Leslie Leaving Us... Nadine Forming in the Atlantic

The NHC has begun the process of opening the door to write Leslie off as an extratropical system.

The proof is as always in the discussion the NHC puts out with every advisory:

LESLIE IS EXPECTED TO BEGIN ITS
TRANSITION TO AN EXTRATROPICAL CYCLONE AND THE GLOBAL MODEL
GUIDANCE SUGGEST THAT LESLIE COULD GAIN STRENGTH FROM BAROCLINIC
PROCESSES. THE NHC FORECAST...THEREFORE...CALLS FOR SOME
STRENGTHENING DURING THE NEXT 24 TO 36 HOURS...AND ALTHOUGH NOT
EXPLICITLY SHOWN...THE CYCLONE COULD REACH HURRICANE INTENSITY
BEFORE IT NEARS NEWFOUNDLAND. IT IS AROUND THAT TIME THAT LESLIE
IS FORECAST TO COMPLETE EXTRATROPICAL TRANSITION...AND THE SYSTEM
IS EXPECTED TO REMAIN A STRONG EXTRATROPICAL CYCLONE OVER THE NORTH
ATLANTIC.

Here's an image that best shows what they are talking about:

Link for the loop for this image, but you get the idea even from the image. Sometimes a picture IS worth a thousand words.

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/east/tatl/flash-rb.html

Notice Leslie has almost left the picture. Also, notice she leaves behind a BIG tail that dips deep into the tropics ... sometimes........not always........but sometimes.......something will develop from the leftover tail of such storms.

What they don't mention is that ALL tropical storms and hurricanes in this general area moving towards the North Atlantic go through this process. When Shakespeare wrote "The Seven Ages of Man" he described how a newborn goes through the baby process, progressing to a child, young man, adult, successful middle age and as an old man goes back to the baby process...sans teeth, sans life, sans energy. For those who are not of the literary mind set.. he basically out did any modern day psychologist illustrating how we often end up like we started out as babies...if we live long enough...

Hurricanes are much the same...they start out weak, oddly shaped, they have problems pulling it together, then they do...they rage and roar like teenagers or young adults, they become strong hurricanes like successful people at the height of their life and then they fall slowly apart... whether it's because of upwelling or antagonists such as frontal boundaries or dry air and eventually either rain themselves out over the inland valleys of America after they make landfall or they become elongated, asymmetrical and merge with frontal boundaries trying desperately to hold onto their shape...as they did when they were young just pulling it together and if they are lucky  enough the NHC writes some discussion on how they are about to go extratropical and while writing that discussion they are watching a new wave in the Tropical Atlantic on another large computer monitor thinking how they will describe the transition from tropical wave to tropical disturbance to tropical depression and so on and so forth until one day they will simply begin to write in their discussion the lines quoted below. Such is the life of a Tropical System in the Atlantic that has led a full life.

"LESLIE IS FORECAST TO COMPLETE EXTRATROPICAL TRANSITION...AND THE SYSTEM

IS EXPECTED TO REMAIN A STRONG EXTRATROPICAL CYCLONE OVER THE NORTH
ATLANTIC."

Canadian Discussion is as follows and I am posting it as Leslie's life is not over, she is going to affect Canada in the form and shape that almost all tropical systems do one day.

TROPICAL STORM AND HURRICANE WATCHES HAVE BEEN ISSUED FOR PARTS OF
SOUTHERN AND EASTERN NEWFOUNDLAND EXPECTED TO BE DIRECTLY AFFECTED BY
TROPICAL STORM LESLIE ON TUESDAY.  WIND WARNINGS WILL BE ISSUED FOR
PARTS OF SOUTHEASTERN NEWFOUNDLAND LATER THIS MORNING FOR TUESDAY.
RAINFALL WARNINGS ARE IN EFFECT FOR NOVA SCOTIA, PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND
AND MOST OF NEWFOUNDLAND.

TROPICAL STORM LESLIE WILL HAVE BOTH DIRECT AND INDIRECT IMPACTS IN
ATLANTIC CANADA AS FOLLOWS: A FRONTAL TROUGH OVER THE MARITIMES WILL
ONLY MOVE VERY SLOWLY EASTWARD DUE TO THE PRESENCE OF LESLIE TO THE
SOUTH.  BETWEEN 30 AND 70 MILLIMETRES OF RAIN HAS ALREADY FALLEN OVER
PARTS OF THE MARITIMES AND WESTERN NEWFOUNDLAND FROM THIS TROUGH WITH
MORE EXPECTED TODAY.  THE FRONT WILL LIKELY BEGIN TO MERGE WITH
LESLIE TONIGHT WITH THE COMBINED SYSTEMS CROSSING NEWFOUNDLAND ON
TUESDAY GIVING ADDITIONAL HEAVY RAINFALL TO SOME OF THE ALREADY
WARNED AREAS.  THE LIKELIHOOD OF LESLIE'S CENTRE MAKING LANDFALL
SOMEWHERE IN NEWFOUNDLAND IS LOOKING ALMOST CERTAIN NOW.  HOWEVER THE
STORM'S EFFECTS WILL BE FAR-REACHING WITH A CIRCULATION ABOUT 800
KILOMETRES IN DIAMETER SO DO NOT PUT MUCH FOCUS ON THE LINE ON THE
TRACK MAP.

MUCH-SMALLER HURRICANE MICHAEL WELL TO THE EAST OF LESLIE IS NOT
EXPECTED TO CAUSE MUCH OF AN ISSUE.  IT APPEARS THAT STORM WILL
LIKELY BE BYPASSED BY LESLIE'S LARGE CIRCULATION.

 So long Leslie....

Now we look towards the south...


The entity that grabs your attention is the red area to the right of the image, out in the Atlantic that is currently at 90% chances for development. Expect that to go up as the day progresses as the NHC says in their 8 AM discussion:

SATELLITE IMAGES INDICATE THAT A TROPICAL DEPRESSION COULD BE
FORMING IN THE EASTERN ATLANTIC ABOUT 855 MILES WEST OF THE CAPE
VERDE ISLANDS...AND IF THIS TREND CONTINUES...ADVISORIES WILL BE
INITIATED LATER TODAY. THIS SYSTEM HAS A HIGH CHANCE...90
PERCENT...OF BECOMING A TROPICAL CYCLONE DURING THE NEXT 48 HOURS
AS IT MOVES WEST-NORTHWESTWARD AT 15 TO 20 MPH.

A door closes, a new door opens.




Soon Nadine is about to take her place on stage on the Tropical Atlantic Hurricane Maps.. she will have her stages, her ages and she may curve quickly east out to sea or stay weak and move further west. She may become merely a Tropical Storm or she might become a Hurricane. She may be small, big or imperfect and poorly stacked. She will go through her different stages on the maps and I will write about her. The NHC will point out her inconsistencies and her strengths and they will explain what the  models say about her and point out if they agree or don't agree. They will ooooh and aww and they pick her apart like dead meat left barely hanging onto old bones and then they will begin to write her obit, kill her off and look to the south once more for one or two more storms the 2012 Atlantic Hurricane Season will most likely produce. Then when it is all over, they will see who gets the task of writing a post game analysis and summary of each storm and they will at last close the books on the 2012 Season and add it into the research banks for use next year and the year after when as we out live the Mayan Predictions celebrate the start of the 2013 Atlantic Hurricane Season.


Currently, our "Invest" is looking like a well formed Tropical Storm on the way to become a Hurricane:

Current early models for Nadine:



Keep watching, going to be an interesting day. And, remember early models for Leslie showed her curving out to sea faster than she did. In the end it's nice to have the models but they do get adjusted in real time and in the end it's up the tropical system itself to play it's part on stage.

Besos Bobbi
Enjoy the always awesome Morgan Freeman reading the Seven Ages of Man:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziXqEX6AwKA