Posted on 09/19/2002 8:24:27 AM PDT by varina davis
TROPICAL STORM ISIDORE DISCUSSION NUMBER 14
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MIAMI FL
A DROPSONDE JUST BEFORE 12Z REPORTED MEAN WINDS IN ITS LOWEST LAYERS OF 75 KT. ADJUSTMENT OF THIS OB TO THE SURFACE GIVE 59 KT...AND IS THE BASIS FOR AN INCREASE IN THE ADVISORY WINDS TO 60 KT.
A MICROWAVE OVERPASS AT 12Z SHOWED A PRETTY SOLID EYEWALL. THE NEXT RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT WILL BE IN THE SYSTEM AT 18Z...AND THEY WILL PROBABLY FIND A HURRICANE.
THE CYCLONE HAS NOT MOVED MUCH OVER THE PAST FEW HOURS WHILE THIS EYEWALL HAS BEEN FORMING...BUT AN AVERAGE MOTION OVER THE LAST 6 TO 12 HOURS IS 290/7. THE SHORT-TERM MODEL GUIDANCE REMAINS IN GOOD AGREEMENT ON A WNW-NW TRACK TOWARDS WESTERN CUBA.
NEAR THE END OF THE FORECAST PERIOD ISIDORE SHOULD STALL AS THE TROUGH CURRENTLY OVER THE CENTRAL U.S. BYPASSES THE CYCLONE. THIS LEAVES ISIDORE IN A VERY WEAK STEERING ENVIRONMENT IN THE SOUTHEASTERN GULF OF MEXICO.
THE SOUTHEASTERN GULF SOUTH OF 25N HAS AMPLE WARM WATER TO SIGNIFICANT DEPTHS...SO A STALL THERE WOULD NOT HINDER DEVELOPMENT.
AN ADDITIONAL CONCERN IS THE ALREADY EXPANDING WIND FIELD TO THE EAST OF ISIDORE...AND SO THERE IS A RISK OF TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS IN THE LOWER KEYS EVEN IF THE CENTER REMAINS ON TRACK. A WATCH OR WARNING MAY BE REQUIRED THERE LATER TODAY.
DUST OFF THE CHAOS BUTTERFLIES OF MIT PROFESSOR ED LORENZ. BEYOND THREE DAYS...THERE IS COMPLETE DIVERGENCE OF THE MODEL GUIDANCE...AS A SERIES OF SHORT WAVES IN THE WESTERLIES SLIDE ALONG SOUTH OF THE MEAN TROUGH THAT SHOULD LINGER OVER THE GREAT LAKES.
EACH MODEL HAS ITS OWN PERSONAL INTERACTION OF ISIDORE WITH A SHORT WAVE OF ITS CHOOSING...LEADING TO 5 DAY FORECAST POSITIONS RANGING FROM THE YUCATAN TO JACKSONVILLE. IT IS SIMPLY NOT POSSIBLE YET TO BE CONFIDENT IN WHICH EVOLUTION WILL TURN OUT TO BE CORRECT...AS VERY SUBTLE CHANGES IN THE POSITION OF ISIDORE THREE DAYS FROM NOW COULD TURN OUT TO BE VERY IMPORTANT.
FORECASTER FRANKLIN
Hope the terrorists at GITMO don't mind getting a little wet.
They're in eastern Cuba, but they'll probably get drenched. Fine with me.
So far, the GFDL model likes that scenario the best.
IS FATE THE HUNTER?A long debated topic, perhaps since man could reason. Do things happen because it is fate, or are things just a random occurrence. If it is fate, the it has to occur. If one wants to see a great classic movie about this, check out the movie "Fate is the Hunter" I think it stars Glenn Ford.
If one is a pattern persistence person, one jumps on the idea that there is a certain sense to the pattern and it will repeat itself no matter how modelling looks. The pattern this summer has been one of flips and turn arounds. I have shown many an example of this back and forth type situation, no need to rehash it now. So here is the big question? With all the potential on the map, between very cold air surging into the nation's midsection, a monster Newfoundland wheel in the northwest Atlantic directing warm moist air northwest into the coastal east, and a major hurricane poised in the gulf Saturday morning trying to find the path between the two, is fate dictating a tremendous rain for a swath that has been very dry the past 3 months. Is fate the hunter here, relentless and inescapable? Should be just predict what has already happened several times, that the extreme is the norm and the way of bringing things back to average? We must also be concious that the ante is upped even more here.
Hard questions to answer, but the upward potential here is for three-day rain amounts in excess of 10 inches up the Appalachians before we can clear all this out as the trough over the nation's midsection comes east and sweeps it all out.
One has to understand the concern here, and I am sure much of the meteorological community is awakening to it now. When we look back and the heavy rains of Floyd we find that very cold air was west of the storm, a storm that brought in a tremendous amount of warm moist air. Many did not catch that, keying on the speed of the fast moving storm rather than the fact that a hurricane that had as much warm moist air over a large area as I have ever seen was going against a very chilly air mass. The clash resulted in the unreal rains. Here we have a storm that that is not as big as Floyd yet, but may get there. In addition, Floyd was weakening as it approached land, this storm may be intensifying until it hits land. This means the air mass with it is growing even more warm and moist even as colder air focuses its southeast surge toward it. An added problem is the blocking downstream forcing the trough that can pick this up to be very slow moving until the baroclinic processes of mixing that take place can occur and that wont be until the storm is up in Canada some place. So the result may be that areas that have missed the turn around the last month get hammered the worst, specifically the Appalachian chain and areas just west and east, the ultimate example of what this pattern has been like.
But such arguments for fate can still wind up foolish. There is still a feeling in the modelling that the storm misses the connection with the trough over the plains and after meandering around is forced southwest. I can see that, but do not think it likely at this time. I think the big question is which part of the trough gets Isidore, is it the early or middle part of next week that this worry come about? If it is early, then the storm is ashore in the Florida Panhandle Monday and runs the coastal plain into the mid-Atlantic states by Tuesday with gales holding together east of the center and copious rainfall west of the center. Compounding the rainfall problem is the idea that a front stalling over the Appalachians this weekend will have plenty of wet weather with it. The scene I am painting here is one we have seen before though. One common with extreme events. Should the storm miss this connection, the the threat shifts west to the central gulf coast and then the heavy rain threat is farther west in the south, perhaps farther east in the north because of some of the ridge being knocked down my midweek. The third scenario, the one I consider least likely is that both armies stare each other down and never clash...the cold stays across the north, and Isadore is driven southwest into Mexico. My feeling lies strongest with idea one at this time.
One more thing..perhaps the true answer, one that incorporates all this is that the major clash will happen but instead of the Monday idea with landfall near Appalachicola, it is a bit later and where the other two storms have gone....between Boothville and Appalachicola. This would be playing the pattern card to the ultimate, saying yes the idea of major drought reversal comes and instead of a faster system moving north northeast, the system comes slower and moves northeast, then north north east from landfall on the central gulf coast. Arguing against that though is my idea that by Saturday this is a big storm and big storms love to find ways to recurve and accomplish their mission, which is to redistribute heat into the westerlies. So of the three options, I lean to number one, a Monday landfall. I do wish to point out that option one and two still come up with the war between the two atmospheric armies needed to, in addition having a major hit, create the tremendous rains talked about. Only option three, which has become the least likely do the armies not clash at all, but slink off the battlefield.
To come this far and still not have the end game down is maddening.
One of the wild cards on the table is the possible hybrid development midway between Bermuda and the Bahamas this weekend. This could get pinwheeled right into the mid-Atlantic coast by Monday ahead of the storm as an enhanced area of gusty winds and heavy rains just to the north of where the low center goes. The development of this will start southwest of Bermuda tomorrow night, and though it may just wind up as an appendage, it may mean that while Isidore is meandering around it the Gulf, strong east to southeast winds and squally rains are hitting coastal areas over 500 miles away to the northeast.
Meteorologicaly, the upper system setting this off is now moving off the north Carolina coast and is expected to bust down the ridge northeast of Isidore so the the current stream flow from the east southeast steering here diminishes. In fact it diminishes to a point where a "col" zone develops over him tomorrow night and Saturday and stops it in its tracks. Our answer lies in between the UKMET idea of a hurricane near Key West Saturday, raking the keys and the GFS track north of the Yucatan. In short, we are with the hurricane center on their track, but believe by then it is Category 3. The implications for Florida are obviously great, but greater later. For after Saturday the storm will be tugged by a trough going by to the north, which if it catches it will take it far enough north to keep coming north, which is what big hurricanes are suppose to do. Or the ridging left over west may indeed try to influence it, because the ridge to the east breaks down. Until the pinwheel system gets out of the way and allows the ridge to rebuild to the east early next week, if the storm misses the connection with the first trough, it is going to sit around. What is hard for me to believe is that it will cut under the mean trough position over the central part of the continent In the end I think this whole thing is natures way of a) balancing out the extremes of the drought in yet another area and b) finally knocking the stuffing out of the eastern ridge that overall has held its ground since the first pulse of negative nao in early August.
For areas further west in cold country, I have no major changes in ideas that have been covered as the advance of chill the next few days. There is a debate about how much moisture Iselle supplies as it is not moving much and the major ridge in the west could keep alot of it separate. Frost and freezes may reach Iowa and Nebraska. The way Nebraska played, I bet they all wish they had Frost (Scott) back.
Folks in the islands should keep a close watch on the wave at 12 north and 30 west. That should be our last attempt at an African wave coming across. Sad to say if it makes it into the Caribbean next week, while it will be much colder in the east, we would have to entertain another difficult question from the tropics to end the month in the gulf.
We did not need Isidore to prove the points that we have been trying to make about pattern recognition over the states and storm development close by, I think the atmosphere the first 10 days of September spoke loud and clear about that with four developments. Isidore, the 10th named storm of the season IS THE 8TH TO GET NAMED WEST OF 70 WEST! I do think that when it is all said and done, Isidore could wind up to put the exclamation point on a season that was, rather than wasn't.
Who knows, it all of this may have just been fate.
Notes and Asides: THURSDAY MORNING SYNOPTIC SEVEN. The top seven football/ Meteo schools in the nation based on Meteorological and football prowess. 1 Oklahoma. 2 Penn State. 3 Florida State 4. Texas A and M 5.Michigan 6. Nebraska. 7 Colorado State
Ciao for now.
OK .. here is a stupid question .. Have they ever seen a Hurricane before??
If not .. should be an interesting reaction .. LOL
Long winded is right! But a pretty good forecast.
Perhaps the "debriefing teams" should tell the prisoners that unless they start speaking up we will unlease our "weather weapon".
Bastardi is a self-promoting buffoon.
Has a really long column in which he mentions every feature everywhere, and anything that can possibly happen, so that he can't possibly fail to "mention" something that develops...and plenty of things that don't.
And then he retroactively spins his forecasts to make himself look better and hide his errors; in some cases creating total fabrications of fact.
And he'll take unjustified potshots at the NWS when he's been guilty of far greater errors.
He's really popular with novices who like extreme weather because his column is exciting...pretty much all the meteorologists I know consider him as something of a joke.
At no point has Gitmo been affected by this system...even rainwise...and at no point WILL it be affected; Isidore is a long way from Gitmo and moving away from it. Sorry to disappoint everyone.
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