Gustav Stalls .... Now What?

Gustav has stalled over the peninsular of Haiti and is spinning in circles while the models keep spitting out new variations of death and doom further down the track. Small change in plans it seems as the models did not predict a stall.

Is this a slow stumble along her eventual path or is this a reality check?

It is still very possible that Gustav will get into the Gulf of Mexico and become a strong Category 3 Hurricane. Very possible. It is also possible it won't and it will have problems attaining the dreams that early fame forecasters had for her..

Forecasters and trackers and models have this built in tendency to remember the BIG ONES and err on the side of strength and they seem to forget the ones that fell apart and never lived up to their forecasts. And, oddly this happens often around Haiti.
Not saying it is Haiti specifically as much as it is often the steering currents that go bling and stall out a developing storm. The battle of the troughs and the upper level lows and weak steering currents in late August and early September before the fronts zoom down and scoop up storms like this and race them off to the N or NE.

This is as big a lesson as climo can give.

When they get a little further west and south of Cuba we see the strong Gulf Storms that shoot the Yucatan Channel or crawl across Havana bound for ports further west like Galveston.

Let me take you down memory land..

Ernesto. Not so far back in our memories. Ernesto was dramatic, passionate, insistent. Ernesto sent red roses. The biggest bouquet of red roses I have ever seen in my life. Forecasters tracking the storm Ernesto lol also drew big red paths of possible destruction further to the north while Ernesto feasted on Haitian Cuisine down below never quite living up to the press releases.

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WEATHER/08/27/ernesto/index.html

Pic from online. Good picture. Seems the blogger's brother was over "there" on a vacation, again don't do the Tropics in August unless you like Tropical weather.
My thanks to Frank Warner a liberal blogger it seems for his post back in August of 2006 on Ernesto. http://frankwarner.typepad.com/



Gee doesn't that look similar to Gus down there right now? Same time of year too...



Then we have Debby a storm that took the northern coast of the island and had the same collapse.

Read all about it while Gustav spins in little circles over Haiti making up his mind if he wants to go west, WNW or where ever it will be good for him to go when the steering currents improve.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/2000debby.html



Note both times we thought the models had it down really good and people panicked thinking Miami and other Gulf of Mexico cities were going to get slammed by another year's storm not really seeing Ernesto and Debby for what they were... typical Tropical Storms that got stuck down around Haiti.

Hey..sometimes it doesn't happen. Georges just kept going like the ever ready bunny.

What do I think?

I think what I have thought for the last 24 hours and that is that the high is not as strong as they hope or expect it to be down the road. When I went to bed last night the barometric reading in Miami was 29.96. I am sorry but that is not a strong high. Maybe it will get higher but far from where I would like to see it to be a force field and protect a track more to the right (ie north or north west) as models were showing a few days back. And, the upper level low to Gustav's northeast has been pushing down on it not letting it breathe, move or ventilate. And, that ULL came down like a bat out of hell last night fast and furious. Loop a loop and see.

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/east/tatl/loop-wv.html

As for me I have to get to work. Ain't no red roses on my dining room table and Ernesto is gone but not forgotten. A sweet passionate man who didn't really believe me when I said "no not really" yet handsome all the same. A sweet memory as Tropical Storm Ernesto is a memory and a reality check to those moments when we see Katrina and Allen.

IF the timing is off then the models are off.

You can't have a little bit of a lie in Tropical forecasting. IF something like timing is off then the track is off and the intensity if off. It might only be a subtle change or a coda at the end of a song but it is a pause and pauses are pregnant with possibilities.

So...now what?

We wait, we watch and we go about our lives not panicking and waiting to see if Gustav will pull it together and start chugging towards Cuba and the Gulf or if he will wait down there until the steering currents change just subtly so and take his path towards his destiny, his fame, his future landfall. Or he may slowly slip slide away into a storm we didn't see coming but we might like a whole lot more than the one the models were forecasting yesterday.

We wait. Well, you wait. I have to go to work. Can't sit here and write all day.

I'll update at lunch if and when I have something worth saying and or Gustav does something worth reporting.

Have a great day and enjoy life.

Besos Bobbi
Ps..if you look at that there link I posted with Gustav spinning on the WV you will see Fay up above still raining on someone's parade.. possibly Gustavs..