Hurricane Harbor: UPDATED!! 99L Still an Invest. Still Needs to Be Monitored in South Florida For Develop. Stay Aware and Have a Beautiful Day.

Note much to update other than 99L is still there.

Still has not become Hermine.

Still could become Hermine.

Mike Seidel and Jim Cantore have arrived.

There are rip tides.

There are always rip tides in August.

Know why?

Strong flow out of the ESE

That is what brings storms to our shores in August.

Remember the line in Romeo and Juliet?

"Do not swear by the inconstant moon.."

Every time I hear weather people swearing by the EURO or GFS..

I think "do not swear by the inconstant models..."

A model run is only as good as the next model run.

And only really as good as it can be judged days later.

So far the GFS is beating the EURO.

For those of you who are keeping track.

Euro shows a weak storm getting into the GOM.

It moves along the West Coast of Florida coming ashore..

..around the Big Bend (today's model run)

Then crossing up North East.

Some take that moisture up thru Georgia and the Carolinas.

Some models have it crossing FL into the Atlantic again.

The EURO is below...

Don't hold your breath.

But do check back often to see what the NHC says.

nhc.noaa.gov

I'll be back Saturday Night with a new update.

Remember NO model developed Hermine in the islands.

No real model developed it by Barbados.

They almost all developed it close in..

Bahamas. Florida Keys. South Florida.

So why did everyone freak out 3 days ago?

Good answer is people want information.

We are an information based society.

You hear something you never heard...

..first thing you do is Google it!

Immediacy.

Information.

The NHC is watching.

Check with your local weather specialists.

Check back here Saturday Night.

New wave coming off of Africa.

Keep reading the post from earlier if you didn't.

Valuable information and commentary.

Keep reading..

.. keep watching.

So far Invest 99L is holding it's own.

Looks like a big thunderstorm maybe.

But in the hot waters of the Bahamas waves can develop fast.

Stay tuned.

***

Good morning. This may be a bit of a rant further down on the tropics, movies and life in South Florida. Amazingly I feel like I'm on vacation this morning in my own home. I have a friend here named Zahava (means gold in Hebrew) and have known her since the early 1970s. She was actually a young woman close with my mother and then I got married, she got remarried and our kids were best friends. Our ex-husbands were close friends and vaguely partners. Lives intertwined through mutual friends and children who grew up having fun together. I was a bit worried about having her here during INVEST 99L and possibly Tropical Storm GASTON as I am distracted, busy and more crazy than normal when there is a named story. In life with people just as with the tropics everything is related and relative.

Yesterday Invest 99L unraveled over Hispaniola as many tropical waves, storms and hurricanes have done in the past. Mind you 99L was LARGE, huge with multiple centers. Some weather people insist it is in the Bahamas as the small, mini vortex that was the almost center of 99L was to the North of the weather is was dragging along that had multiple centers. To be fair they are right the small naked swirl of Invest 99 IS near the Bahamas. See the yellow x above. However the convection that never wrapped and that swam with it from Africa is over Hispaniola. They have to wrap for this to work or the small, vortex over the Bahamas has to take over, win out and build convection of it's own. If that happens and pressures drop there is still a chance that this becomes a Tropical Storm still... I'm being honest.

There is an orange x off the North coast of Cuba and an elongated orange balloon that may become designated storm vs a designated Invest area. As we say in Miami irregardless of what you see now this area could become a player in the Florida Straits, over the Florida Keys or in the Gulf of Mexico. Note the circle has been pulled further to the South partially over Cuba as I said yesterday I thought it should be.

This vigorous Tropical Wave has a 60% chance in 5 days of developing.

This is nothing to laugh at but to be aware of if you live in South Florida.

The Florida Keys is part of South Florida.

We think we are the Conch Nation ...

...but as the Conch Nation lacks a weather service.

Our weather service is below:

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/key/

Being honest with you here. For years we studied what we call Invests as part of a larger project to understand how hurricanes form. There is a link below to read to understand how the word pouch is used in this project. We would track small waves, sometimes naked swirls and small vortexes across the Atlantic Ocean. When one was almost viable it would be given an Invest designation and it would be sliced and diced on the NRL site. That is how often I could tell you a heads up on a developing wave that had strong chances of developing before you heard about it on the 6 PM Weather in Miami. In the old days... back before most people got their forecast from their hand held mini computer aka phone they use to get the news, weather, stock quotes and watch NFL football games while talking to their children in Israel or Seattle. It's a new world. Deal with it. It is what it is. And it's a wonderful world.

https://www2.ucar.edu/atmosnews/in-brief/3062/hurricanes-making

Somewhere along the line this went public and TWC began tracking them with fancy graphics and other media markets in Miami and New Orleans began tracking them as after Andrew and Katrina we like having as much knowledge as possible about any tropical threat. The goal of the NHC and every television channel in Miami is to give the public the best advice and the most lead time to prepare for a possible tropical storm. Whether you watch Phil Ferro or John Morales in Miami or Wes Hohenstein in Raleigh they are all trying their best to give you the most professional forecast, advice and heads up on a possible problem without hyping or scaring you with scenarios that may never happen. There is a lot of responsibility there and even more so for the NHC that has to be responsible for the whole package; the whole area from Texas to Maine that is prone to having tropical weather whether it's once every 20 years or once every few years like the Outer Banks in North Carolina. It's a heavy responsibility. They take it seriously.

Now days we have people online sharing their knowledge and expertise. We discuss now as we did back in the early days of the Internet the details hard to cover in the 4 or 5 minutes given to a local weather person on air. We talk, we share and we try to give you the most information we can as in truth .. knowledge is power.

Luckily for my friend Zahava Invest 99L is still Invest 99L and I'm going out today to show her the capital of North Carolina, find coffee shops, shop for food and hang out. I'm on vacation for a few hours. Last night we went swimming in the pool, sipped some wine and took in a movie. More on that in another blog. The movie was "based on true facts" yet Zahava and I know the true facts and the movie was poorly done like a bad forecast from the EURO and not as real as true life. It was fun to see it together as we know more about what happened obviously than the movie producers. That being said.. much like life ... sometimes forecasts for hyped storms based on every run of the EURO or GFS scare people or make them feel they are safe.

Don't let the graphics of hype confuse you. The bottom line for 99L is that the short term 2 day percentage for 99L is 20% and the 5 day is 60% and that means you need to monitor the strong, vigorous tropical wave trying to become a tropical depression or tropical storm. If you live in the paradise that South Florida is ...it is not all about being able to get a cordatito and guava pastelito for breakfast and being able to go to the beach before work or catch a great sunset. It's about knowing a tropical storm or hurricane could happen so MONITOR the tropics either online or on your phone or on the 6 PM weather forecast and stay informed.

I'll be back later and will update my thoughts on Invest 99L as well as other possibilities in the tropics. Thanks for all your constant feedback and stay informed but enjoy the blue of the sky and the tropical breeze. Whether your favorite beach is a Carolina Beach or a Florida Beach it is beautiful and on rare occasions they are prone to a possible hurricane. Maybe not today or next year but they can happen so as always stay #HurricaneStrong.