Tropical Storm Edouard Forms In the Gulf Of Mexico... Is Fay Forming in the Atlantic?

Tropical Depression 5 in the Gulf of Mexico was rapidly upgraded today in the Gulf of Mexico. I will discuss tomorrow where I think this storm will make landfall when I think the models have a better handle on it. It could sit out there in the very warm Gulf longer than expected or move slowly towards shore. Sabine River? Houston? West of Houston? Heard there is already a rush for hurricane supplies but then again it's Sunday and people are home and it's prudent to shop when you have time and food on the shelves than tomorrow when the shelves are empty. You know what they say.. early bird gets the granola bars and peanut butter!

I think there was a wee bit of a rush to name this storm and despite squally weather with gusty winds and low pressure I don't see what would have hurt to issue a Tropical Storm Watch and keep it a Depression and get some better model input. Even the 11pm Storm Discussion back pedals on the previous discussion and whether or not the models were right on the last run. A few more runs and we will know for sure.

It's a problem when you have a tempest in a teapot situation. Bill Read spoke on this in Miami last month and explained how preferably you need a certain amount of time to properly prepare city and government agencies and the storms that form close in around the Gulf just do not lend themselves towards best case scenarios. Seriously, you can't give a coastal city 72 hours of warning when the storms often form within 48 hours of landfall. So, I imagine they erred on the side of caution.

Sunday is a good day to go shopping for Hurricane Supplies anyway yet not sure they will get hurricane force winds, gusts maybe... and if what they need is rain they should hope it stays a wet, messy tropical storm that will give them more rain than wind from a hurricane.

Model runs that come in tonight should give the NHC a more confident sounding Storm Discussion at 5am.

Houston is a big, messy, sprawling, busy city and it needs time to prepare if this storm does come it's way. On the other hand a small change in direction can take this storm in at any other city in it's path. A stay in the Gulf without a lot of movement could bring it in somewhere not in the plan currently.

Also, if the storm gets relocated under the growing ball of convection.. models may change.

This is truly one of those situations where what you see is not really what exists and you can't quite trust your eyes. The ball of convection now pulsing up is way south of the projected plots.

And.... the upper level environment is not ideal to support rapid intensification even if the water is hot, hot, hot.

You have to worry anytime you have that kind of heat in the tropics that it can suck in a storm fast, like a hot magnet pulling in tropical Gulf moisture.

Speaking of moisture what is in the Florida Straits? Keeps forming every night. But, my eyes are still out in the Atlantic with another west bound tropical wave.

My main issue here is that the area commonly known as Invest 99 is a beautiful tropical wave that has survived a trek across the ocean in a sea of Saharan Dust and managed to keep it's form night after night, day after day. It looks better that Edouard and yet it doesn't get a name, barely got an Invest and isn't even a Tropical Depression.

Wave here aka Not Ed!



Yet, if you were a space visitor looking down from your little Roswellian Space Craft trying to sneak a peak at a Tropical Activity and do some nocturnal tracking you would think the small, compact wave in the Atlantic was Edouard and wonder if that mess in the Gulf was going to be Fay.

Look at Agent 99 making her way past the Chaos of the Dusty Sunday SAL



Ironic but true. But, maybe by the morning Edouard will surprise us all and finish pulling himself together. By my reckoning he is more a Tropical Depression still in the formation phases.

Will he ramp up and develop into a strong Gulf storm or just meander in messy like and provide some much needed rain?

Stay tuned to this developing storm and while watching Edouard do not take your eyes off the Atlantic because a storm might be forming there as well.

Good luck Houston! Got a few good friends there and do not want their week to get messed up with Edouard.

What is in a name afterall? A rose smells as sweet by any other name. Think that's Shakespeare... yup.

Besos Bobbi

Watch the consistent, westward moving tropical wave, tumbling over and over with nice pre-band like features spin it's way west.


http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/flt/t1/sloop-avn.html