Tropical Storm Richard and Chicken Marengo

Richard is a bit difficult to watch the way we watch other storms. He doesn't GO anywhere. He doesn't DO anything. He just sits there pumping like some beating heart in a Jr. High Science Lesson.... in, out, in, out... deep color but not a lot else happening. But, the point is he is not only treading water but he is waiting for the right time, the right moment when he can strengthen into a stronger storm.

Lesson 101 in Caribbean Tropical Meteorology is find your groove and when the shear relaxes if your system is stacked right and maneuvers just so over very warm water than intensification will happen. If you stop pumping, stop treading water you go glub, glub down into the Tropical Storm Graveyard of Tropical Storms that never became Hurricanes.

Richard is primed for intensification as he sputters about in the Caribbean trying to find that groove.

I'm personally trying to find a good recipe for Chicken Marengo that I lost a few years back but I can look online, I can play around, I can cook up something like the wind blows in a hurricane, fast and enjoying every moment.

For now Richard is most likely going to do just what the NHC says it will do in the short term and in the long term... oh Richard could cause quite a fuss down the tropical road.



Where might he go down that tropical road??



You can watch him here on this nice loop... look at him treading water or possibly moving a bit to the northwest.

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

You can also watch the systems up stream over the United States as to what will affect Richard if he makes it past Central America and the Yucatan.

http://weather.unisys.com/satellite/sat_ir_enh_east_loop-12.html

I like the name Richard. I dated a very nice guy named Richard once. One of the nicest men I ever knew though he was a boy at the time but have heard he is still a very nice man. He was very kind, very sweet, very giving. I didn't appreciate in those impulsive days of my youth how really rare those qualities are and how hard they are to find.

Funny how we don't change much from who we were once a long time ago to who we are now. Some of us are meaner, some of us are nicer, some of us are funnier and some of us still can rip the heart out of the other while we giggle and our face hurts from laughing so hard. Some people always seem to bring us pain, some storms bring us rain. We love what we love and we are who we are and we do so love weather, don't we?

Weather, laughter and those hard to define spiritual qualities that go bump in the tropical night.

I'm cold. My toes are cold.... yeah yeah Popsicle toes lol and cannot wait to feel the warm tropical water on my toes on Wednesday when I will be back "home" and hoping Richard will wait to threaten Florida until Halloween I'd be much obliged. Cause I would love to see Richard make a run for the roses but personally I think IF he does do Florida down the road it would be somewhere between Tampa and Fort Walton Beach depending on if a front drops far enough down to pick up Richard... IF he lingers a while longer and does not rain himself out over the Yucatan. Water is warmer in the deep tropics and there is less shear. It does happen but not often.

Opal comes to mind and so does the 1921 Tampa Hurricane though it really did a job on many small towns in the general area of Tampa Bay.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1921_Tampa_Bay_hurricane

Read it ... happens... not saying Richard will do that but one day, one storm will come along and Tampa Bay will get hit again.

As for me... going to rest up this week, leave TWC on mute somewhere in the house tomorrow in case it blows up wild (probably won't) and going to make my best version of Chicken Marengo for the Jewish Sabbath and wait and see just where Richard will be on Saturday Night.

Don't you just love the tropics in late October? Got news for you...there are more possible storms forming and do think this year will bring us a Shari somewhere and think we may go into November with front's dipping down picking up tropical entities that are northeast bound.

Keep the Faith.. Bobbi