This post has been combined into a new one for Katia and Lee here
Also I have our new track projection map online now, that covers all the way out to the Cape Verde Islands where these storm systems form. See below the bulletin.
BULLETIN TROPICAL STORM KATIA ADVISORY NUMBER 16 NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL122011 1100 PM AST THU SEP 01 2011 ...KATIA CONTINUES OVER THE OPEN ATLANTIC...NO IMMEDIATE THREAT TO LAND... SUMMARY OF 1100 PM AST...0300 UTC...INFORMATION ----------------------------------------------- LOCATION...16.7N 50.6W ABOUT 830 MI...1335 KM E OF THE NORTHERN LEEWARD ISLANDS MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...70 MPH...110 KM/H PRESENT MOVEMENT...WNW OR 290 DEGREES AT 16 MPH...26 KM/H MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...990 MB...29.23 INCHES WATCHES AND WARNINGS -------------------- THERE ARE NO COASTAL WATCHES OR WARNINGS IN EFFECT. DISCUSSION AND 48-HOUR OUTLOOK ------------------------------ AT 1100 PM AST...0300 UTC...THE CENTER OF TROPICAL STORM KATIA WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 16.7 NORTH...LONGITUDE 50.6 WEST. KATIA IS MOVING TOWARD THE WEST-NORTHWEST NEAR 16 MPH...26 KM/H. THIS GENERAL MOTION WITH A DECREASE IN FORWARD SPEED IS EXPECTED DURING THE NEXT TWO DAYS. ON THE FORECAST TRACK...KATIA WILL CONTINUE TO MOVE OVER THE OPEN ATLANTIC.
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS REMAIN NEAR 70 MPH...110 KM/H...WITH HIGHER GUSTS. KATIA IS FORECAST TO REGAIN HURRICANE STRENGTH DURING THE NEXT DAY OR SO. TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 140 MILES...220 KM FROM THE CENTER. ESTIMATED MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE IS 990 MB...29.23 INCHES. HAZARDS AFFECTING LAND ---------------------- SURF...SWELLS GENERATED BY KATIA WILL BEGIN AFFECTING THE LESSER ANTILLES BY LATE FRIDAY. THESE SWELLS ARE LIKELY TO CAUSE LIFE-THREATENING SURF AND RIP CURRENT CONDITIONS. PLEASE CONSULT PRODUCTS FROM YOUR LOCAL WEATHER OFFICE.
Track map in HiDef – click to enlarge:
More imagery on WUWT’s tropical cyclone page
So far, model projections don’t say for certain that we’ll see a US landfall, it may turn north before reaching any US coastline. Time will tell.
Why was the CERN result delayed 9.5months till the start of the peak hurricane season?
Or as the research will show: “scientists have shown a correlation between hurricanes and globally important research and suggest this is another indication of the global impacts of manmade warming”.
I wait with baited breath.
JM, what do you bait your breath with? B4 answering, check with Wiki!
Ok…went through Irene, just got power back in time for my wife and I to leave for 3wks in Nova Scotia then Newfoundland, supporting the Targa race there, and now it looks like Katia may pay us a visit up there? May need a “hurricane hole” for the motorhome.
JimB
Oh goodie, if it follows the same track as Irene, that’s another 36 hours without power, and another 4 days of removing fallen trees, branches, and shredded leaves, and that’s just the front yard. I had lots of trees. I still have most of them. Remarkably everything missed the house, except for the hickory nuts that sounded like the “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” drum solo on the siding while the winds were high.
Back to the clean-up.
Any one want to bet how ‘historic’ this will be when the msm and Obie one’s get moving !!
I loved ABC news this morning lamenting how tough it’s been in New York City. A blizzard, an earthquake, and a tropical storm (sounded very dissapointed and had to correct herself from beginning to say hurricane) all in one year. Well, please come and visit the rest of the country once in a while and you can see some real weather. I lived south of Houston for 10 years, we didn’t blink at TS’s, and I don’t hear them complaining about Ike. They cleaned up and moved on with life.
Now I live in NW Louisiana. We had a real winter this year and that has been the most significant precipitation in nearly two years here. The other real precip came as hail, but we had to tolerate tornadoes with it.
I’m sorry, I have a real hard time sympathizing or empathizing with someone living a sheltered life inside a huge city complaining about how the earth treat’s them.
Looking at the long range 300mb GFS, on or about the 5th there will be a deep trof sitting on the east coast. It appears that Katia will move to the North on or around the 5th.
If it makes landfall as a real hurricane it will be interesting to see people’s under-reactions in NYC because they were told the previous TS was a Cat 1. How will CNN ever hype it enough to be believable this time?
PRD, I understand your feeling on city folk being sheltered from the realities of nature… but rest assured, those of us in more rural new england have had “real” treatment. Day 4 without power today, and it’s likely that it will not be restored for another 4 days. Only 1 in 5 roads into my neighborhood is open. We had houses washed off their foundations on Long Island sound. You think you had a “real winter” in Louisiana? Please. We had 5 feet of snow in the month of January alone. It was no Joplin, but Springfield is STILL cleaning up from the tornadoes we had in May. We had floods in June, and we’re facing floods again now in the CT, Housatonic, and other rivers from Irene.
You don’t have to go far out of ANY city to see “the rest of the country”. But I’m glad to know that people are so tough elsewhere. Have a little respect for someone besides yourself. Try sympathizing with your countrymen when trouble hits. You might find it doesn’t hurt.
Loving living in Wyoming right now!
Hurricane Irene could be among costliest storms
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/08/31/Irene-could-be-among-costliest-storms/UPI-34011314768992/
Hurricane Irene likely will be among the costliest catastrophes in U.S. history, analysts say, adding that much of the damage may not be covered by insurance.
Analysts said much of the damage was caused by flooding, which is excluded from many standard insurance policies, The New York Times reported Wednesday.
Note: The bank fraud and bailouts were the costliest………
TFN JOHNSON says:
August 31, 2011 at 2:35 am
“JM, what do you bait your breath with? B4 answering, check with Wiki!”
Both ‘bated’ and ‘baited’ are common. There is a theory/legend that ‘bated’ is an Englishman’s form of ‘abated’, which kind of makes sense because having “abated breath” would be something like having lowered breath.
David says:
August 31, 2011 at 6:33 am
I think you missed his point.
David says: “We had 5 feet of snow in the month of January alone.” My home town in UP of Michigan a few years ago had 60.1 inches of snow in a weekend.
We all have our crosse[s] to bear some are just lighter than others.
Suggestion: Another poll for landfall location (or not)? I say track between Bermuda and East coast, no damage.
Insofar as Katia is likely to swing to the NE and dance across Bermuda while leaving NA alone – I think most folks will pay little attention to this storm.
So, it won’t be too big of a sin to go back to the comments by John Marshall and TFN Johnson (seemingly off topic) regarding “baited” breath:
Reference—
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-bai1.htm
There, Michael Quinion wrote:
[Q] From Steve Gearhart: Where does the term baited breath come from, as in: ‘I am waiting with baited breath for your answer’?
[A] The correct spelling is actually bated breath but it’s so common these days to see it written as baited breath that there’s every chance that it will soon become the usual form, to the disgust of conservative speakers and the confusion of dictionary writers. Examples in newspapers and magazines are legion; this one appeared in the Daily Mirror on 12 April 2003: “She hasn’t responded yet but Michael is waiting with baited breath”.
It’s easy to mock, but there’s a real problem here. Bated and baited sound the same and we no longer use bated (let alone the verb to bate), outside this one set phrase, which has become an idiom. Confusion is almost inevitable. Bated here is a contraction of abated through loss of the unstressed first vowel (a process called aphesis); it means “reduced, lessened, lowered in force”. So bated breath refers to a state in which you almost stop breathing as a result of some strong emotion, such as terror or awe.
Shakespeare is the first writer known to use it, in The Merchant of Venice, in which Shylock says to Antonio: “Shall I bend low and, in a bondman’s key, / With bated breath and whisp’ring humbleness, / Say this …”. Nearly three centuries later, Mark Twain employed it in Tom Sawyer: “Every eye fixed itself upon him; with parted lips and bated breath the audience hung upon his words, taking no note of time, rapt in the ghastly fascinations of the tale”.
For those who know the older spelling or who stop to consider the matter, baited breath evokes an incongruous image; Geoffrey Taylor humorously (and consciously) captured it in verse in his poem Cruel Clever Cat:
“Cruel Clever Cat:
Sally, having swallowed cheese,
Directs down holes the scented breeze,
Enticing thus with baited breath
Nice mice to an untimely death.”
John Marshall says:
August 31, 2011 at 1:27 am
I wait with baited breath.
Theo Goodwin says:
August 31, 2011 at 7:14 am
TFN JOHNSON says:
August 31, 2011 at 2:35 am
“JM, what do you bait your breath with? B4 answering, check with Wiki!”
Both ‘bated’ and ‘baited’ are common. There is a theory/legend that ‘bated’ is an Englishman’s form of ‘abated’, which kind of makes sense because having “abated breath” would be something like having lowered breath.
My dictionary says “bate” is an intransitive verb meaning to moderate or reduce. Thus ‘abated’ is in the state of being ‘bated’, although that is the second def. for ‘abate’, the first being “to put an end to”. Waiting while breath is “baited” would be a matter of taste…;-)
Bated breath, means to hold ones breath, or softly breathing.
Baited breath, to me, always smacked of eating cheddar to attract mice, but that’s just me.
Cruel Clever Cat by Geoffrey Taylor:
“Sally having swallowed cheese,
Directs down holes the scented breeze,
Enticing thus with baited breath
Nice mice to an untimely death.”
🙂
Oops, John F. H. beat me to it.
I call myself a hurricane survivor. At least for this post. Survived Irene 1999, Frances, Jeanne, Wilma and a number of tropical storms. Was setting up a homemade wind generator just before tropical storm Gordan 1994, that TS Gordan was a good test for the wind generator.
Seems to me, the strongest wind is close to the eye wall and close to the major rain bands. Near the eye wall, the wind was more steady.
The wind can be ‘calm’ one minute and dangerous the next.
Hurricanes can be a soaker or not and for some areas and not others.
They can be unpredictable.
Of the 10 costliest U.S. Atlantic hurricanes, 8 occurred before there was any talk of global warming ( wikipedia, I know, wikipedia ).
I hope the experts continue to do a good job with their track projections.
I was close to Andrew and in the center of Irene 1999. Andrew made hard left and Irene 1999 made a hard right at ‘the last minute’, they are apolitical.
I’ve heard of sailors, moving to get out of the projected path, then end up trying to quickly find a safe harbor when the storm heads toward them, again.
If you get caught, unprepared, you may get clobbered and there’s a chance your just gonna get clobbered.
The masses don’t know what its like to ‘survive’ a hurricane. It doesn’t look like the media or government is doing a very good job to inform them.
BTW: The wind generator preformed well. Was getting 8-9 amps and could have been better. Found out the prop hub was slipping on the motor shaft a little at high wind speeds. Also, it may have helped if this was on dry land and not a small sail boat, on the hook, getting blown around and bounced in the waves of TS Gordan. I enjoyed that one, Irene 1999 not so much…
Sally, having swallowed cheese,
Directs down holes the scented breeze,
Enticing thus with baited breath
Nice mice to an untimely death.
Amazing how I can spot errors in the first read after the submit button is pressed.
Both ‘bated’ and ‘baited’ are common. There is a theory/legend that ‘bated’ is an Englishman’s form of ‘abated’, which kind of makes sense because having “abated breath” would be something like having lowered breath.
Because most of england spoke a form of french for many years it probably originates from the french ‘abater’ for which there are many english translations. These include the derivation of abbatoir (slaughter) cut down, abate etc well you get the gist from geste.
I predict a left handed hockey stick approach
DAVID,
I was specifically addressing those in the big city high rises who don’t truly suffer weather phenomenon. They may experience it walking from the cab to the door, or down the street for lunch. In most major cities, the utilities are installed underground, therefore utility outages are a rare event.
We were out two weeks after Hurricane Rita, water included as we operate on a water well. We’ve had weeklong or more outages during and after ice storms, and tornadoes. The tornadoes of late may put us out for a week as well.
A “real winter” in Louisiana means we get snow that sticks to the ground. I don’t expect it to compare to the winter climate of even north Arkansas. When winter precip hits the ground in La. it’s major because the folks here may go 20 years without having to drive on ice or snow and it becomes utter chaos.
In reality, I’ll prefer the storms or water, ice, or wind to what we are currently experiencing. That is the slow, agonizing, starvation of drought. We are in our second year of drought and hardwood trees are beginning to die. Even underbrush generally regarded as “undead” such as youpon and ironwood (bois d’ arc) is yellowing and browning. Homeowners private water wells are failing and in many areas this is the only option for drinking water. Many private ponds are going dry, forcing small farmers and ranchers to move or sell their livestock. There has not been a decent hay crop for a year and a half. We are shipping in hay at exorbitant cost. Dry spells are one thing, but another year of “little girl” is going to be a real killer.
I’ll trade you this drought for 5 feet of snow and your little tropical storm. We’re so dry right now, it’ll run off for a while simply due to the moisture differential and surface tension of the water, but shortly we’d soak in every inch of what y’all saw.
I’ve always read “baited breath” as a joke or intentional play on the proper “bated breath” when written by someone I figure should or would know the correct form. I personally use “baited (with rotten shrimp)” or some other smelly piscadorean lure when playing on the statement.
(WARNING: DRAMATIC GENERALIZATION) In today’s world though, I think anyone under about 35 wouldn’t know the correct form simply due to poor schooling.
An earlier post showed a region of cold SSTs in the path of Irene that was produced by vertical mixing with deeper layers. Does that region of colder water have the ability to inhibit storms like Katia that may trace a path similar to Irene? How long do the unusually cool SSTs in the wake of a hurricane typically last?
I just played the spirals of Irene reversely when there suddenly was a demonic voice calling
“AL! AL GORE! I’LL COME BACK TO EXACT YOUR SOUL!”
I hope it regards Katia…
@ John F. Hultquist
Good stuff, good Sir! I appreciated the illumination, and the poem was fun. Like others have implied, when I read “baited breath” I think of what mine must smell like after I’ve been eating sardines.
Tim Ball
Coast To Coast AM – 29.8.2011 – 1/4 – Climate & Hurricane Irene
http://youtu.be/6p2iFRIa-mI
Coast To Coast AM – 29.8.2011 – 2/4 – Climate & Hurricane Irene
http://youtu.be/BvAbkRUZc3o
posted on August 31, 2011 by Anthony Watts
“It won’t be long now.”
I realize you wear many hats but never knew you were also a Mohel.
Looking very likely at this stage that Katia will be a fish storm. All eyes now turn to the Gulf of Mexico with Invest 93L forecast by some models to become TS Lee by the end of the weekend.
GFS at 92 hours has the system sitting pretty much over New Orleans, probably at close to hurricane strength, and loitering there for qsome time.
Discussion on that system can be found at:
http://www.storm2k.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=111727&sid=50befce4002d87bba6bbb9db2cad77d7&start=60
Interesting article about “recurving”, describing why hurricanes start off in a westerly direction, gradually being pulled more northerly, and then to the east, basically forming a “C”: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/08/katia-hurricane-recurving.html
“Irene followed that same trajectory, but it did the C move as it headed up the East Coast. Katia could make its inevitable C entirely over water.
That happens all the time, Masters said. “More than half of all the Atlantic hurricanes never trouble anybody,” he said.”
We’re expecting a tropical storm this weekend in South Louisiana, possibly 50+mph, so I’m stoked….on high ground of course.
“”””” john says:
August 31, 2011 at 7:11 am
Hurricane Irene could be among costliest storms
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/08/31/Irene-could-be-among-costliest-storms/UPI-34011314768992/
Hurricane Irene likely will be among the costliest catastrophes in U.S. history, “””””
Well let’s give credit where it is due. The “catastrophe” was building all that junk right along the coast in the first place. The hurricanes come along there every year; always have; always will.
Same thing as New Orleans, and Katrina. You build a city below sea level, and then put a big lake to hold even more water on the other side of it, and it will get flooded. And if you raise the height of the dikes (swimming pool walls) then the next one will just flood everything deeper. The solution is to stop building (and rebuilding) underwater cities.
I have two things.
1) For some reason, something here has change and when I post a letter my screen jumps to the top of the article. When I scroll back down I can not see my message “awaiting moderation” like I did up until this week. It does get posted later, but this is weird. I am using a different (work) computer this week and perhaps that is the root cause.
2) If this hurricane hits the USA anyplace, will I see a single ground station that shows sustained winds anyplace near what NOAA says the cane’s wind-speed is? Say within 10 mph? Any chance?
Hi Dave,
I’ve been looking at 93L since Dr Maue put up the ECMWF and GFS forecast maps on the earlier 92L/Jose/Katia post. Initially, ECMWF had a low developing off the Louisiana coast and then heading to the Texas/Mexico border before dissipating inland, while GFS had it getting near Texas before looping round to head for New Orleans with 115mph winds.
The models seem to have switched sides now, with GFS showing 93L/Lee teasing the central Louisiana coast before heading for the Rio Grande as around a Cat 2, while ECMWF has it meandering in the Gulf before running into central and eastern Louisiana as a biggie next Thurs/Fri.
Basically, once the upper winds abate and allow 93L to develop, steering is so weak that it could end up anywhere. With any luck it’ll move so slowly that cold water upwelling will limit its development so that wherever it does eventually end up, it will do so without packing winds in the triple digits.
Texans must be praying for TS Lee.
Dear potential TS Lee, please keep moving NW. My folks in SW LA need some rain. Its bone dry there….
Katia looks to be too far north to ever approach the US coast line.
George E. Smith says:
So, we abandon the east coast? We get the potential of a storm or 2 every year. It doesn’t actually happen that often. And no east coast city is as vulnerable as New Orleans.
George E. Smith says:
September 1, 2011 at 1:53 am
Well let’s give credit where it is due. The “catastrophe” was building all that junk right along the coast in the first place. The hurricanes come along there every year; always have; always will.
Except that in this case much, if not most of the flooding was inland, far away from the coast, and was due to some extraordinarily high rainfall taking out bridges, damaging roads, etc.
“In today’s world though, I think anyone under about 35 wouldn’t know the correct form simply due to poor schooling.”
We could nip that in the butt with a little more reading riting and rithmatic in schools!
Looks like Katia has decided to take some time off and have a few mojitos instead of remaining a hurricane for the time being anyway
Katia back down to a TS, due to increasing shear and some dry air entrainment. It’s still forecast to become a major, but we’ll have to see how persistent the effect of the upper low is in imparting shear on her. That low may become a tropical cyclone itself, not only imparting more shear but dragging Katia further west. Double-edged sword for the east coast.
Looking at GFS and ECMWF latest runs, they both have Katia getting much closer to the States than previous runs. ECMWF has a hairpin turn being performed to avoid Florida and Georgia, but GFS gets very close to the Outer Banks again before heading off and becoming a real beast around Greenland and Iceland. Could prompt a late dip in Arctic ice if it plays out, but it’s far too uncertain a picture at present.
These ladies are being unpredictable of late, eh?
And she’s back up another 5 knots…
Interesting stuff from ECMWF and GFS now. Both have the Azores high pushing Katia further west, getting into a standoff with Florida and the Bahamas before backing down and running past NS and Newfoundland into the high Atlantic. The Azores high seems to be getting displaced further north at this time, giving any other Cape Verde TCs in the near future more space to breach any weaknesses, recurve and avoid western Atlantic landfall.
Putative Lee, meanwhile, is scratching his backside in the Gulf, wondering where exactly to dump his vast amounts of moisture. Wherever it is will, due to the slow motion, cop a prolonged drenching. Y’all get the sandbags in down there, OK?
I am in the UK so have very little understanding of hurricanes and need some help.
The track above predicts that Katia will turn to a westerly direction between Tues and Weds at present the last three advisory notes have the storm turning north.
Will the predicted track be based on the actual atmospheric conditions that exist to today or on previous experience and what is the expected success rate of this type of projection?
TIA
Also, 94L is looking to me very much like a tilted, sheared TC already, although the experts aren’t calling it as such yet. Might nick the Lee moniker from TD13 to keep the boys as pretty harmless this season, leaving all the nasty stuff to the girls.
“Putative Lee, meanwhile, is scratching his backside in the Gulf”
The more it sits in one spot, stirring the water and blocking insolation, the less likely intensification becomes. Not science but an observation that they usually strengthen when they are on the move, over unspoiled warm water.
Dave Worley says:
September 2, 2011 at 10:24 am
“Putative Lee, meanwhile, is scratching his backside in the Gulf”
The more it sits in one spot, stirring the water and blocking insolation, the less likely intensification becomes. Not science but an observation that they usually strengthen when they are on the move, over unspoiled warm water.
You do yourself a disservice. As you suggest, if they’re sat over the same patch of water, or perform a cyclonic loop and recross previously-traversed water, they’ll draw up cooler water from deeper down, stalling evaporation and convection, and starving the system of its fuel. Still plenty of moisture aloft in Lee, but the slow movement may stop the winds from getting up too high with any luck.