Danielle
Posted on 08/14/2004 8:05:55 PM PDT by walford
Tropical Storm Earl Forms Near the Lesser Antilles TROPICAL STORM EARL INTERMEDIATE ADVISORY NUMBER 5A
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
8 PM AST SAT AUG 14 2004
...EARL CONTINUING QUICKLY TOWARD THE WINDWARD ISLANDS...
A TROPICAL STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FOR BARBADOS...ST. VINCENT...THE GRENADINES...TRINIDAD...TOBAGO...GRENADA AND ITS DEPENDENCIES...AND ST. LUCIA. INTERESTS AROUND THE EASTERN CARIBBEAN SEA SHOULD CLOSELY MONITOR THE PROGRESS OF THIS SYSTEM.
AT 8 PM AST...0000Z...THE CENTER OF TROPICAL STORM EARL WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 11.1 NORTH...LONGITUDE 55.8 WEST OR ABOUT 300 MILES... 480 KM...EAST-SOUTHEAST OF BARBADOS.
EARL IS MOVING TOWARD THE WEST-NORTHWEST NEAR 24 MPH ...39 KM/HR...AND THIS GENERAL MOTION IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE FOR THE NEXT 24 HOURS. ON THIS TRACK THE STORM WILL MOVE OVER PORTIONS OF THE WINDWARD ISLANDS ON SUNDAY. WEATHER CONDITIONS OVER THE WINDWARD ISLANDS WILL BE DETERIORATING TONIGHT.
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 40 MPH... 65 KM/HR...WITH HIGHER GUSTS. FURTHER STRENGTHENING IS FORECAST DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS.
TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 85 MILES ...140 KM FROM THE CENTER.
ESTIMATED MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE IS 1006 MB...29.71 INCHES.
RAINFALL TOTALS OF 3 TO 5 INCHES ARE LIKELY IN ASSOCIATION WITH EARL.
HURRICANE DANIELLE ADVISORY NUMBER 7
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
11 PM AST SAT AUG 14 2004
...DANIELLE BECOMES THE THIRD HURRICANE OF THE SEASON OVER THE FAR EASTERN ATLANTIC...
AT 11 PM AST...0300Z...THE CENTER OF HURRICANE DANIELLE WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 14.2 NORTH... LONGITUDE 30.0 WEST OR ABOUT 375 MILES... 605 KM... WEST OF THE SOUTHERNMOST CAPE VERDE ISLANDS.
DANIELLE IS MOVING TOWARD THE WEST-NORTHWEST NEAR 15 MPH ...24 KM/HR...AND THIS MOTION IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE FOR THE NEXT 24 HOURS...FOLLOWED BY A TURN TO THE NORTHWEST.
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 75 MPH...120 KM/HR...WITH HIGHER GUSTS. SOME STRENGTHENING IS FORECAST DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS.
HURRICANE FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 25 MILES... 35 KM... FROM THE CENTER...AND TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 105 MILES...165 KM.
ESTIMATED MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE IS 987 MB...29.15 INCHES
Huh? Trying for accuracy is bad?
The problem is media portrayal of forecasts. I suspect you don't actually read any original NHC products at all.
Halliburton supplied Earl with hot water.
Earl looks like it has serious hurricane potential. Water surface temperatures increased slightly after Charley's visit and 4 days does not look like enough time for them to cool.
Every time I see these storm tracks, I feel, I know what it's like to be a bowling pin. ;-)
NOAA issues probabilities and warnings. The hurricane was well within the warning area AT ALL TIMES. The probabilities are simply probabilities. They were not misleading. Did you actually read a NOAA report?
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2004/prb/al032004.prblty.016.shtml?
The graphics you see above are the same used for EVERY NHC advisory...showing the error range in forecasting. Hurricane Charley made landfall about sixty miles south of Tampa..which fits well into the known error margin of forecasts. That is why Hurricane Warnings were posted on Thurday morning for the entire SW coast of FL..and why mandatory evac orders were given (for barrier islands and mobile homes, especially).
Unfortunately, the media tends to concentrate on the exact forecast track...and so they emphasized Tampa over everything else (due to it being the major metro area). The NHC specifically said in their advisories that small changes in direction could lead to an earlier or later landfall (either north or south of Tampa) due to the position of the storm and the topography of the FL west coast. This information is often glossed over by TV stations as they strive to prove that they are the most "accurate" weather authority in the market.
I can't help feeling that the media concentrated on the Tampa Bay area because it is a major metropolitan center and a direct strike by a hurricane in such a place would create for them a gold mine of disaster stories, bad news and high ratings.
Uh oh, I have a trip to Texas in the near future, and it looks like Earl does too.
Thank you for pointing that out. Some forget.
I'm not convinced the LEO came through neighborhoods in St. Pete at 3:00am Friday morning with bullhorns calling for evacuation based on television ratings.
I've always seen the LEO's canvasing neighborhoods before storms on TV.
But they didn't come to my neighborhood at any time right before Andrew, even though we were in an evacuation zone.
None of us left, since we all knew that we were on high enough ground, in spite of what the county evacuation maps showed. Maybe the LEO's figured the same, who knows.
If anyone is to blame it is the TV weather bureaus not the NOAA or the NHC.
Here we go again.
Meteorology is not an exact science....at best it is guesstimates.
I'm so sick an tired of these blame games that are played out after every single weather "problem"
A lot of hard lessons, from preparation to recovery, were learned as a result of Andrew.
Like yourself, I am not a meteorologist, but would you perhaps agree that this storm made the hard right turn, due to influence from the prevailing jet stream?
Once caught by the jet stream, Charley followed the exact path of the stream, all the way up the coast.
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