Bonnie weakens to a tropical depression
Tropical Depression Bonnie is nearing the end of its traverse of South Florida, and passage over land has significantly disrupted the small storm. Satellite images show almost no heavy thunderstorms near Bonnie's center of circulation, and the center is now exposed to view. Radar-estimated rainfall from the Key West radar shows that Bonnie dumped very little rain on South Florida--maximum rainfall amounts from the storm were about four inches over a small region southwest of Miami. Water vapor satellite loops show that Bonnie is embedded in a large area of dry air, thanks to an upper level low to the west over the Gulf of Mexico. This low has brought an increasing amount of wind shear to Bonnie today, and shear has increased from 20 knots this morning to 25 knots this afternoon. Surface observations in South Florida currently don't show any tropical storm force winds. Bonnie's top winds today were at Fowey Rocks, which had sustained winds of 46 mph, gusting to 53 mph, at 10:45 am EDT.
Figure 1. Satellite image of Bonnie from NASA's MODIS instrument, taken at 17:10 UTC July 23, 2010. Image credit: NASA/.
Track Forecast for Bonnie
The latest set of model runs from 8am EDT (12Z) are very similar to the three previous sets of runs, and this degree of consistency gives me confidence that Bonnie will stay within the cone of uncertainty depicted on the track forecast images. The projected track will take Bonnie over the oil spill region, and the storm's strong east to southeasterly winds will begin to affect the oil slick on Saturday morning. Assuming Bonnie doesn't dissipate over the next day, the storm's winds, coupled with a likely storm surge of 2 - 4 feet, will drive oil into a substantial area of the Louisiana marshlands. However, the current NHC forecast has Bonnie making landfall in Louisiana near 9pm CDT Saturday night. According to the latest tide information, this will be near the time of low tide. This will result in much less oil entering the Louisiana marshlands than occurred during Hurricane Alex in June. That storm brought a storm surge of 2 - 4 feet and sustained winds of 20 - 30 mph that lasted for several days, including several high tide cycles. The latest oil trajectory forecasts from NOAA (Figure 2) predicts potential oil impacts along a 150-mile stretch of Louisiana coast on Sunday.
Figure 2. Oil Trajectory forecast for Sunday for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Image credit: NOAA.
Intensity Forecast for Bonnie
Bonnie has been disrupted by its passage over land, and it will take at least six hours for the storm to reorganize once it moves over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico tonight. This process will be hindered by the large upper-level low to its west. If the low remains in its present location, relative to Bonnie, it will bring high wind shear of about 20 - 30 knots to the storm. This will allow for only slow intensification, or may even destroy Bonnie. Bonnie is unlikely to intensify to more than a 50 mph tropical storm, and I give a 30% chance it will dissipate over the Gulf of Mexico before making landfall. The GFDL model predicts Bonnie could hit the Gulf Coast as a 50 mph tropical storm, but the other major models such as the HWRF, GFS, ECMWF, and NOGAPS show a much weaker storm. I don't give Bonnie any chance of becoming a hurricane. NHC is putting the odds of Bonnie being a hurricane at 2 pm Saturday at 4% (5pm advisory.)
If you are wondering about the specific probabilities of receiving tropical storm force winds at your location, I recommend the wind probability product from NHC. The latest probabilities of various locations getting tropical storm force winds, 39 mph or higher, from the 5pm EDT advisory:
Buras, LA 30%
New Orleans 28%
Mobile, AL 37%
Pensacola, FL 30%
Resources for the BP oil disaster
Map of oil spill location from the NOAA Satellite Services Division
My post, What a hurricane would do the Deepwater Horizon oil spill
My post on the Southwest Florida "Forbidden Zone" where surface oil will rarely go
My post on what oil might do to a hurricane
NOAA's interactive mapping tool to overlay wind and ocean current forecasts, oil locations, etc.
Gulf Oil Blog from the UGA Department of Marine Sciences
Oil Spill Academic Task Force
University of South Florida Ocean Circulation Group oil spill forecasts
ROFFS Deepwater Horizon page
Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery from the University of Miami
Next update
I'll have an update Saturday morning.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 — Blog Index
You want to know how scary that is? The would put Ft. Detrick under the gun. Ft. Detrick houses USAMRIID, site of one of the few biosafety level 4 labs in the country. BSL4 is where they work on nasty bugs like Ebola. Hopefully it is in a facility that can stand up to such things.
Interestingly, UTMB in Galveston has or will soon be bringing a BSL4 lab online.
LOL I know...very broad and disorganized LLC. I just wanted to sound surprised LOL!
COOL can u link that imagry
Is that a pinhole eye forming?
j/k
is it?
Looks lime a lima bean. .. just sayin'.
Just out of curiosity, not to stray from topic of current tropics...but have you ever been through a hurricane? For someone with such a passion for the tropics, you should try it sometime if you haven't :)
dude i went through wilmaa no lie i almost died ill tell story if u wanan hear?
The disturbance near Hispaniola is mid-level with little surface reflection right now, and isn't an immediate threat but should be watched....it's a sneaky little devil.
A little more moisture supply may help Bonnie generate some convection up until landfall, but that can be expected with any tropical system, and I doubt any real strengthening will take place. It's already on the edge of opening fully up back into an open wave, and it would be hard to get this back up to a tropical storm. The new burst of convection is interesting though and should be monitored. You never know what these things can do in the gulf.
Jacksonville next???
Haha I want to....something not freakily dangerous like a Cat 1 would even suffice.
I have never even really been out of Alaska except for one trip to rural Ohio in the winter which looks no different lol, so no I have not experienced tropical weather of any kind....haven't even felt what 80-degree weather feels like.
But, I have been through the equivalent of a Cat 1-2 hurricane when we had a 931mb winter storm come up the Aleutian Islands, and while it was weakening as it moved into our area, we still got 80-90mph winds with gusts up to 110 for 8-12 hours, which ripped over half the shingles off our roof and downed more trees than any storm since. I was around 6 or 7 at the time. 1998 if I'm not mistaken.
ill say it anyway typing it now
Haha, nice one.
AOI
AOI
AOI
AOI
Landfall Points
TS BUSTED FORECAST ALIBI
I did say that was a joke. The location of the "pinhole eye" is not even near the COC.
URNT12 KNHC 240508
VORTEX DATA MESSAGE AL032010
A. 24/05:00:30Z
B. 26 deg 27 min N
084 deg 11 min W
C. 925 mb 797 m
D. 36 kt
E. 052 deg 28 nm
F. 129 deg 37 kt
G. 052 deg 34 nm
H. EXTRAP 1013 mb
I. 22 C / 758 m
J. 23 C / 760 m
K. 22 C / NA
L. NA
M. NA
N. 1345 / 9
O. 0.02 / 3 nm
P. AF305 0603A BONNIE OB 15
MAX FL WIND 44 KT N QUAD 01:46:40Z
SLP EXTRAP FROM 925 MB
MAX FL TEMP 24 C 060 / 9 NM FROM FL CNTR
I have not been through a hurricane either, and I'm on the coast of FL. Not sure I want to after hearing stories from Hurricane Andrew and Charley.
Goodness how much higher can the pressure get.
The little engine that could..
well I have to say Humberto (cat 1) was pretty cool. Thought we were going to have a tropical storm and woke up to a Hurricane. Needless to say I couldn't go back to sleep. I had to look out the windows...... :)
It's indescribable in both extremes. The meteorological side in you is in awe...the human side of you is literally scared to death. Although out of the 6 hurricanes I've been through...Andrew's the only one I never want a repeat of.
This could conceivable beat Marco.
Bonnie is one deceiving system
For some bizarre reason I don't remember Humberto at all. Must not have given us any rain even.
The only thing that's really keeping the winds in the 30-35 kt range is honestly the gradient between the strong ridge to the north and this area of "low" pressure. 1013mb is extraordinary...almost like Andrew early in it's life (1015mb).
how much were ur ears hurting all that night omg
If I could, I would trade you a hurricane and 3 months of 90+ heat for a breath of Alaskan air :-) You're fortunate to live in such a beautiful state. That said, there's nothing quite like being inside the eye of a hurricane, especially a strong one ;-) Definitely straying off topic now, but what's the coldest temperature you've ever felt? For me it's single digit wind chills, but never subzero. I'm fascinated by bitter cold for some reason.
That wasn't even listed as a Cat 5 at the time. I think they later upgraded it to a Cat 5 status after it was long gone.
It means that any convection that fires up no matter how impressive may look cannot be sustained for long because of the strong upper flow and the fact that the system is still decoupled and has an awfully defined LLC.
really.....yeah, we got rain. My son wanted to play in it all day after the storm passed. We got to use the generator and all. Power was only out for the day. Got is back that night.
A decade or more I believe.
Yep...originally listed as 145 mph but later revised to 165 mph...and even that is conservative IMO. Many stations around our area (just S of Miami) recorded sustained winds over 140 kts before instrument failure.
Humberto hit High Island, correct? So west Houston could have been bone dry and sunny and hot.
Viewing: 1501 - 1551
Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 — Blog Index