Update: Monday, August 22: Hurricane Irene will likely rapidly intensify at some point over the next couple days becoming a major hurricane (maximum probably Category 4). It is a large-storm with a massive wind field that will likely expand further as it moves north. Irene has the potential to be a climate weather disaster of historical proportions. A couple most recent (12z) mesoscale forecast model tracks put either Miami or South Carolina under threat of a Category 4, 5 landfall. Yet, with any 5-day forecast, the track skill is on the order of 250 mi, which could mean Irene misses land all together.
As of Saturday night, Irene is a tropical storm centered east of the Lesser Antilles. But, where will the storm be in 5-days (on Thursday)? The National Hurricane Center officially prognosticates a tropical storm in the Florida Straits as of the 11 PM AST advisory on 08.20.11. Can you do better? In the comments, feel free to pontificate about the track, intensity, and potential landfall location of Irene — and go “On the Record”. It’s okay to include image links in your comments in order to make your case.
The early Sunday morning Mesoscale model guidance show “doomcasts” of Category 5 hurricanes undergoing quite different tracks. At such an early stage of development of the storm, GFDL and HWRF are not going to be your best model to look at. That would be the best numerical weather prediction (NWP) global deterministic model run by the USA European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting. Current ECMWF North Atlantic Wind Speed and MSLP forecast at my FSU-COAPS weather website. The August 21, 2011 00Z run puts a Category 2 hurricane “east” of Florida with landfall in the Carolinas in 6-days. And, for fun: binary typhoon interaction in the Western Pacific (Fujiwhara effect).
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To predict a hurricane now is a bit like saying the heart of the season will occur in the heart of the season. However to predict the east coast is at risk requires either more skill, or more daring. I think Joe Bastardi has stuck his neck out to some degree, by suggesting, (back on August 16,) that a hurricane frenzy will occur August 25 to September 15, due to the influence of the MJO.
http://www.weatherbell.com/weather-news/bastardi-hurricane-frenzy-aug25-sep15/
I’m very tempted to shell out the dough to subscribe to Weatherbell for just one month, just to get behind the paywall and hear the two Joe’s thoughts. (Joe Bastardi and Joe D’Aleo.) However……then I probably would get no work done.
@Dave Springer says:
“Ah… CRAP! … The only computer model that has Irene threading the needle into the Gulf of Mexico is the UK MET office model. ”
Fabulous! LOL
Another Texas also praying for Irene to tour the Gulf and Texas…
Come on, girlie, you can do it!!!!
Oops, meant to say Texan… typing too quickly
This is a real threat folks.
I see the comments making light of the Atlantic storms, and I agree, some of them did not deserve names.
But this is the biggest threat in a long time to the East Coast.
Keep in mind, that the Eastern Seaboard even though it only comprises 11.7% of the area of the USA, holds almost 37% of its population (113 million people), including the second largest city in the world, and with most of those people living within 100 miles of the coast.
The major metro areas DIRECTLY on the ocean and MOST vulnerable to catastrophic storm surges and hurricane conditions:
Miami / Fort Lauderdale / Palm Beach: 5.6 million people
Tampa / St. Petersburg: 2.7 million people
Greater Daytona Beach: 500,000 people
Jacksonville: 1.4 million people
Savannah, GA: 350,000 people
Charleston SC: 675,000 people
Myrtle Beach: 300,000 people
Wilmington NC: 365,000 people
Norfolk / Virginia Beach: 1.7 million people
Greater New York City / Long Island: 19 MILLION PEOPLE
Greater Providence RI: 1.6 million people
Greater Boston: 4.5 million people
Major metro areas NOT directly on the ocean but on estuaries and vulnerable to storm surges and of course, hurricane conditions:
Washington DC / Baltimore / Annapolis: 9 million people
Philadelphia / Wilmington DE: 6 million people
Major metro areas NOT directly on the ocean or estuaries but vulnerable to hurricane conditions and potential catastrophic non-tidal flooding:
Orlando, FL: 2.2 million people
Atlanta, GA: 5.3 million people
Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson, SC: 1.2 million people
Charlotte, NC: 1.8 million people
Raleigh-Durham-Greensboro-Winston Salem, NC: 3.5 million people
Richmond, VA: 1.3 million people
Pittsburgh, PA: 2.4 million people
Buffalo, NY: 1.3 million people
Rochester, NY: 1.1 million people
Albany, NY: 900,000 people
If you include the Canadian big cities in the east, some of whom have had some real disasters in the past from the remnants of hurricanes, then:
Montreal, Quebec: 3.9 million people
Ottawa, Ontario: 1.3 million people
Toronto, Ontario: 6 million people
Then not to forget the Canadian maritimes and the many smaller towns an cities along the eastern seaboard in the USA.
All combined, that makes for some 130 million people on the Eastern Seaboard, and includes some of the most important cities on the planet who are vulnerable to hurricanes.
Then take the US Gulf Coast, those vulnerable to a direct hit from storm surge and hurricane conditions:
Southwest Florida: 1.7 million people
Tampa / St. Petersburg: 2.7 million people
Florida Panhandle Region: 900,000 people
Mobile, AL: 600,000 people
New Orleans, LA: 1.2 million people
Houston, Texas: 6 million people
Corpus Christi, TX: 400,000 people
Brownsville, TX: 400,000 people
Then that doesn’t take in all of Texas’ big inland cities of Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, etc. but the Gulf Coast states add another 39 million to the numbers.
I don’t think people appreciate how low-lying, but densely populated, much of the Eastern USA coasts are.
This includes Manhattan, at 75,000 residents per square mile, the most densely populated island, by far, in the world.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
POINT IS…
One thing is for sure, from that satellite pic you can see the very very healthy anticyclonic circulation aloft that is helping ventilate the storm.
Even though the center reformed to the north by about 60 miles, you can see on the San Juan radar that the center is now heading due west, so, the mean forecast track by the NHC is about on par, at least for now.
http://tinyurl.com/3uozv4f
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Tom in Florida says:
August 21, 2011 at 5:18 am
“If it looks like it is starting to make it’s way across Florida then my standard 3 day plan goes into affect.”
Charley didn’t telegraph this move.
http://vortex.plymouth.edu/hur_dir/2004/atl_03_charley04_TBW_br.mpg
I’m surprised no one has mentioned this.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/08/06/u-s-east-coast-is-the-next-wild-weather-target/
http://archives.cbc.ca/environment/extreme_weather/topics/77/
clipe says:
August 21, 2011 at 2:06 pm
Tom in Florida says:
August 21, 2011 at 5:18 am
“If it looks like it is starting to make it’s way across Florida then my standard 3 day plan
goes into affect.”
“Charley didn’t telegraph this move.
Charley was already in the Gulf moving up the west coast of Florida. By the time it was nearing Ft Myers my yard had been cleared of potential flying objects, supplies had been checked and topped off and the house boarded up. We were ready. As Charley approached it looked as though the eastern eye wall packing 150 mph winds was on track to pass right over my location so we headed for the local shelter. As for Irene, it is not forecast to cross Florida at this time. However, if that changes I am ready to do what I need to do.
But you make a good point. These storms can do anything once they near landfall. It is why we need as much advance warning as possible with constant updates. I know many people like to dismiss these early warnings but living in this area teaches you it is better to be over prepared and safe than under prepared and sorry. Just ask those that took Charley’s quick turn and direct hit.
Target: the Carolinas.
It’s what I was leaning toward this afternoon, but hesitated going out on a limb. Now I’m thinking landfall South Carolina, leaning towards the S/N Carolina border region. Maybe even a major hurricane.
From http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCDAT4+shtml/220859.shtml , right cased, you’re welcome:
It now appears that irene will not interact with Hispaniola as much
or as long as previously expected. This will also result in more
strengthening than previously expected. Irene is forecast by all of
the models to have a very impressive outflow pattern throughout the
forecast period…including a large upper-level trough/low about
1200 nmi east of the cyclone acting as a mass sink. With Irene also
expected to be over SSTs near 30C after 48 hours…significant
strengthening could occur. However…the official intensity will
remain on the conservative side due to the uncertainty in how much
Irene will interact with the mountainous terrain of Hispaniola for
the next 24-36 hours. The official intensity forecast is a blend of
the Ships/LGEM models and the HWRF/GFDL models. However…given the
impressive upper-level flow pattern expected across Irene…it
would not surprise me if this cyclone became a major hurricane at
some time during its lifetime like the GFDL and HWRF models are
forecasting.
It is important not to focus on the exact forecast track…
especially at days 4 to 5…since the most recent 5-year average
errors at those forecast times are 200 and 250 miles…
respectively.
Forecaster Stewart
Ryan – what the heck is a mass sink? Something that helps clear out the hurricane’s outflow?
Tropical storms move a huge amount of air upward, which then has to be cleared lest it blocks additional convection. The most impressive storm move under and feed a upper level high which helps blow out the convected air. Look for cirrus outflow spreading out from IR movie loops of big hurricanes.
I sweated every moment of Irene’s development up to the point of its landfall 20 miles to the southwest of my boat. It came into Puerto Rico in Humacao on the SouthEast coast and delivered strong Tropical Storm force winds to the southern side of Vieques near the town of Esperanza before reaching Puerto Rico. As it interacted with the big island, it managed to knock out electrical power to over 800 thousand people last night. They will all be suffering from the warnth this morning due to lack of power. San Juan’s radar is still off line due to that electrical outage as I type this. The system looks to still be beating against the Northern coast near the heavily populated end of the island. Pray for those folks, they are the first to suffer from Irene but probably won’t be the last. Good Luck to those down stream. Its track is likely to creep further to the right than to the left. People on the coast up to Cape Fear need to be prepared for devasdation as it may come their way.
Looks like my fear (and that of the Joes much earlier than anyone else) of Irene moving north of the spine of Hispaniola may be coming to pass. That would mean that there’s a strong likelihood she’ll be a strong Cat 2 as a bare minimum by the time the latitude of Miami is reached. Once the possibilties of land interaction can be minimised and a light-shear environment is set, the GFDL and HWRF models tend to forecast most accurately the degree of strengthening, and tend to be more aggressive than the global weather models.
Still too early to say when exactly she’ll break through the high-pressure ridge though. So, while the intensity can be said with some confidence to be damaging, the path is much less certain. She could even break north and recurve to miss the US coast entirely. Then again, I have noticed a tendency for some of the stronger TCs to resist recurvature for longer than forecast, putting them further west.
It’s the uncertainty that’s hard to deal with for those potentially in the path. Good luck to those in that part of the world.
Turned on my weatherbell radar this AM to get an idea how early the local showers would move out. The map is a close-up of my area, in southern New Hampshire. I noted two odd lines across the map from southwest to northeast, one pink one just to the west of my town, and one blue one just to the east. Curious, I zoomed back to see what they might be attached to. Abruptly I understood they were two different model’s forcast tracks for Irene.
Got my attention.
I seem to recall reading a piece by Joe Bastardi regarding the hurricane of 1938 and how this season, things would build up in such a way as to be possibly conducive to a similar event. The path of Irene seems close and, though I’m not an expert on these things, it looks like there might be a blocking high in the mid Atlantic. If this comes to pass, this will be very bad for the north east of the US. We shouldn’t be poo pooing the forecast. We should be pointing out that this storm or one similar this year, has the potential to be as bad as a similar storm that occured in 1938. That is:
Something very bad might happen because of the weather.
As predicted by the climate skeptics.
Ahead of NASA et.al.
That’s no B.S.
Cheers.
JE
@savethesharks
Right, that’s the E Coast sorted. Now, if Saint Andreas would just co-operate, we can sort the W Coast (floats off into the Pacific). Now, we’re left with the sensible people. Americans.
For the last 20 hours I’ve been conducting a small personal experiment in the power of positive mental intention on this storm. I go into a meditative state and beam the thought “Irene go due North and disintegrate” I’m posting this not because I hope to find many who share any sense of mystical power here, but to have an independent monitor of any success I might achieve. If you are so inclined feel free to join in, but from the comments I suspect I’ll be fighting mental headwinds from the Texicans.
So, after 8 named depressions/storms since the Hurricane season officially began on June 1, while watching the Accumulated World Cyclone Energy at a 40 year low, we get our first hurricane of 2011.
The warmistas of the Church of Global Warming can finally breath a sigh of relief.