They slowed down the forward motion significantly and moved it more to the west, which is an interesting trend. Now we're looking at landfall sometime mid-week next week.
Posted on 08/21/2012 7:16:24 AM PDT by topher
So if a storm forms, it will be named Isaac?
If there are some bad, even discomfitting, weather conditions, it'll definitely affect the Occupy creeps and rioters camped out here and there in Tampa.
Their tent cities will be awash in water, wind, debris, human waste, condoms, floating "Blame Bush" posters.....and misery.
Inside the Convention Center, the delegates and other personages will be dry as dust and happy as larks.
Let it rain! Let it rain! Let it rain! (tra la)
Leni
I wasn't going to watch, but that could prove to be 'must-see TV'. Can we get another wind-driven deluge in Charlotte for the Democrat convention?
My now-wife and I vacationed in Captiva last year when I proposed to her, and you wouldn’t know anything happened down there. The resort staff told us that they were hit directly, but they recovered pretty quick from what I can tell.
We’re honeymooning in Captiva in October. Isaac better not screw that up for us!
NHC is notorious for early prediction hysterics. I ALWAYS watch the GFS for predictions. They predicted Debbie going toward the Big Bend of Florida the entire time without fail, and they are historically the most accurate predictor of storm tracks.
That being said, a lot of the current tracks are highly suspect since we just don’t know what the mid-Atlantic ridge is going to do. As you can see, the GFS has the ridge holding steady, while other ensemble members are predicting that it moves east.
Either way, expect a rainy weekend or early convention week in Florida.
Isaac is the next in the list, yes.
Better than a systemic depression..I think. :)
They slowed down the forward motion significantly and moved it more to the west, which is an interesting trend. Now we're looking at landfall sometime mid-week next week.
The past 6 weeks or so there has seen a parade of storms and depressions moving in a stately fashion from the eastern Atlantic across the Caribbean to Mexico that has brought a rainy season, the first in many years, to coastal Northwest Florida and an August that has not gotten out of the 80s. Yesterday it was in the 70s all day. It is very pleasant. Normally we expect many days of 95-103 degrees this time of year. The situation promises to continue for a while yet.
It’s 5 days out and already quickly shifting west? I say it’s going to Louisiana....
I’m not convinced on the track certainty quite yet. GFS and UKMET guidance is pretty consistently putting it in the eastern GoM, but the northward pull will come based on positioning of a trough coming out of the midwest. I’m not comfortable saying definitively where this will go until Saturday, at the earliest.
Also, I thought Romney didn’t accept until Thursday of next week?
You’re right.. The 30th. If the ridge hangs tough over FL and this heads for the gulf, then it could be Obama competing with it for the headlines.
This ridge has been dumping copious amounts of rain on us the last few days. It would be nice to have a trop storm swing through to dry us out.
No way it’s going to LA. That would require a significant degradation of the trough coming down through the midwest, and if that happened, we’d likely see a TX touchdown.
There’s not much wiggle room with the midwestern trough. It either exists or it doesn’t. It’s currently parked across the northern Gulf coast. It would have to degrade or turn into a warm front and regress back across the plains, and the likelihood of that happening with the Gulf being as warm as it is would be nearly impossible.
I heard that it will degrade some when it hits the mountains in cuba, dominica? I am anxious to see the next tract forecast at 5pm....if eye is even more West, then it’s going to AL, Ms or LA IMHO.
Notice the trough across the southeast. That acts as a barrier to any systems that come up from the Caribbean (i.e. Isaac). It will gradually degrade as Isaac gets closer, but not soon enough to keep the system from turning north then east.
OK, I see what you are saying. I don’t understand that map completely, but I understand what you mean....well....will get prepared. I’m on the east coast...by WPB. I’m bound to get rained on at least. :)
There is also a trough over Cuba? Won’t that push Iassac over too?
Ridges (high pressure) act as walls. For instance, when there’s a Bermuda high over the mid-Atlantic, that ridging causes tropical systems to stay to the south and not break north/east quickly.
Troughs (low pressure) act as steering currents, for the most part. Think of it as a big ditch and the tropical system as a big spinning ball. As the ball approaches the ditch, it falls into it and while it might spin enough to push through or “fill” the trough, it usually slows and follows the path of that ditch out to sea.
If you look at that forecast map, you’ll see that stationary front (trough) parked over the northern Gulf. As it degrades, it leaves behind weaker steering currents that help to guide the system to the east.
Since Isaac is going over both Hispaniola and Cuba at some point, the shear created from the mountainous terrain will tear apart the outer convection currents, and depending on how close it gets, the eye as well. If Isaac didn’t hit all that land first, I’d be concerned for a more forceful entry into the very warm Gulf and a battering-ram forward movements into the northern Gulf states.
Since it will be so weakened once it emerges in the Florida Straights, it’s likely to just meander up the west coast and break to the east somewhere over the Florida peninsula.
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