Hurricane Harbor: Remnants of Emily ... A TD at 11 AM .. A Look Back at Beth & Julia & Arthur

Basically Emily is hanging on as a Tropical Depression.

The morning visible shows her circulation well.

Sliding along the coast over warm water.

Details below with a good map.

The loop above is a floater loop and it is there as long as the floater is there. Someone asked me recently what a floater is and I'm sorry on assuming most people know. Never assume.. so it's basically a temporary up close satellite view that is there to study the system better in it's development and through it's lifetime. If a system doesn't form and never gets past the Invest stage then the floater quietly disappears. If the Invest looks better down the road, it's put back up. Before we could make our loops bigger on our cell phones and iPads it was invaluable. It's still invaluable in ways and when one is introduced it's a sign to take the Invest area more seriously. A brief explanation is at the bottom on the actual site. Thanks for asking!

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/TROP/floaters.html

Again the faint center is to the left of the convection.

The convection is sheared off to the right as seen above.

I've zoomed in for you below:

Brief update on Tropical Depression Emily and the Atlantic Waves. Basically a quick "State of the Tropics" this Tuesday Afternoon. I will update later today in real time at the top if anything changes or even gets interesting. And, as per 5 AM Discussion from the NHC they may stop following TD Emily sooner rather than later if they feel her center has become "quite elongated" and are no longer forecasting redevelopment down the forecast track. That said, they didn't do a bang up job of forecasting the sudden formation of Emily from a brief lived Invest so as she is prone to surprising us it's worth watching and waiting to see what happens in real time. To be honest, systems like this that spring up just before land or over land are hardest to figure in advance. There's very little "wind history" and the satellite signature is weak. Again, TS Emily was said to be a "small tropical cyclone" attached to a front and small systems do spin up faster than huge lumbering tropical waves.

At 11 AM the Discussion explained that they were hesitant to drop advisories as Emily has showed a brief flare up of thunderstorm activity near the low level center and basically it's a wait and see game going on. Waiting to see if Emily wraps enough convection, stays a few steps ahead of the next cold front and strengthens some what off coast. Often, but not regularly, weak systems flare up further up the road in the North Atlantic and come back to life. Sometimes the pressures do not drop significantly but because of the deferential between extreme High Pressure nearby they look healthier than you would think otherwise. I've seen some strange things in that part of the Atlantic. For now wind shear is keeping it in check, while warm water temperatures are fueling it. Remember the other day I posted warm water temperatures that are pooling off the East Coast. That old image is below from about a week ago. About a week ago models began to sniff out a coastal low forming where TD Emily is currently. She is most definitely worth watching, but I don't expect much but it's possible.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCDAT1+shtml/011440.shtml?

The link to the 11 AM discussion from the NHC is above regarding Emily's possible future.

Now for some Hurricane History as it relates to Emily.

Hurricane Arthur was the last July Hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean. Note the tweet below by Phillip Klotzbach who knows hurricane history better than anyone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Arthur

Nice long tracker with a similar track as the one shown for Emily.

Time will tell tell on Emily. But patterns exist.

I was in NY when Arthur passed off shore. An interesting day while in NY for my daughter's wedding.

http://hurricaneharbor.blogspot.com/2014/07/flooding-beach-erosion-power-outages.html. Last Atlantic Hurricane in July. Something to think on...

Last year we had Tropical Storm Julia form over land and move steadily along out performing the NHC forecast from the beginning to the end of her interesting trip NE. That track is shown below.

https://weather.com/news/news/julia-flooding-virginia-north-carolina

http://www.news-journalonline.com/news/20160913/tropical-storm-julia-to-leave-behind-more-rain-wind

I suppose they re-evaluated it as I was there and it created very stormy conditions for the Daytona Beach area which is far to the South of where they mark the official start of Julia's track. I was there when Julia formed, I remember it very well. Julia was famous or infamous for forming over land. It was a system that had been marginalized until it proved itself in real time. An erratic track, however far to the North of the actual track there was coastal flooding from South Carolina up to Virginia Beach and flooding prone Norfolk Virginia. The flooding was said to be from Julia's remnant circulation. Yeah, it was weather connected to Julia, it would not have happened without Julia being there so in my opinion they should own that and not pretend it barely had any impact. Knowing it was going to form I planned a trip South around it, hoping to intercept it and chase a bit and for me Julia was fun. Fun as in very little real damage, lots of weather and interesting display of energy seemingly out of nowhere. Again I expected it to be there, so it wasn't really a surprise. That part of NE Florida is swampy and I do believe she pulled in some energy from being over the Low Country and Swampy areas as well as a good part of her circulation was always over water. Mathew visited the same area Julia visited earlier in the year. Again patterns exist over the short term. Remember that later in the season. In the same way flooding from Hurricane Matthew later in the year affected the same areas, including North Carolina and Virginia, despite the cone showing Matthew pulling away and dying out far from where tremendous damage occurred. Damage that has not been repaired and many are still homeless waiting for monies to rebuild in Eastern North Carolina. Matthew is still a huge news story here in North Carolina almost a year later.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/data/tcr/AL112016_Julia.pdf

Worth noting the official NHC report does mention the post game flooding in Virginia far from where Julia died out in the Atlantic to the South.

In 1971 a similar sort of storm formed to Emily or with regard to where Emily is now and that track is show below. Beth formed from an Upper Level Low that worked it's way down to the surface. The track is similar to the track for the remnants of TS Emily although it hugs the coast more and went all the way to Canada. It intensified far to the North in what is usually cold waters. Interesting system and an interesting season as most systems formed far to the North of where tropical systems usually form. As noted in the report 7 of the 12 named systems formed North of Latitude 25. For some good hurricane history read the report Robert Simpson wrote please on the 1971 Hurricane Season.

http://www.weather.unisys.com/hurricane/atlantic/1971/index.php
https://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/mwr/100/mwr-100-04-0256.pdf

Note in 1971 they did not name systems over land and waited for it to emerge over the water. It swamped the Miami area with torrential rains and seriously was a personal pain in many ways. I remember it well and everyone felt as if they had gone through a tropical depression if not a Tropical Storm. Officially Miami did not see a Tropical Storm, because it formed off shore so I don't mind the new way of doing things with regard to Julia. It's more honest, as people say today, "it is what it is" .. but trust me it was a real wet, messy slap in the face in August of 1971 for me and some of my friends.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Beth

Now back to the future as Michael J Fox liked to say or do or go... I'm in a lazy mood today and didn't write late because I'm annoyed with Emily. I have kids traveling various places today and my older daughter came into Raleigh this morning early. And, I wanted to let Emily have some time to see what she can do. I'm not annoyed with Emily... but the process that led to the upgrading her was for many of us annoying. Normally I like erring on the side of safety and upgrading a storm for a higher media awareness. It's summer and I wound't want some kid sailing out of Tampa Bay on a three hour sail and never coming back Awareness is good, yet it's more the tepid interest early on and then the catching up with what was happening in real time that reminds me too much of Julia from last year. Hotel owners on Daytona Beach had little time to prepare and were caught unaware and had Matthew not come to visit 2016 would have been the year they remembered that Tropical Storm Julia that surprised them all. Again that area of the Florida coast is not prone to hurricanes and tropical events so they don't paranoid like watch every wave the way we do further South in Miami and the Florida Keys.

http://hurricaneharbor.blogspot.com/2016/09/tropical-storm-julia-forms-over-florida.html

As I said in the post from last year ...tropical weather can be unpredictable even in 2016 or 2017.

So let's take a look at the tropical world today.