Danielle Downgraded and Moving West Still...weaker is not better long term

The beauty of a Cape Verde Storm is that is that a long tracker with many possibilities. And... Danielle is living up to her billing as despite all the forecasts for a WNW track and a curve to the NW she has not budged from her westward movement all day. The official forecast for 5pm from the National Hurricane Center is a forecasted movement towards the WNW.

Let me say this about that...

What people don't realize is that the advisory is a forecast and not a summary of what has happened or is happening but what should happen over the NEXT six hours.

Currently she is moving just north of due west. That is reality. And, to complicate matters she is moving west at a pretty fast clip. Which means that when the turn happens she will be further west than previously thought.

The problem with models is that they change often and you have to look for long term trends and keep one eye on the models and one eye on the storm and one eye all around the storm to see what is going on that is creating a question where there should be no questions.

Hindsight is 20/20 and only after days of taking apart a storm history can we figure out what went wrong with a busted forecast and what was not so evident in real time.

Something happened to Danielle today and that was a combination of dry air intrusion seen by this picture below ... possibly some remnant dust she developed an allergy to and wind shear that was expected but seemed to change directions and hit her from the worst possible direction. Perhaps some other unseen problem that will make sense later. Note she has long beautiful bands that stretch out for miles but they are far from her center... a sign that dry air wound it's way inside and around the inner core. Pretty storm ...and on the upside of a pulsing up phase right now so in theory she will be a Hurricane again at 11 pm. I don't remember reading in the 5 AM discussion that she would have a problem with dry air and become a Tropical Storm again vs a Cat 2 Hurricane.

The problem is that Danielle as a weaker storm poses a bigger problem down the road, the road west. Rather than making a fast curve and going wide right of Bermuda she may bother Bermuda or worse and she can easily make a run for the Canadian Maritimes and if this trend continues she will flirt with land and than pull off at the last minute and dance away. Nice graphic from the wonderful Accuweather site.



Where does that leave Earl?

Well too early to say...but Earl will develop I believe.

IF Danielle is big and strong like she needs to be to barrel up through the center of the goalposts she might leave a door for a later storm to follow... or the outflow from Danielle would... could push Earl down and the door to the north could snap shut and Earl would move further west and stay further south while waiting for his chance to recurve out to sea.

Should we worry? No.
Should we watch? Yes.

Would we be worry warts for worrying?
No.

Why not?

Because so many storms over time missed their troughs or holes in the high and made it much further to land than ever thought, some even hit land. Hell, some hit land and kept on going. I'm sure no one thought Dora was going to hit Jax but she did.
And, on the anniversary of Andrew I have a real problem being told not to worry or watch, especially with a storm that has not even formed... specifically Earl.

How can you call this a game and wrap the books and say "don't worry" when we are not sure why Danielle fell apart this afternoon or why she is going faster vs slower.

Spent some of the day looking at old data on Andrew. Easy to say we know SOOO Much MORE about storms now than we did than and have such better models, but back in 1992 we thought we knew sooooooooooooo much more then than we used to know. We are still learning.

This image of a longer loop shows the dry air wrapping into Danielle which resulted in the downgrade this afternoon. So, why did no one talk about it this morning??



On August 21st Andrew seemed to be a Carolinas storm, Hugo the Remake.



Listen...we either learn from the past or we are destined to relive the past. Life is a no brainer and yet it seems some people just don't have any brains and keep repeating past mistakes. Sad, very, very sad.

Tropical Weather is easier than psychology. It's about numbers and scientific data and analyzation and following certain rules. Until a storm passes your lat you don't turn your back on it and you wait until it's moved a bit on that path away and keep one eye on it. Betsy taught us that lesson. Andrew drove it home.

A weaker Danielle has the potential to be a problem for forecasters as she is not going quietly into the night. It delays the variables.

As the 5pm discussion out of the NHC has pointed out... the end game is not that much further to the west but it has a sudden defensive tone to it and the cone for the five day now shows the edge of Florida in it's map... rather than the Bahamas. And, look carefully at this graphic and know it leaves a small possibility of some further westward movement as the cone leans west not east.



Keep watching, worry very little, watch a lot, make some lists of what you would do down the road if something happened to change all of this but trust the NHC and their ability to adjust if they think... Bermuda might get Danielle after all. Just keep watching because anyone who went out for a 3 day fishing trip on Friday on August 21st thinking Andrew might be Carolinas problem learned fast before the 3 days was over that she was Miami's problem.

Hey life would be pretty boring if everything was a given and we knew just exactly was going to happen. Enjoy the show... greatest reality show on earth and know that we keep learning but ten years from now some weather person will proudly say "Hey we know so much more than we used to know back in 2010" and they will feel confident they are reading the models right then too...

Friday, August 21st, 1992 the forecast for Andrew:

ZCZC MIAWRKAD4 LOC
TTAA00 KNHC DDHHMM
...FOR INTERGOVERNMENTAL USE ONLY...
TROPICAL STORM ANDREW DISCUSSION NUMBER 21
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE MIAMI FL
11 PM EDT FRI AUG 21 1992

LATEST AIR FORCE RECON REPORTED 1001 MB SURFACE PRESSURE AND A MAX
WIND OF 58 KNOTS AT 1500 FEET JUST NORTH OF THE CENTER. SATELLITE
IMAGERY IS NOT TOO IMPRESSIVE WITH A SHORT TERM DECREASE IN DEEP
CONVECTION NEAR THE CENTER. SINCE THE SURFACE PRESSURE IS DOWN 3
MB...THE OFFICIAL MAX WIND SPEED IS INCREASED 5 KNOTS TO 55 KNOT.
OTHERWISE THE WIND SPEED FORECAST IS THE SAME AS IN THE PREVIOUS
ADVISORY CALLING FOR GRADUAL STRENGTHENING OVER THE NEXT 3 DAYS.

THE INITIAL MOTION ESTIMATE IS 300/09 COMPARED TO 300/08 FROM THE
PREVIOUS ADVISORY. ALL OF THE GUIDANCE MODELS EXCEPT CLIPER SHOW A
CONTINUATION OF WEST NORTHWESTWARD MOTION THROUGH 72 HOURS WITH SOME
SLOWING OF FORWARD SPEED. THIS IS UNDOUBTEDLY A RESULT OF A STRONG
RIDGE HOLDING TO THE NORTHWEST OF THE STORM. CLIPER...BASED ONLY
ON CLIMATOLOGY AND PERSISTENCE... SHOWS MORE OF A NORTHWARD MOTION.
THE OFFICIAL TRACK FORECAST IS VERY SIMILAR T0 THE PREVIOUS ADVISORY
BUT ADJUSTED A LITTLE TO THE RIGHT. IT SHOULD BE NOTED THAT IF THE
STORM WERE TO MOVE A LITTLE FASTER THAN FORECAST...IT COULD AFFECT
THE NORTHERN BAHAMAS IN 48 HOURS AND SOMEWHERE ALONG THE SOUTHEAST
U.S. COAST IN 72 HOURS WERE IT TO CONTINUE ON ITS PRESENT COURSE.

SOME MINOR ADJUSTMENTS ARE MADE TO THE GALE AND 50 KNOT RADII BASED
ON THE LATEST RECON DATA.

LAWRENCE

FORECAST POSITIONS AND MAX WINDS

INITIAL 22/0300Z 25.6N 66.5W 55 KTS
12HR VT 22/1200Z 26.4N 68.0W 60 KTS
24HR VT 23/0000Z 27.0N 70.0W 65 KTS
36HR VT 23/1200Z 27.3N 71.5W 70 KTS
48HR VT 24/0000Z 27.6N 73.0W 75 KTS
72HR VT 25/0000Z 28.0N 76.0W 80 KTS

Back to the present...back to August 2010 and we will keep watching and waiting for Danielle to make that turn, for Earl to develop and wonder on development in the Gulf of Mexico later this week.

http://www.intellicast.com/Storm/Hurricane/AtlanticForecast.aspx

Nice graphic showing the way things are now...today.



If this storm is still moving west more than wnw when she crosses 50 someone better take a hard look at what piece of the puzzle they are missing. Again... learn from the past or the past will repeat itself..

Besos Bobbi