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Okay, now I’m beginning to get a little worried…





This thing may be headed our way after all…





The official guidance is east of the model consensus, but the models have been moving west for the past couple of days now…

This storm is really, all things considered, a non-event, but still worth discussing as the first storm of the season.

Looks like there’s deterioration; but no significant change from the previous: Probably won’t make landfall, but rather dissipate over the next four days.

000

WTNT41 KNHC 092058

TCDAT1

SUBTROPICAL STORM ANDREA DISCUSSION NUMBER   2

NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL   AL012007

500 PM EDT WED MAY 09 2007

THE ORGANIZATION OF ANDREA HAS DETERIORATED SOMEWHAT DURING THE PAST FEW HOURS…WITH A SIGNIFICANT DECREASE IN CONVECTION PARTICULARLY IN THE NORTHWESTERN QUADRANT. SOME BANDS OF DEEP CONVECTION PERSIST…HOWEVER…ELSEWHERE IN THE CIRCULATION…AND SHIP WBVY REPORTED 37 KT WINDS AT 18Z ABOUT 75 N MI NORTH-NORTHEAST OF THE CIRCULATION CENTER. THE NEXT RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT WILL INVESTIGATE ANDREA TOMORROW MORNING…AND THE NEXT QUIKSCAT PASS OVER OR NEAR ANDREA WILL OCCUR NEAR 00Z THIS EVENING. IN THE MEANTIME…IT IS REASONABLE TO MAINTAIN THE INTENSITY AT 40 KT.

ANDREA IS CURRENTLY OVER SSTS NO WARMER THAN ABOUT 25 CELSIUS…AND THE SLOW MOTION SHOWN IN THE TRACK FORECAST PROBABLY MEANS SOME EVEN COOLER WATERS WILL BE CHURNED UP FROM BENEATH THE SURFACE.

THEREFORE…IN ACCORDANCE WITH ALL OF THE INTENSITY GUIDANCE…A WEAKENING TREND IS ANTICIPATED AND THE OFFICIAL FORECAST SHOWS DISSIPATION NEAR THE COAST IN LESS THAN FOUR DAYS.

THE SLOPPY CIRCULATION MAKES IT DIFFICULT TO CONFIDENTLY DETERMINE THE INITIAL MOTION…BUT MY BEST ESTIMATE REMAINS SLOW AND GENERALLY WESTWARD OR 265/4.  RECENT IMAGERY SUGGESTS THE SYSTEM MIGHT HAVE STARTED SAGGING TOWARD THE SOUTHWEST.

THERE IS NO SIGNIFICANT CHANGE TO THE TRACK FORECAST OR THE SUPPORTING REASONING.  SINCE ANDREA IS TRAPPED WITHIN A LARGE

MIDDLE- TO UPPER-LEVEL TROUGH THAT THE DYNAMICAL MODELS FORECAST TO NOT MOVE MUCH DURING THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS…A SLOW AND GENERALLY SOUTHWARD MOTION IS FORECAST.  BEYOND THAT TIME…SOME OF THE MODELS FORECAST THE LOW-LEVEL CIRCULATION TO DECOUPLE FROM THE DECAYING MIDDLE- AND UPPER-LEVEL VORTICITY MAXIMA…SO THE OFFICIAL FORECAST INDICATES A NEARLY STATIONARY AND DISSIPATING SYSTEM NEAR THE COAST BY 72 HOURS.  GIVEN THE UNCERTAINTIES IN THE FORECAST TRACK…INTENSITY…AND WIND RADII… THE TROPICAL STORM WATCH IS UNCHANGED FROM THIS MORNING.

FORECAST POSITIONS AND MAX WINDS

INITIAL      09/2100Z 30.8N  80.1W    40 KT

12HR VT     10/0600Z 30.6N  80.6W    35 KT

24HR VT     10/1800Z 30.2N  80.8W    35 KT

36HR VT     11/0600Z 29.8N  80.9W    30 KT

48HR VT     11/1800Z 29.5N  80.9W    30 KT

72HR VT     12/1800Z 29.5N  80.9W    25 KT…DISSIPATING

96HR VT     13/1800Z…DISSIPATED

$$

FORECASTER KNABB

Well! About twenty days before the start of the official hurricane season, and we have our first storm. Subtropical, yes, but a named storm, by golly…

I’d seen this forming off the coast a couple of days ago—or rather, I saw on the SE Radar composite that it looked like a low pressure area out there… I guess it was!

Welcome to the pre-season!

I’m thinking this year will be more like 2005 than last year, simply because we don’t appear to have the El Nino effect to dampen things this year.

Here’s a current radar capture:

If you look to the left of Tallahassee, you’ll see some red markings – that’s two Xs with a red circle around each. The right X is where I live (The left one is the flower shop – it’s rather more useful looking a local weather…)

And here’s the satellite:

NHC Discussion:

000
WTNT41 KNHC 091459
TCDAT1
SUBTROPICAL STORM ANDREA DISCUSSION NUMBER 1
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL012007
1100 AM EDT WED MAY 09 2007

AN AIR FORCE RECONNAISSANCE PLANE HAS BEEN INVESTIGATING THE LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM OFF THE SOUTHEAST U.S. COAST SINCE EARLY THIS MORNING. THE INITIAL LEG OF THE MISSION WAS FLOWN AT 300 MB FROM WEST TO EAST OVER THE CIRCULATION CENTER…AND SEVERAL DROPSONDES WERE RELEASED. THE TEMPERATURE PROFILES REVEAL A RATHER FLAT THERMAL CROSS-SECTION…NOT INDICATING A DISCERNIBLE WARM OR COLD CORE AT ANY VERTICAL LEVEL. THE WIND PROFILES…HOWEVER…SHOW WINDS INCREASING WITH HEIGHT IN THE WESTERN HALF OF THE CIRCULATION AND DECREASING WITH HEIGHT IN THE EASTERN HALF. GOES IMAGERY INDICATES THAT…COMPARED TO YESTERDAY…THE THUNDERSTORM ACTIVITY HAS CONSOLIDATED CLOSER TO THE CENTER…BUT PRIMARILY IN THE EASTERN SEMICIRCLE. THERE IS ALSO A SLIGHT HINT OF UPPER-LEVEL OUTFLOW WHICH WAS COMPLETELY ABSENT YESTERDAY…BUT THE SYSTEM REMAINS EMBEDDED WITHIN A LARGE DEEP-LAYER TROUGH. ALSO…THE RADIUS OF MAXIMUM WINDS HAS CONTRACTED FROM MORE THAN 100 N MI YESTERDAY TO ABOUT 50-60 N MI THIS MORNING. BASED ON THE HYBRID STRUCTURE OF THE SYSTEM…ADVISORIES ARE BEING INITIATED ON SUBTROPICAL STORM ANDREA. THE 40 KT INITIAL INTENSITY IS BASED ON AN EARLY MORNING QUIKSCAT PASS AND RECENT AIRCRAFT DATA FROM 850 MB.

THE INITIAL MOTION IS SLOW AND GENERALLY WESTWARD…ABOUT 270 DEGREES AT 4 KT. SINCE ANDREA IS ESSENTIALLY TRAPPED WITHIN A MIDDLE- TO UPPER-LEVEL TROUGH THAT THE DYNAMICAL MODELS FORECAST TO NOT MOVE MUCH DURING THE NEXT FEW DAYS…ANDREA WILL PROBABLY CONTINUE TO MOVE SLOWLY…BUT IN THE GENERAL DIRECTION OF THE NORTHEAST FLORIDA COAST. THE OFFICIAL FORECAST GENERALLY FOLLOWS THE SCENARIO PAINTED BY ALL OF THE MODELS…TAKING THE SYSTEM SLOWLY SOUTHWESTWARD AND THEN SOUTHWARD DURING THE NEXT 3 DAYS OR SO. NONE OF THE MODELS BRING ANDREA INLAND…AND NEITHER DOES THE
OFFICIAL FORECAST. ANDREA IS CURRENTLY OVER SEA-SURFACE TEMPERATURES OF NO MORE THAN ABOUT 25 CELSIUS…AND THEY WILL NOT GET ANY WARMER ALONG THE FORECAST TRACK. THEREFORE A SLOW WEAKENING TREND IS ANTICIPATED AND THE OFFICIAL FORECAST SHOWS DISSIPATION NEAR THE COAST IN LESS THAN FIVE DAYS. HOWEVER…SINCE ANDREA MIGHT BRING WINDS OF TROPICAL STORM FORCE TO THE COAST…A TROPICAL STORM WATCH HAS BEEN ISSUED.

FORECAST POSITIONS AND MAX WINDS

INITIAL 09/1500Z 30.8N 79.3W 40 KT

12HR VT 10/0000Z 30.6N 79.9W 40 KT 24HR VT 10/1200Z 30.2N 80.6W 35 KT 36HR VT 11/0000Z 29.8N 81.0W 35 KT 48HR VT 11/1200Z 29.6N 81.0W 30 KT 72HR VT 12/1200Z 29.5N 81.0W 25 KT 96HR VT 13/1200Z 29.5N 81.0W 25 KT…DISSIPATING
120HR VT 14/1200Z…DISSIPATED

$$
FORECASTER KNABB

Tropical 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…

Well, not really, but I thought this was amusing:

The white lines define the current (as of that radar image) projected stormtrack – this can change from image to image, and in fact, the next sweep was a bit different…

(We’re located nearly due south of the “PFN” airport icon – halfway between it and the east/west road to the south of it – at the center of the red rings. For a sense of scale, the red rings are 5, 10, and 25 miles)

Still, I’d rather write about this than the Middle East crisis for now…

Personal Weather Stations Google Map : Weather Underground

Thanks to Weather Underground using Google Maps—go there, look on the right side of the page, enter your [desired] zip code, click “GO” – then look just below for the resulting city. Click it to load a map of the area. Hopefully you’ll see live temps from various points around your area. Zoom in, and/or click on one of them for more stats. You can see a history of data of the site.

Some sites are official sources, some are from home weather stations.

Awesome weathery goodness. (And I need to figure out—down my street, a few houses away, looks like someone has a weather station. Niice)

Woman building high-end home out of old 747

My original quote was going to be “When I showed it to her in the office, she just started screaming,” recalls the architect, David Hertz of Santa Monica (which was taken out of context, but as you’ll see if you read the article, can be confusing for a moment)—but I found something better:

Quote: He says the eight buildings will be scattered across the terraced hillside as if it were a “crash site.” As it happens, the site lies under a jet flight path into Los Angeles International Airport. That concerns the Federal Aviation Administration, which has asked Hertz to paint special numbers on the wing pieces to alert pilots that Ms. Rehwald’s retreat is not a crashed jumbo jet.

I’m not so sure about the entire idea, but those two quotes I couldn’t pass up…

Courtesy NASA:

You must download and watch this AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME movie.

Covers the 2005 season through part of Wilma.

Wow.

Just wow.

I mean…... Wow.

So here I am, watching Hurricane Wilma coverage… CNN had an ad up, so I went over to FOX and watched the idiot anchor being “blown around”... I use quotes, because when a vehicle pulled up behind them, and somebody went over to it, they were walking quite normally…

So after a bit, I got tired of that, so I switched over to CNN - which initially looked better as they weren’t showing any reporters, but rather six shots of cameras placed at various places…

But, unfortunately, they went to an anchor in Key West who was being blown around in the middle of a street… Two kids/teens/youngadults across the street, where it was dark but bright enough to make them out, came calmly walking up the street… When they were around the middle of the camera frame, just past the reporter, one of them started “being blown around by the wind” – again, quotes, because for a couple of seconds, the other one just stood there before joining in. It was obvious they were faking it.

I suspect they were a romantic pair, as although I couldn’t see well enough to see which was which, they were obviously hugging/kissing, leaned up against the wall.

And here again, Mr. Being Blown Around (because of those loose windbreakers) just interviewed a firefighter who was walking quite normally….

Buncha morons…

I have extremely little remaining respect for the television/cable media…

New weather service office devised as artful storm dodger

Quote: Built to withstand winds of 165 mph, it’s the only of the agency’s 122 bureaus designed to stand up to a Category 5 storm.

[...]

Even if the artful exterior collapses, an inner core is supposed to protect the staff from 255-mph winds.

Awesome.

Weather Street: Eye of Hurricane Wilma

Quote: High resolution image of Category-4 Hurricane Wilma’s 30-mile diameter eye captured by the MODIS instrument on NASA’s Terra spacecraft at 11:25 a.m. CDT, 21 Oct., 2005 as the eyewall passes over northern Cozumel Island.

Awesome.

Tropical Storm ALPHA Public Advisory

Quote: ...ALPHA BECOMES THE TWENTY-SECOND NAMED STORM OF THE SEASON AND BREAKS THE ALL-TIME RECORD FOR THE MOST ACTIVE SEASON ON RECORD…

And…......... we have TS Alpha.

(plethora of categories for this post because it is noteworthy/newsworthy, scary re: number of storms…....)

Tropical Depression TWENTY-FIVE Discussion

Quote: MORE THAN LIKELY THE DEPRESSION WILL BECOME A TROPICAL STORM THIS AFTERNOON. THE INTENSITY FORECAST IS SIMILAR TO THE SHIPS GUIDANCE WHICH SHOWS GRADUAL STRENGTHENING TO 45 OR 50 KT IN ABOUT 48 HOURS… BEFORE A SIGNIFICANT INCREASE IN WESTERLY SHEAR SPREADS OVER THE EASTERN SEABOARD AND THE WESTERN ATLANTIC. AFTERWARD…THE MAJORITY OF THE GLOBAL MODELS SUGGEST THAT THE SYSTEM WILL EITHER DISSIPATE OR BECOME ABSORBED WITHIN THE BAROCLINIC SYSTEM WHICH IS ALSO EXPECTED TO INTERACT WITH WILMA. THE FORECAST WILL REFLECT ABSORPTION INTO A FRONTAL SYSTEM BY DAY 4.

Assuming TD 25 does strengthen into Tropical Storm Alpha, it will break the record for the number of named storms in a year… And mark the first time we’ve run out of letters, as well…