Alex may head north to Texas or Louisiana
Tropical Depression Alex has held together fairly well during its passage over Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, and stands poised to re-intensify back into a tropical storm once it emerges from the coast tonight. Alex brought heavy rains to northern Honduras, Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, and Belize over the weekend. It was not a good beach day in Cozumel yesterday, as 9.25" of rain fell. Cancun received 2.05" over the weekend, and Belize City received 4.57". Satellite loops show that Alex's heavy thunderstorms are mostly gone near the center, though there are some impressive bands of precipitation well away from the center. There is an upper-level high pressure system a few hundred miles west of Alex, and the clockwise flow air around this high is bringing upper-level winds out of the northwest of about 5 knots over the storm, contributing to the 5 knots of wind shear observed in this afternoon's wind shear analysis from the University of Wisconsin's CIMSS group. Sea Surface Temperatures are very warm, 29 - 30°C, and dry air is currently not a problem for Alex.
Figure 1. Afternoon satellite image of Alex.
Forecast for Alex: which model should you trust?
While the track forecast for Alex today through Monday is fairly well-assured, the longer range forecast has become highly uncertain. An increasing number of our reliable models are now indicating Alex may take a more northerly track beginning on Tuesday, with possible landfall on the Texas coast near Galveston on Friday (according to the 8am run of the GFS model) or into western Louisiana on Wednesday (the 8am run of the Canadian model.) The key question remains how Alex will react to the trough of low pressure expected to swing down over the Eastern U.S. on Monday and Tuesday. Most of the models were predicting that the trough would not be strong enough to swing Alex to the north, and several of them continue to predict this. The 8am runs of the NOGAPS and ECMWF models, for example, take Alex into the Gulf coast of Mexico 150 miles south of Texas, on Wednesday. The GFDL and HWRF models split the difference, with the GFDL predicting a Thursday landfall in southern Texas near Brownsville, and the HWRF predicting a Thursday landfall near Corpus Christi. Morris Bender of the GFDL group has just provided me the track forecast from an improved experimental version of the GFDL that shows landfall between Corpus Christi and Galveston. So which model should you trust? Last year, the best performing models at the 3 - 4 day forecast range were the GFS and the Canadian, and these are the models that are currently calling for the more northerly track towards the upper Texas coast and Louisiana. Residents of those areas should review their hurricane preparedness plans and anticipate that Alex could make landfall as early as Wednesday in their vicinity. Residents of the Mexican coast south of Brownsville should make similar plans, as Alex could just as easily hit there.
Re-intensification of Alex is likely once the center of Alex moves offshore, though this will initially be slow due to the current disorganized state of the storm and the relatively low total ocean heat content in the 100-mile-wide stretch of water on the west side of the Yucatan Peninsula. Once Alex moves more than 100 miles from the Yucatan, total heat content of the ocean increases substantially, and Alex will have the opportunity to intensify significantly. A longer time spent over water will give Alex more of a chance to strengthen, and it is possible Alex could intensify into a major hurricane if landfall is delayed until Thursday or Friday. However, Alex's intensification may be limited the farther north it gets, as water vapor satellite images show plenty of dry air over Texas that might interfere with development. Wind shear might also be an issue for Alex if it pushes far enough north, and a slow-moving storm tends to pull up cold water from the depths, limiting intensification. In short, Alex has the potential to intensify into a major hurricane, but there are plenty of roadblocks that make this only a 10% probability in my estimation.
Figure 2. Skill of computer model forecasts for Atlantic named storms during 2009. OFCL=Official NHC forecast; GFS=Global Forecast System model; GFDL=Geophysical Fluid Dynamic Laboratory model; HWRF=Hurricane Weather Research Forecasting model; NOGAPS=Navy Operational Global Prediction System model; UKMET+United Kingdom Met Office model; ECMWF=European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasting model; CMC=Canadian GEM model; TVCN=one of the consensus models that lends together all (or most) of the above models; BAMM=Beta and Advection Model (Medium Layer.) Image credit: National Hurricane Center 2009 verification report.
Elsewhere in the tropics
A tropical wave (Invest 94L) a few hundred miles north of the northernmost Lesser Antilles Islands has been pretty much torn apart, and is no longer a threat to develop.
Next post
Wunderground's severe weather expert Dr. Rob Carver will likely be posting an update on Alex late tonight. My next update will be Monday by 10am EDT.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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NEXSAT GOM Viz Loop
that's what I thought. Likewise, I can't remember either, but that batch of clouds seems like it's too big and Alex too weak right now to be pulled into the COC and could quite possibly get slllingshot northward and eventually NNE and then NE as that trough digs in - it would be a LOT closer TO that trough as it spun it's way north and would be under it's influence moreso than would Alex. At least that's my $0.02.
How strong is that?
CAT 2
Hey its a model none the less, although it is based off the GFS (and we all know what that has been doing) with every passing hour though this thing moves farther away from the Southerly models and favors the Central or Northern Solutions.
I dont.
But...I guess we'll see.
Bordonaro! Long time no see! What is your thinking for TS Alex? I believe that this is a South Texas landfall, (South of Corpus Christi.) Do you agree with this?
Based on the shear tendency maps it has gone down and is expected to decrease.
Link
Oz is readying up the hurricane van!!
Usually Category 2
I agree as well.
Which model do you think has the best track?
A. CMC
B. ECMWF
C. GFS
D. UKMET
E. HWRF
F. GDFL
or G. Other
Nothing out of the ordinary in that. They tend to do the evacs in two stages, non-essential personnel first, then if it becomes necessary they will shut down operations and bring in the rest.
Most rigs have more people on board than what the crew boat can legally carry at once. Of course, if it was a question of imminent danger, the Captain of the vessel can exceed the certificated capacity. The staged evac generally avoids that problem.
I am sure there are other reasons as well, but that was the only aspect of it that concerned me directly.
A and C
When you come on the blog, please take the time to go back a few pages and catch up on the discussion. To pop on here, and ask to be updated on everything going on takes up valuable time and space. And to ask questions that have been covered in depth for the previous hour or two is selfish IMO. It's only common courtesy. I know this has been requested over and over again, but just felt like offering up a reminder.
And thanks to Storm, Levi, Tampa and all those who provide such wonderful info for us all.
I have that same problem! ROFL! I decide I'm gonna take a break from Alex and check in later, so I go to another site, get off the computer and actually do something, and then when I check back, I notice the time on my computer has only moved 1 minute! LOL
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