Hurricane Harbor: Coming Together... Tropics Up the Ante For Tampa & Miami

What a beautiful image this is of your most perfect classic looking Cape Verde Wave turning into a named Tropical Storm. The name is questionable still as the Gulf is looking hot as well, but this should be Isaac soon.

As near perfect as it gets. As close to a "baby picture" as you will ever get of an up and coming Hurricane. Sometimes, waves do not live up to their expectations... like bratty little boys or mischievous little girl with a high IQ, looks and too much ADD to be sure if she is going to make something big of herself or just a whole lot of trouble.

Years back when I would stay up late at night with drop dead gorgeous meteorologists watching storms come together...we would pass these shots around as baby pics; looking for that perfect pic that shows the embryonic image of hurricane to be as if we were going to put up baby announcements on the Internet. This one is taking it's own sweet time and that is BAD not good. Well, bad if you are terrified of a landfalling storm in the South Florida area... that would hit the Caribbean Islands first. Good if you are enjoy tracking Cape Verde Storms which are the holy grail of trackers. Long tracking storms with lots of options and brilliant visual imagery mixed in with prayers for the people in it's path down the line.

The problem with this puppy is that you can see it's center to the north of the puff of convection to the south of the Center. In a way though...that's cool, because you can look down into the center and see how the banding will come to life.... if this wave lives up to it's pre-release publicity by way of the models and every online weather writer out there weaving tales of misery as this system moves closer and closer to a possible landfall in South Florida... pick a coast, pick a model run.

The problems with models is they can be fickle at times, though their general nature is set much like the general style of this system. IF this system goes Hurricane... expect it to be a beautiful, rounded hurricane with proper bands and strong structure.

Between then and now is a lot of work at the Gym and long nights ahead for all of us watching each image coming through in real time... 5 minutes apart on one site, 10 on another... 15 on yet another. One day someone is going to drop some dropsonde into a wave like this with cameras and the ability to tell us what is going on from the inside out before the models indicate a path. .. well maybe. :)

Look deep into the image... looks like a face almost, like a skeleton... looking to grow into it's body.

Wow.........if this develops.... wow.............

The thing to remember is.... it is BIG, HUGE and HAS POTENTIAL. The thing to remember is..it has not come together yet. I'll do model discussion later. Models have shown it being a possible problem for the GOP convention next week where Isaac might want to come an unwanted delegate. OR... South Florida.... Keys, Miami, WPB.... OR.........get pulled north into the Atlantic or continue West as a weak storm. The "game changer" will be the storm itself. It has to come together.

However...........it has not come together just yet....and till then everything here is just shooting the tropical breeze....

There are other areas to watch but if you think I am going to sit here and worry on other areas like the Azores, Spain, England, small storm hits Tex/Mex or the wave behind this one that is currently on a leash of moisture.... which happens often with closely connected tropical siblings.... you don't know me.