Fred has become a Cat1 hurricane about 445 miles WSW of the Cape Verde Islands. The Cape Verde Islands are a breeding ground for tropical storms. This is where hot tropical waves from the Sahara collide with moist air and get some uplift going. From there the convection engine takes over.
Animate this image: >>> 
OR Switch to Hurricane Sector View
- Click for larger image
BTW if you want free Hurricane and Tropical Storm Updates, feel free to sign up with my free HurrWarn service, just another public service of WUWT and yours truly.
FREE! Hurricane and Tropical Storm updates by Email, Cell Phone, Blackberries, IPhones, Palm Pilots, and Pager
Now You can choose to send Tropical Storm Advisories, Hurricane Watches, and Warnings plus other types of weather bulletins to your regular email account or have reduced character bulletins sent to your handheld mobile device. All you need is your email address for the device. We even offer bulletin privacy times!
Follow the link below.Free Updates:
Just create a personal profile by following the signup wizard. Once there you’ll be able to choose what type of bulletins you want, plus how you wnat it to be delivered. There’s no obligation, quit at any time, and your email will never be sold or solicited for spam.
In a few days, I’ll have an updated website with imagery. For now the email/pager service is fully active. If you like it consider hitting the tip jar.
– Anthony
Here is the latest.
WTNT32 KNHC 090243
TCPAT2
BULLETIN
HURRICANE FRED ADVISORY NUMBER 6
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL072009
1100 PM AST TUE SEP 08 2009
…FRED BECOMES A HURRICANE…THE SECOND OF THE ATLANTIC SEASON…
AT 1100 PM AST…0300 UTC…THE CENTER OF HURRICANE FRED WAS LOCATED
NEAR LATITUDE 12.6 NORTH…LONGITUDE 30.6 WEST OR ABOUT 445 MILES…
715 KM…WEST-SOUTHWEST OF THE SOUTHERNMOST CAPE VERDE ISLANDS.
FRED IS MOVING TOWARD THE WEST-NORTHWEST NEAR 12 MPH…19 KM/HR…
AND A TURN TOWARD THE NORTHWEST IS EXPECTED OVER THE NEXT DAY OR
SO. FRED IS THEN FORECAST TO TURN TOWARD THE NORTH-NORTHWEST WITH
A DECREASE IN FORWARD SPEED ON THURSDAY.
SATELLITE IMAGES INDICATE THAT MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS HAVE
INCREASED TO NEAR 75 MPH…120 KM/HR…WITH HIGHER GUSTS. FRED IS
NOW A CATEGORY ONE HURRICANE ON THE SAFFIR-SIMPSON HURRICANE SCALE.
ADDITIONAL STRENGTHENING IS FORECAST DURING THE DAY OR SO…
FOLLOWED BY SLOW WEAKENING BEGINNING ON THURSDAY.
HURRICANE FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 25 MILES…35 KM…FROM
THE CENTER…AND TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO
85 MILES…140 KM.
ESTIMATED MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE IS 987 MB…29.15 INCHES.
…SUMMARY OF 1100 PM AST INFORMATION…
LOCATION…12.6N 30.6W
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS…75 MPH
PRESENT MOVEMENT…WEST-NORTHWEST OR 295 DEGREES AT 12 MPH
MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE…987 MB
THE NEXT ADVISORY WILL BE ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER AT
500 AM AST.
Interesting, NHC has this one projected to curl northward within a couple of days, and weaken back to a tropical depression by Sunday.
Anthony –
Great (but short) video. Living in Davis, I don’t think I’m too much in danger from hurricanes, but I might sign up if there’s going to be more video. And thanks for the tidbit about where and why this all begins. (I assume the islands themselves have nothing to do with the storm formation since they’re so far from the “birthing area”.)
You’re either obsessed or possessed. How DO you keep up with all of this?
All of us interested in the science for science sake (as well as our wallets) owe you a huge debt.
Gratefully,
David
Reply: There is a tip jar down the page on the right. Perhaps you could pay off some of your debt to Anthony? ~ charles the shameless plug moderator
p.s. Please fix the PayPal link on your merchandise site (or remove the icon if you no longer accept it). Thx.
REPLY: Not sure what you are referring to. They seem to work OK. – A
Fred shouldn’t bother anyone fortunately. The gulf is spinning up possibly too – no hurricane predicted. Lots of warm water tho. C’mon wind shear!
http://weatherblog.abc13.com/2009/09/keeping-an-eye-on-the-gulf.html
A great site for atlantic hurricanes, spaghetti models…
http://www.snowbirdnationals.com/weather.htm
I haven’t been on wunderground recently to follow developements but up to now, peak of the season, it has seemed very quiet. Touch wood!
I think west Africa is pretty dusty at the mo, which doesn’t help those long track hurricanes from that sector.
Regards
Andy
Interesting season. Fred will likely curl over the British Isles and put out the rest of the Bar-B-Qs or wash them into the local rivers. They are being good sports about this though. Most, anyway.
David in Davis: I click on all the paid ads. Well, any new ones I see during a week’s reading. Then I hit the repeats after a week or so. I don’t know the best strategy but until someone gives some good advice on this, that’s my plan.
OT: uhm, apparently “environmentalism” is now officially a religion or something in the UK.
Ladies and gentlemen, I believe we are “protecting” ourselves to death.
Anthony, the PayPal icon was dead when I (repeatedly) clicked on it. If there was a way to use it when filling out the order for, I missed it. (I ordered something anyway, Charles.)
re: PayPay. Upon further reflection, maybe I just didn’t allow it time enough to load. My netbook doesn’t have the fastest processor in the drawer. If it seems to be working for others, that was probably it.
D.
Completely off topic ….. but of interest …. just saw a newspaper article stating that Denmark will sponsor the Maldives to attend the climate conference in Copenhagen as otherwise the Maldives have said “they will not be able to attend due to ‘lack of funds'”.
I checked and last year the Maldives managed to send an athletics squad to the Beijing Olympics. Found a nice pic of them walking behind their national flag at the opening ceremony. Clearly they seem to have afforded that trip.
So …. here we have a small microcosm example of some real truth ….
a) the reality of climate change is clearly not that important to the Maldivians
b) here’s an easy way to get the rich West to stump up some cash
c) BOTH OF THE ABOVE
Roll on Copenhagen ……
Would Fred have found its way into the books as a hurricane before the satellite era? I think it’s storms like this that is masking the decline in hurricanes we’ve been having when compared to the long-term average.
O.T. but I just had to share this information which was earnestly imparted to me this morning by my random companion whilst salmon fishing this morning.
His company was involved in AGW research and had discovered that the increase in CO2 was responsible for the growing numbers in the population that are suffering dramatic impairment of their auto-immune systems!
The inflation of ills attributed to CO2 was matched only by the inflation of the river as the run-off from the rains of our barbecue summer drove me sorrowfully homewards yet again.
Is this one named after Fred Flintstone. So it’s out there in the Atlantic where they have hurricanes; we don’t have hurricanes in the Pacific; so what else is new; other than the IARC-JAXA red ice line has about hit rock bottom, and the arctic temperature is now doing its annual plummet. That should put a crimp on the hurricane season; speaking of which I noted that the Hurricanes did edge out Florida State last Saturday; ho hum hurricane- schmurricane !
George
We recently had some very windy weather in the West of Scotland. This was blamed on the effects of a hurricane. Was that a rubbish explanation?
At first, I thought “HURRWARN” was a spoof thing. I don’t think this is going to fly, Anthony, there are too many other sites that give interested parties what they need to know.
jtom (05:38:12) :
I’ve been expressing similar sentiments at the CA blog on hurricanes.
We are not alone.
This from the 11:00 AM NHC discussion (sorry for the caps).
IT IS QUITE UNUSUAL TO HAVE SUCH A POWERFUL SYSTEM SO FAR EAST IN
THE BASIN AND FRED IS ONLY THE THIRD MAJOR HURRICANE NOTED EAST OF
35W IN THE TROPICAL ATLANTIC OCEAN…AND THE STRONGEST HURRICANE SO
FAR SOUTH AND EAST IN OUR DATA RECORD. THIS TYPE OF SYSTEM…
HOWEVER…WOULD HAVE BEEN VERY DIFFICULT TO ACCURATELY OBSERVE
BEFORE SATELLITE PICTURES BEGAN IN THE 1960S.
We may see the first sentence show up on some AGW sites, but don’t hold your breath for the second one.