Bastardi: 'potential nightmare.. a tropical cyclone coming at the outer banks on the July 4 weekend'

UPDATE: Latest GFDL model output suggests Bastardi could be right, see below.

UPDATE2: New information from Bastardi here shows 4th of July nightmare is shaping up to be true.

The Case for Rapid Development Feedback of a Potential Tropical Storm: Arthur.

Guest essay by Joe Bastardi, WeatherBell Analytics.

In the old days, one never had to worry about anything but hitting the forecast.  But times have changed. With an agenda out there to take any weather event that attracts attention and turn into into a reason that an AGW driven atmospheric apocalypse is upon us, one has to make sure the physical grounds are stated before hand for why the event can occur.

We are faced with a potential nightmare.. a tropical cyclone coming at the outer banks on the July 4 weekend. I already have this as an 80 knot storm by July 4th, right on top of the North Carolina coast. That represents the mid ground of a fear this can be stronger. The post Sunday on Weatherbell.com on this outlined why.  To refresh your memory, a look at the ECMWF 200 mb pattern Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, indicates why this can deepen so much, and as a matter of fact is in a prime area to do so.

The Wed AM outflow channel is developing to the northwest,  with  north winds on the east side. The storm position is marked by the X on the map below:

Thursday morning:

Finally,  Friday morning…Even here it is still in the “upward motion” quadrant of the jet to the north (right  front entrance) though by this time the best conditions start to fade. But by this time the center has battered the outer banks.

The seawater, like the end game of the last AMO in the 1950s, is very warm along the east coast.

from: http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/anomwnc.gif

Again this warm seawater is a product of the natural cyclical function of the AMO in its mature stage.

You can read about that here: http://patriotpost.us/opinion/26136

As I posted on it, and the Weatherbell.com preseason forecast outlined our great concern about in close development/intensification this season, a product of the overall climatic pattern we are in (again similar to the 1950s).

Storms coming to the coast in their intensification stage will often use frictional effects to feedback and intensify. A large powerful , mature hurricane in the same position might weaken, its expanse  and interaction with the trough  causing an extensive area of rain cooled air to be pulled in to the storm. But a smaller storm may actually intensify, since it is not yet large enough to pull in the rain cooled air and the frictional affects, may tighten the bands up.  The large scale pattern that may weaken a major storm, may be conducive to deepening a smaller one.

Look at it this way.  If you have 2 people, one used to 3000 calories a day, one used to 1000 calories and they sit down to a  2000 calorie meal every day for a week, the larger person would lose weight, the lighter gain weight.  The common thread of this is rarely recognized in storms.  But the smaller the storm, the better the chance it can deepen. Think of Katrina approaching Florida as a small storm with ideal conditions for development.

She deepened right to the coast. But when she got very large, a cat 5, in the same place the much smaller Camille in 1969 was a cat 5, she started to weaken, while Camille maintained the core winds right to the coast.  My point here being that what is good for the goose is not always good for the gander, and this storm has alot going for it.

Lets take a similar example:  Hurricane Alex in 2004 which battered the outer banks and was worse than the forecast from official sources had,  with wind gusts over 115 mph reported.

The track of Alex in 2004:

Alex exploded in 42 hours from a  35 kt minimal TS  to  85 kt storm. Notice the similar 200 mb pattern:

00z  Aug 2  2004

00a Aug  3 2004

00z  Aug  4,2004

By the way, a storm in the article above, Gerda in 1969, also “exploded” up the east coast in spite of interaction with an approaching trough. A first, with smaller storms, these troughs help ventilate the storms in the northwest quad. The smaller the storm, the tougher the forecast situation.

In addition, El Niño seasons are known for in-close deepeners. The strongest May storm on record in 1951 was Able, in a warm ENSO.  Audrey was  the strongest storm on record in June, 1957. Interestingly enough, in El Niño seasons, many of the first storms are strong ( more examples Betsy, 1965,  Alicia 1983,  Andrew was coming off the 91-92 El Niño and 2004 was an El Niño season, the year of the aforementioned Alex!

But if this does explode (again we have been on top of this…) the first alert for the HURRICANE  threat on the outer banks to clients, then public followers, was Saturday), it has nothing to do with .04% of the atmosphere. It has  everything to do with the physical reality of the pattern,  which we have seen before. Since we see a similar set up, we have to be on guard against a similar event.

There is nothing mystical or magical about it. That it would grab headlines of a major resort area on arguably the biggest summer holiday of the season, means the threat  of spinning it  for an agenda is there. I cherish the day when  the only kind of spinning we have to deal with is what the atmosphere  does, not what people using the atmosphere for their agenda spin it for.

There is a why before the what in a case like this if it does deepen, and it has nothing to do with global warming/climate change/AGW.

UPDATE: Latest GFDL model shows the speed, position, and central pressure forecasts for Friday, July 4th.