Busy year, potential tropical system SSE of Cuba

[SaltwaterServr]

Like I mentioned in the Alex thread, this is going to be a bbbbbbbbusy year for tropical weather systems. Alex was the first June hurricane in 15 years, and the fact he went Category 2 is very rare indeed.

Now we've got a weak organized low pressure system in the north eastern GOM off the west coast of Florida. This was most likely spawned as a result of Alex. The major issue is that it looks to track right up the Mississippi River delta. Not good for the DeepWater Horizon efforts.

FWIW, there is emulsified oil washing up on the Bolivar Peninsula which is by Houston for those not familiar with Texas geography. Tests will determine whether or not it came from DWH. This is not the issue of this thread so please use the political forum for anything you want to say about it. I'm just relaying it as part of the weather.

Here's the maps for the coming week to 9 days. The low south of Cuba is the big one to keep an eye on.

Worst part of all of this, we're just creeping up on the outlying times of when we should be seeing the first tropical lows forming. We've got three on the map already. :bang2:

And the spaghetti models for the low moving off the coast of Florida. I think I mentioned in the Alex thread this was possibly forming.

 

[big dog cowboy]

Being self centered for a moment, I'm grateful the track Alex remnants took after land fall. We are finally getting some rain. After a month without a drop, not many are complaining about a wet weekend.

 

[SaltwaterServr]

This low pressure system has now been upgraded to a Tropical Depression. It looks to become the second named storm of the already busy Atlantic hurricane season by mid afternoon.

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[arglebargle]

What do the different colors/etc on the spaghetti models mean? I get that they are some form of frequency/reliability/likelihood, but I can find any legend that tells me what's what.

I saw the increased liklihood for rain in the upcoming forecast, now I know why. Likely going to be a pretty wet summer here.

 

[SaltwaterServr]

What do the different colors/etc on the spaghetti models mean? I get that they are some form of frequency/reliability/likelihood, but I can find any legend that tells me what's what.

I saw the increased liklihood for rain in the upcoming forecast, now I know why. Likely going to be a pretty wet summer here.

Each color denotes a different computer model of the projected storm's path. There's a ton of them out there too. Some of them overlap pretty solidly, so you don't really get a good idea of how many there really are on such a small photo.

This image has the color code for all the different models on the right.

Also, you mentioned "frequency,likelihood". There's a select few projections called the "Cone of Probability". The NWS, NOAA, and a few others put those up. They are usually two colors, yellow and red, that denote the probable landfall of the eye of a hurricane, or the center mass of a smaller cyclonic event. Generally those CoP's start out huge, covering hundreds of miles of coastline because storms are just completely unpredictable to a point. Even Alex did some very odd stuff in regards to making a hard left when the high pressure system sitting on top of central Texas didn't seem to be close enough to influence it that heavily.

Here's an example of something that looks like a CoP. For anyone watching a storm coming to your area, they again are very inaccurate. If you are in the yellow, take preparations as if you're dead center in the bull's eye.

 

[arglebargle]

Thanks!

With the increased liklihood of major storm acitivity this seasonk I guess we'll get more chance to see which programs do better jobs of modeling.

 

[SaltwaterServr]

Thanks!

With the increased liklihood of major storm acitivity this seasonk I guess we'll get more chance to see which programs do better jobs of modeling.

There's a weird mix of hit and miss within the models. Some take oddball paths, but end up with the right landfall. Some are dead on for 24-36 hours, but fall apart after they pass that time frame so you end up with models taking the storm all over the dang place. Others work better for Atlantic storms, other better for Caribbean and GOM.

It's really how each model's algorithm's weight the different influences to the storm. When a storm in the Caribbean "shoots the gap" between Cuba and the GOM, some models get thrown off by the Cuban landmass and mountains.

Just as an example, these are the track images I saved for Ike. It's almost too small to read, but LBAR or NAMI nailed the track perfect for final destination as Ike left Cuba. Drew the bull's eye right through Houston. The black line is BAMM and it was the actual closest to the track that Ike did indeed take.

The rest of the tracks are hundreds of miles down the coastline.

And here's the CoP of Ike 3 days out from landfall. Galveston should just get some high winds, a little bit of a high tide, and a butt load of rain. Oh, and Ike won't make it above Category 3. I think it actually downgraded to Cat 2 that next day.

And here's the result of Ike on the Bolivar Peninsula. I think he claimed just under 200 lives total.

http://www.hawkeyemedia.com/bolivar/