hmmmm, make that 4 out of 5 predicting a turn to the north.
Maybe a really humongous trailer park? (or do they only attract tornados?)
SUNDAY MORNING: ISADORE SHOULD MOVE OVER YUCATAN, DOES ANYONE ELSE SEE THAT?
I am convinced Isadore is going ashore this afternoon and tonight over the northwest Yucatan. The storm is embedded in a flow that is almost parallel to the coast, but with the weakening of the southern side of the storm over land, the northern side remains intense and literally forces a turn to the southwest. This means that the center should turn southwest and maybe even south. The more it does this, the less west it will get, and so the greater the chance for the hit on the United States. Only a straight west path argues for the Mexican coast now. The more southwest it goes, the less west it goes, and with the changes taking place it means that the storm will not be far enough west for it to avoid the rising heights to the east. Therefore the European is still my model of choice and the UKMET has come around to it.
This means option number 2, big storm hit Thursday or Friday, most likely Louisiana or a bit further east is the idea. By big storm I mean a strong 2 or a three 2. I think the Yucatan will take at least 30 mb out of this. However since final landfall is still at least 4 days away, there is a chance it could come back to the 934 it has hit this morning. In any case the idea is that this turns into a rapidly moving rainstorm coming right through the area that needs rain the worst from the last couple of months. Thats been my story and I am sticking to it.
Elsewhere..madness takes control. Height rises are starting over the northwest Caribbean as the pinwheel upper low is lifting out. US models continue to insist there will be development out of this some way or another. The call here is that this will be an appendage of low pressure riding north mid and late week in tandem with Isadore. Still, there is obviously something going on in there as its not just the leftovers of Isadore.
Kyle looks to me like it will stay well out. Again United States models have decided to take this west to Bermuda. This does not look very likely to me, though it can be blocked. The next threat to the states is out system at 11 and 52, which looks like a tropical storm . I have no changes on this from previous posts below.
LA/MS/AL Freepers--the odds historically are with a strike in your direction. Other storms have continued into Mexico. I like that one the best.
All else being equal, *all* northern hemisphere hurricanes drift northward, and the farther north they get, the faster they travel even further north. Once they get really far north they also start getting pushed eastward. This is all due to the rotation of the Earth and the effect it has on the rotating storm.
However, things are usually not "all else being equal". High and low pressure areas and other local weather conditions will "push" and "pull" the hurricane out of the path it would normally take if only the rotation of the Earth were at play.
Also, interaction with landmasses tends to cause the hurricane to "slide" in various directions due to its own winds interacting with the higher "friction" of land versus water.
This is what makes hurricane track prediction so, well, unpredictable. There are so many factors at play, many of which change from hour to hour (and often change due to interaction with the hurricane itself).
Yet another complication is the fact that weather systems are non-linear, which leads to the "butterfly effect". This topic is too much to go into here, but in short it means that long-term weather prediction will forever remain impossible, even in theory. Tiny changes in conditions, too small to record today, can make such large changes in the weather a few days down the road that one can never have enough information to make accurate long-term predictions.
On a side note, Hurricane Alicia, which plastered Houston in the 80's (it pretty much hit the coast where I-45 dead-ends into the Gulf, and followed the freeway all the way up through downtown Houston and then up towards Dallas), also grazed the Yucatan at about the same spot where Isidore is today. So yeah, it's perfectly possible for Isidore to make landfall in Texas.
Thanks! Sen Jack S. Fogbound
