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Hagibis has rapidly intensified into a Super Typhoon and hit an uninhabited island squarely. It maybe on it's way to Japan.
Leaving some embedded live graphics and videos below. Refresh for the latest.
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Looking ahead here using NASA's GMAO S2S seasonal model. Fall is on and for North America enjoy the cold now because the forecast has been getting hotter for winter with perhaps a weak reprieve for the west half in January. The effects of El Nino are fading fast as the consequences of climate change are showing more.  Figure 1. The Temperature Anomaly 2 meters above the earth for North America. Globally the patches of cooler air at the poles may warm after October. November and December look particularly warm for the Arctic with only Greenland remaining near average. India stays cooler til the end of winter as does parts of Asia  Figure 2. The global Temperature Anomaly by month, 2 meters above ground. This looks like a dry fall and winter for the southeast, most of which is already Abnormally Dry with some spots coming in D3 or Extreme Drought. There is hope for a pattern change and reprieve in January but quickly reverses to tease a bad spring fire season. A memorable fire season somewhere in the south is typical the spring after El Nino dissipates. The West Coast may see a dry winter with some rain on either side. Late winter and spring may bring a lot of precipitation back to the Midwest.  Figure 3. Precipitation Anomaly by month for North America. Global Precipitation Anomaly doesn't appear too extreme anywhere except for Southeastern Asia, looks really dry. India's floods may continue to some extent through December. Europe overall looks like it is in for a wet winter, except the extreme west shore. Individual regions can be selected here. Current ENSO conditions are neutral with a ~75% chance to stay neutral for Fall and ~50-65% chance of remaining neutral through Winter according to NOAA. NASA's GMAO S2S model is indicating a continued progression toward LA Nina with the below normal equatorial Sea Surface Temperatures dropping to La Nina conditions and continuing through the spring. Currently the T-Depth Anomaly is a clash of colors/temperatures with larger variations from week to week. Region 3.4 has shot up to 0.5 this week. This is partly due to the beautiful Instability waves of cold water being drawn up from the west coast of South America.  Figure 4. Global Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly
With the North Atlantic Sea Surface Temperatures expected to stay warmer than normal going into winter and the Tropical Cyclone Heat Potential remaining, hurricane season doesn't look over. MJO is coming back around. May even see some tropical activity this coming week in the Atlantic. Models are scattered about weaker and subtropical storms with a possible strong seasonal sort of storm coming out of the Caribbean in a few weeks. A fire consumed more than 4.100 acres between Central and west Maui, in Maalaea. The wildfire got in to a wind power farm that had to be evacuated along with some houses. Over 200 day trippers from a cruise ship were stranded on the other side of the fire. The fire burned down to the road as residents and tourists were fleeing as seen in the video below. It has been contained, still burning but major roads are reopening. Recovery in the Bahamas from Dorian continues. Some of the most detailed and inclusive stories out there are from here. It is a first person account with stories of their friends and others they fled with after the storm. One of the most hair raising accounts was about a guy who grabbed his snorkel, boogie board and wetsuit as his house was coming apart. He rode out the rest of the storm in his cistern. Below is a video of a boat owner who's huge catamaran ended up on a major road. The first link ends with several places to give. Florida has many places taking item donations to the Bahamas. State Farm and Wings of Grace are two drop off points for the donation of goods.
Humberto pulled together in the Bahamas overnight after battling sheer for days. The future of this storm has some uncertainty as it's unknown how fast or strong a ridge may form north of it. Recon has been sampling it and the area. With a now defined center, the path should become more clear soon. Tropical Storm Watches have been dropped for East Central Florida and the NHC has this affecting the Bahamas and moving out to sea. Other models include loops or landfalls from Florida to North Carolina. Meanwhile the wave train is getting active.
  
Dorian was a lot of work. Yard was a mess, had a banana tree full of bananas fall, a few plants needed propped up and my hard drive failed with a power surge early in the storm. Hence my absence. Leaving the house-boards up for now, as have many in Melbourne. September storm parade is assembling.
95L has been pulling together in the Bahamas. It's faced some sheer and land will be an inhibitor as it passes through the Bahamas and most likely to South Florida by Friday & Saturday, otherwise conditions are fairly optimal for development. Most of the spaghetti models take this to South Florida as a Tropical storm in the next 72hrs. Looks like a wet weekend ahead.
Refresh page to update images below.
Melbourne was chaotic today with storm plans going into action. The roads were crazy. No water was the most frequent report. Some gas lines and stations without. Near a third of the houses in the neighborhood are shuttered.
From yesterday's blog Cooper's Island of the Virgin Island's was the first of the three cameras posted to come back online after the passage of Dorian. Included today is a live buoy that Dorian should pass near. More nearby ships and buoys can be found here. As of 12z 8/30 UKMET model is still winning on Dorian. That family of models has ~70-90nm of error at 3 days. OFCL has improved from yesterday but still lags UKMET suite with 138.7nm of error at 3 days. Average intensity for all the models is still running over, at 3 days average intensity error is over by 19.1kts. Refresh or revisit for current.   National Hurricane Center   MIT, Emanual Station 41046 - EAST BAHAMAS - 335 NM East of San Salvador Is, Bahamas  Florida Preps
It is currently looking pretty doom for the Space Coast but note the cone is wide, uncertainty is still in play. All along the East Coast of Florida and Georgia should think over their storm plans. Today is the day to do things you would have to do anyways, laundry, cleaning, outdoor pick up. Is it going to be a Labor Day Party or a Hurricane Party?...the supplies aren't too different. But plan for both. It's a good time to make back up Evacuation Labor Day Party plans if you usually have to leave. Don't forget the pets needs. Most of the Florida Peninsula is forecast for several inches of rain over the next week. Clear drains and ditches.
Model Verification
Looking at model verification for Dorian, the UKMET family is in the lead. OFCL led until the 12Zruns. Overall storm model performance has been some what poor. The big jump north it took after reforming from hitting some Windward Islands really added to overall error. Average models error at 2 days is 99.8 nautical miles, 3 day error is 164.5nm. EGR2, which is the UKMET model Interpolated 12 hours, has an error of 46.2nm at 3 days. Another close model in the UKMET family, the EGRI is running 2nd with 3 day error at 54.8nm. UKX2 which is UKMET [GFS tracker] (Interpolated 06 hours) has an error of 57.5nm at 3 days. Rarely do we see a model outdoing the Official Forecast, but that is the current case. OFCL has 62.2nm error at 3 days. They are not far off the lead & certainly the one to watch as Dorian gets past the islands.
Refresh blog for current information, graphics and data as they update. National Hurricane Center MIT, Emanual COOPER ISLAND, British Virgin Islands  WU_2960923 Southeast, USA Virgin Islands  SEAIT75 Near LAQUILLO, PUERTO RICO  12aa34
08/22/19 The last area of interest eventually became Chantal and is now well out in the Atlantic. Now the Bahamas is producing another. 98L is pulling together and looking to bring at least some rain to Florida this weekend.
These are self updating graphics. Refresh page for latest info.  NHC NHC Atlantic 5-Day Graphical Tropical Weather Outlook ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Weather Prediction Center~ Seven Day Quantitative Precipitation Forecast 
Back in May it didn't look like an active hurricane season nigh with El Nino and previous years when the Midwest and Canada had such flooding, which seems to correlate with so few Atlantic hurricanes. Sea Surface Temperatures (SST) are higher and as El Nino has faded it is time to look at the other forcing factors. An overlooked but cyclone feeding force, Sea Surface Salinity (SSS) looks out of whack with the Atlantic over all in a none cyclonic conducive saline state. It's anomalously high in much of the Atlantic & modeled to continue to be.. Boundary layers of fresh water trapped at the surface help kick off hurricanes. We usually have some flowing off South America feeding the Main Development Region (MDR). There is a little, with some flowing, but overall for the Atlantic it's average to more saline this year. It's another signal that what does form this season is more likely to do so closer to land & the runoff from the land floods that have been occurring. High salinity areas are a symptom of evaporation being more prevalent than precipitation. High density/saline water at the surface has been shown to mix much faster and cool quicker as a storm forms or crosses. Where if you get fresh/less dense/less saline trapped over dense/high salinity you get that stable boundary layer that doesn't mix well...the high temps then get fed to a storm with less up-welling, aiding Rapid Intensification (RI). The SST are above average in the Atlantic & really most of the globe. We've seen though it takes more than high SST to get an active season. The way it's modeled high SST should persist but so should high SSS for the Atlantic which shows this model indicates that much evaporation and less rain will continue to occur over much of the Atlantic this season. Running the analog ENSO years to August numbers and leaning toward moving toward La Nina gives these years and their storm numbers, Tropical Depressions-Tropical Storms-Hurricanes-Major Hurricanes: 1958 12-12-7-3 1983 7-4-3-1 1960 14-11-7-3 1992 10-7-4-1 So far 2019 has had 3-2-1-0. I'll stick with my forecast of 11-9-4-3, though wouldn't be surprised if it ends a little low overall or high for Major Hurricanes. Looking at vertical instability charts enforces the greater chances of storms forming along the East Coast, Gulf of Mexico or Caribbean.  Figure 1. GMAO S2S_2.1 Sea Surface Salinity Forecast  Figure 2. NOAA 08/09/2019 Sea Surface Salinity More research and articles about Sea Surface Salinity effects on tropical cyclone formation. Fresher ocean water can boost hurricanes AGU has an interesting write up about various studies and findings world wide on salinity and cyclones. Here is an excerpt: The impact and response of the ocean during the passage of a tropical cyclone may also be influenced by the ocean salinity stratification and barrier layer thickness (BLT). When the halocline is shallower than the thermocline, a layer is established between the density mixed layer depth (MLD) and the temperature mixed layer (ILD or Isothermal Layer Depth) which is known as the barrier layer. Several studies have reported the importance of barrier layers related to TC [Sengupta et al., 2008McPhaden et al., 2009].Wang et al . [2011] observed that the pre-existence of BLT can inhibit cyclone induced cooling in the surface and subsurface layers by vertical mixing. Pailler et al. [1999] analyzed high vertical resolution measurements of salinity and temperature to show that high SSTs in the northwest Tropical Atlantic are often associated with low sea surface salinity and thick BLT (grater than 40 m). Balaguru et al. [2012] examined the effect of BLT on TC inten-sification to show that in the presence of a thick BLT and a favorable atmosphere, tropical storms are energized. Though Sea Surface Salinity isn't the only factor or the most important, it's a historically harder weather data set to gather and an understudied one that is currently more out of balance than most years. This may be an opportunity to test how much this factor can regulate the cyclone switch & improve intensity forecasts. Krosa Close Up.. Krosa is moving Northwest and should impact Southern Japan Thursday morning.  |
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