour of freezing rain, but it caused hundreds of accidents in the Richmond area on December 7.

So now summer is coming up, and what comes near the end of summer? Hurricanes, that's what. Already we have a tropical storm threat. None of the weather people say it yet, because it is more than a week away, but the Global Forecasting System has been forecasting it for quite a few days in a row. Apparently a disturbance near the end of May in the southern Caribbean is going to move north, clip Cuba's western part, and head to Miami about June 2. The storm, which may be a strong tropical storm or hurricane, then will go out to sea off the Atlantic seaboard.

If this materializes, it would be called Arthur. So far the GFS runs have been consistent in predicting this storm, and the European Model (ECMWF) is now showing it as well. So residents of Florida need to keep aware of the forecast. There may be a hurricane headed your way.

Don't be concerned by the earliness of this storm. The year 2007 started with a subtropical storm, named Andrea, that did not do much except pinwheel around and ruin weather on the Atlantic coast. But keep a watch of it.