97L continues to grow more organized; headed for Bahamas and Florida
A tropical wave (Invest 97L) between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic has continued to become more organized today, and is a threat to develop into a tropical depression as early as Wednesday morning. The disturbance has brought heavy rains of 8+ inches to Culebra and Vieques islands over the past day, and all of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands are under flash flood watches today. The storm could bring an additional 3 - 6 inches of rain to the islands over the next two days. The upper level low centered a few hundred miles north of the Dominican Republic is no longer bringing high levels of wind shear to 97L; wind shear has fallen to the moderate range, 10 - 15 knots, which should allow 97L to continue to develop today. Satellite images of 97L show a moderate area of steadily organizing thunderstorms, with curved bands developing to the north and east of the center. There are no signs of a surface circulation on satellite imagery or on the 10:38am EDT ASCAT pass. Surface observations show only light winds over Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, but the surface winds at Punta Cana on the eastern tip of the Dominican Republic have shifted to the west this afternoon, indicating that a surface circulation may be forming just north of that location. Long-range radar loops from San Juan do not show any evidence of a surface circulation. The Hurricane Hunter mission scheduled for today was canceled, but is scheduled to fly Wednesday afternoon.
Figure 1. Total precipitation from 97L as predicted by the 12Z (8 am EDT) July 20, 2010 run of the HWRF model. Image credit: Morris Bender, NOAA/GFDL.
Track Forecast for 97L
The storm is in a fairly straightforward steering current environment, and 97L should progress steadily to the west-northwest through Saturday. The rains from 97L's thunderstorms will bring the threat of isolated flooding to the Dominican Republic today and Wednesday, and to Haiti on Wednesday and Thursday. Heavy rains from 97L will begin moving into eastern Cuba, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and the eastern Bahamas on Wednesday, and South Florida can expect heavy rains to arrive as early as Thursday night. The latest suite of model runs from 8am EDT this morning (12Z) foresee a more northerly track for 97L into Central Florida. Several models develop 97L into a tropical storm, with both the GFDL and HWRF models predicting 97L will hit South or Central Florida as a tropical storm on Friday. Most of the models have 97L entering the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday, but the amount of time 97L has over the Gulf may be limited to a day or less if the storm ends up exiting into the Gulf near Tampa Bay. The NOGAPS model predicts a more southerly path across South Florida and into Louisiana.
Intensity Forecast for 97L
One factor potentially aiding development of 97L will be the Madden-Julian oscillation, which currently favors upward motion over the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean. The Madden-Julian oscillation is a pattern of enhanced rainfall that travels along the Equator from west to east. The pattern has a wet phase with large-scale rising air and enhanced thunderstorm activity, followed by a dry phase with large-scale sinking air and suppressed thunderstorm activity. Each cycle lasts approximately 30 - 60 days. When the Madden-Julian oscillation is in its wet phase over a hurricane-prone region, the chances for tropical storm activity are greatly increased. Also in favor of development are the warm ocean temperatures of 29°C. The SHIPS model predicts shear will stay in the moderate range, 10 - 20 knots, over the next five days. The primary detriment to development of 97L over the next three days will probably be the presence of dry, stable air in its path over the Bahamas, thanks to the upper-level low to the north of the Dominican Republic. If the center forms close to the coast of the Dominican Republic, the high mountains of Hispaniola may also be a problem for the storm. NHC is giving 97L a 60% chance of developing into a tropical depression by Thursday, which is a reasonable forecast. I think there is a 70% chance 97L will eventually become Tropical Storm Bonnie, sometime in the next five days. Sudden rapid development today or on Wednesday is unlikely, due to the dry air over the Bahamas. I put the odds of 97L making it to hurricane strength before reaching Florida at 30%, and I give a 20% chance it will be a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. The probability of 97L being a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico will depend heavily upon how long the storm spends over land or interacting with land over the next four days, which is very uncertain.
"Hurricane Haven" airing again this afternoon
Tune into another airing of my live Internet radio show, "Hurricane Haven", at 4pm EDT today. Listeners will be able to call in and ask questions. The call in number is 415-983-2634, or you can post a question in the comments area on my blog during the show. You can also email the questions to me today before the show: jmasters@wunderground.com. Be sure to include "Hurricane Haven question" in the subject line. Some topics I'll cover today on the show:
1) Invest 97
2) A look ahead at the coming two weeks
Today's show will be about 45 minutes, and you can tune in at http://www.wunderground.com/wxradio/wubroadcast.h tml. The show will be recorded and stored as a podcast.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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Dang! well stay safe, stay away from the mud! :P
You guys seem to have had it worse than us.
I. ATLANTIC REQUIREMENTS
1. SUSPECT AREA (NORTH OF HISPANIOLA)
FLIGHT ONE -- TEAL 70
A. 21/1800Z
B. AFXXX 01BBA INVEST
C. 21/1400Z
D. 21.0N 70.0W
E. 21/1700Z TO 21/2100Z
F. SFC TO 10,000 FT
A: They plan for the aircraft to be over the center of circulation at 1800Z (1400 Eastern) on July 21st.
B: Aircraft info and mission type
C: Date and time they plan to take off
D: Expected coordinates of CoC at the time the aircraft arrives.
E. How long they plan to stay on station flying around taking measurements ... in this case 4 hours
F. Elevations of interest ... in this case 0 to 10,000 feet because its a HH. For NOAA jet this is more like 40,000 to 42,000 feet or so.
http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/tropic/real-time/atlantic/winds/wg8sht.GIF
They wacko .. No one is gonna get a 5 day notice.
They have beaucoup Private Met offices on the situ. But they have to act on their info.
BP aint known for Brillance nor saftey,..
I worked for Chevron offshore in the Mid 90's and safety was always the Number 1 issue.
If BP can keep their Vessels in Place.
They will as long as Possible.
The USCG and Admiral Allen had to force the SOB's to Produce a Hurricane Plan 6 weeks ago.
97L is starting to feed from the Caribbean through the Mona passage as well the Virgin Passage and over the VI's.
Convection is also starting to come in off the NW corner of PR. This time of year we almost always get a burst of thunderstorms off the West Coast of PR. While daytime heating was reduced today that effect will still happen somewhat giving 97L a kick of energy. Night time cooling should also help as warmer offshore air along the north coast will rise while air over PR will sink.
that wind shear is way off
CIStorm, sorry about this. I know u were posting stuff about conditions in PR since Sunday, so it must be rough to get hit by a ban.
Everybody else, this is why it is IMPORTANT not to rumormonger about other bloggers. The pple who were upset about the blogger IslandsWeatherInc were not considering that other bloggers have similar names and were not careless in what they did.
You'll see both pictures (and others) here.
That doesn't seem accurate to me..
AOI
Invest97
Statistical/Simple Models (CLIPER,BAMs,LBAR,other Statistical Models)
Dynamic Models (More sophisticated models)
So we really dont know what their current plan is given that their situation is much different than it was when they created/publicized that hurricane plan.
That's what I was thinking, people judge others too quickly on here.
Got East winds in Carolina, PR, I guess 97L is too far away now to cause west winds.
All Offshore Rigs have a Wind and Wave Threshold forecast...for Evac.
Not sure what it is for DD-1 and 2 and the others.
The USCG will tell BP when to get when they see a Threat.
Thad is THE Big Dog..
At this point I would look more to the shear in satellite pics than models.. shear is easy to spot. There is still some strong shear above 22N in the current visible loop but the cloud tops south of 21N look intact except outflow
Steady 15-20 mph from East today.
My bummer for today is that after all our talk about Wx station, I have been troubleshooting mine today.
the digital Barometer is not working, I thought it just needed to be re-set but it won't take initialize... going through tests and spares now. Of course I have my old analog one which I had with me 30 yrs ago in Bahamas and it still works.
CRS
...at this time. The next model run could very well change.
I wouldn't cancel. You're far enough North from the projected path. Melbourne may get some wind and tropical rain, some really cool waves on the beach but otherwise you'll be fine.
If your vacation isn't until next weekend, this system (soon to be known as Hurricane Bonnie) will be West of you by then. No worries. Enjoy your trip. Just know that I am sometimes wrong... but even still this shouldn't amount to more than a Cat-1 at worst until it enters the Gulf.
Check the MSLP box
I have to reload the software onto a spare laptop for mine... I crashed an old machine it was connected to..and never reloaded it :)
yea but at this time, most models do develop it into at least a TS, and SHIPS takes it up to Hurricane strength
There are multiple models that take it to Cat 1
It happened in the Northern Virginia suburbs of D.C. a couple Summers ago. A strong line of thunderstorms rumbled through from west to east leaving 50K+ people without electrical power for 1-3 DAYS!
Who needs terrorists when Mother Nature can be so disruptive.
Stay safe weather ...hope power comes back soon and all goes back to usual soon ...
imn confused I thought the models came out every 6 hours. Shouldnt they come out at 8
About half the models take it into the gom with hardly any land interaction.
All the way from PR to Louisiana and not a hurricane? I don't think so.
Link
Actually, the deepwater horizon crew valued safety enough to make a rap video about it:
Link
Not sure if that is a good or bad thing, I just know w/o the captions I wouldn't be able to understand wtf they are saying.
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