Chris

That S shaped cloud up in the NORTH Atlantic is the newly named Tropical Storm Chris. No, not the area south of Cuba, not the wave off of Africa. The S shaped cloud up at the top of this image. It's clearly visible with the sideways S ...



So, the NHC decided to use the name Chris up on an S shaped storm system barely at Tropical Storm strength based on an earlier ship report and some satellite imagery from FSU earlier in the day as well.

 FSU CYCLONE PHASE SPACE DIAGRAMS ALSO SHOW
THE SYSTEM AS A SYMMETRIC WARM CORE...ALBEIT SHALLOW...SYSTEM. THE
INITIAL WIND SPEED OF 40 KT IS BASED ON EARLIER SCATTEROMETER DATA
AND A SHIP THAT REPORTED 35-KT WINDS TO THE SOUTHEAST OF THE CENTER
THIS MORNING.


So, I have a problem with this considering I have seen storms that looked like raging hurricanes out in the Atlantic chugging west towards the islands and they refused to upgrade the storms without recon, without "more better" data ...so to speak. They threw out readings from Dvorak, satellite imagery and other data waiting for recon or other parameters.

Why different rules for different systems?

I agree with Bastardi on this one, he says it all the time and he is right. They use different standards from year to year, storm to storm to justify or deny a name.

They will deny this and give lots of explanations based on this or that, but the truth is the new teams at the NHC play fast and loose with naming parameters compared to the way Bob Sheets and crew carefully, methodically named storms. Yes, I know times change...   this is a BIG, huge change and it's beyond ridiculous.

And, why does this bother me so?

You take a year like this with 3 storms that may not have EVER been named in previous years when they would have maintained at the most "Tropical Depression Status" and then you compare the numbers from these last few years to years when they were much slower to name a system and people cry "Global Warming" and worry on the world exploding before 2012 is out...

I firmly believe the world will not end in 2012, Barnes and Noble already has 2013 calendars out for sale in the stores.

In the early 1900s, late 1800s and ship logs from 1700s... cannot compare to the current calculations of storm formation in the Atlantic. If a ship went down, the log is at the bottom of the sea.

An "earlier ship report"  ???? Seriously...

Well the story with Chris is this...  he is forecasted to hit Ireland, England and possibly Denmark.

Yup, that's the bottom line. England or bust.

Loop the loop and you can see the general flow of the Tropical Atlantic:

http://www.intellicast.com/Storm/Hurricane/AtlanticSatellite.aspx?animate=true

Now... down in the Caribbean there is a system that does not seem to really be moving NW, it seems pretty anchored south of Cuba. It is consolidating slowly. There are a lot of thoughts on the web about this system being bi-polar or having multiple personalities, one part goes to the Gulf the other goes towards Florida... etc, etc.

Not Chris:
http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/east/carb/flash-wv.html

If and when they make it an Invest, which they should have done already but hey...they were busy with Chris.

Lastly, a beautiful early Cape Verde Wave rolled off of Africa today. Looks nice. Look fast, will fizzle soon, but very impressive.

Keep watching.... this season is getting better than most reality TV shows.

Go Heat... watching the Heat game... refusing to watch the loops on Chris. Being honest. I don't like this call, there needs to be more consistency from year to year in naming storms for the integrity of studying tropical systems over time.  As exciting as it is to have 3 named storms, the only one I can see justify naming was Beryl, but I'm not in charge. I'm just calling it as i see it here.

Sweet Tropical Dreams,

BobbiStorm

Ps.. it's HOT, very HOT and I need to see the ocean :)