Hurricane Ernesto
Sunday, August 27th, 2006Tropical Storm ERNESTO Forecast Discussion
Article: AFTER REACHING THE GULF OF MEXICO…THE MODEL TRACKS DIVERGE AS STEERING CURRENTS SLACKEN WITHIN A WEAKNESS IN THE RIDGE…WITH SOLUTIONS AS FAR WEST AS THE GFDN THAT TAKES ERNESTO TOWARD THE WESTERN GULF…AND AS FAR EAST AS THE FLORIDA BIG BEND AS SHOWN BY THE GFS ENSEMBLE AND THE NOGAPS.
Well… With this update, I’m now keeping a close eye on this storm…
The good news so far is that Day 4 and 5 are so uncertain that (see the bit I quoted above) there’s just no telling yet…
The bad news is that we’re definitely in the running as much as anyone across the gulf coast right now, and it’s looking more and more like a Cat1-Cat2 landfall (of course, WAY way WAY too early to even really guess….)
Here’s the current model spread:
This would make it look like we’re out of the woods—but you have to realize that these aren’t the full set of models that the forecasters have, and they’re typically some combination of up-to-date and out-of-date…
I look at the NHC forecast discussion to find out what’s really going on, before I look at any other info… Then I look at the forecast tracks from NHC (although I like the NRL-MRY better, with the TS-level, Gale-level, and Hurricane-level forecast windspeed quarters) to see where the consensus is, armed with the forecaster’s comments… So in this case, the track at day 4/5 is uncertain – which makes me worry less that the track is moving closer to us… Now, in 2-3 days, we should have a much better feel—and Ernesto could swing well away from us, or leave us in the running…
So, we’ll see.
As always…
UPDATE: Check out the latest track from NRL-MRY:
Yummy…
Now, the latest NHC discussion makes it sound like chances are high it’ll slide to our east, but I suspect it will be tense around here in a couple of days…