Hurricane Harbor

A writer and a tropical muse. A funky Lubavitcher who enjoys watching the weather, hurricanes, listening to music while enjoying life with a sense of humor and trying to make sense of it all!

Sunday, October 29, 2017

Phillipe Moving Away From Florida. New Area of Interest in Atlantic. Winter Storm AKA October Gale Messes Up TRAVEL Across NE NYC Many Cities. Check With Your Airlines if Traveling.

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11 AM Sunday.
TS Philippe.


"best it has ever has"


Tropical Discussion a bit poetic this morning.

Where's it going?




Cone for TS Philippe
As it sails away.............


Reminds me of a song........


Please keep reading if you have not.
And if you have... well Thank You!
Have a wonderful day...

* * *

8 AM


Two meteorologists are on the set of TWC. The guy points to an area of convection East of Florida not as strong as the larger area of convection closer to Cuba and says "I think this is the area of low pressure that they are tracking this morning...." the female meteorologist next to him has her hands folded and she's nodding in apparent agreement. Both look totally disgusted and  are working hard to try and sound deeply concerned and serious yet there is a touch of sarcasm in his voice.


The truth is the models did show this solution several days ago. A low formed that was broad, then it tightened up closer to Key West and sort of "moved" towards Bimini and then suddenly it disappeared and reappeared up further along the coast near North Florida and the wind gradient tightened up again off the Outer Banks. It wasn't a pretty model as it seemed to miss a few frames and moved around in a Slim Shady sort of way as if it was playing Trick or Treat with meteorologists. Now you see me... now you don't and not a totally clear cut tropical cyclone, yet multiple centers moving around within a larger gyre containing strong Tropical Storm winds...here and there and everywhere.

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There he goes....
ENE.... 
Cold Front Dives Down
(look at that cold air in GOM)
Moisture down by Cuba remains.
Philippe...
Here today, everywhere yesterday.
I see a Post Tropical Cyclone Philippe coming.
Tropical Depression Philippe?

A post from Mike's Facebook last night.



Indeed. It's not that hard ... in 2017 it's important.
We have more transparency and honesty is needed.


Once the NHC gets another permanent director who hopefully stays for a while... they need to sit down and have a long Pow Wow and figure out this idea of Potential Tropical Cyclone and Post Tropical Cyclone and set up a way with dealing with scenarios such as this as they are now forecasting Pre Storm Status. It's a good idea if a hurricane is going to form just off shore Alabama headed towards the coast within 12 hours and not such a great idea to name a PTC18 and then feel pressured to put up a name and advisories on a system that never would have been named ten or fifteen years ago before the ever changing rules.  Note when you say "potential" it carries the possibility it won't happen so you're forecast for potential does not have to verify. Old terminology for this was a "tropical disturbance". 


Wind History of TS Philippe Below.



Recently for example we had a "center" they were tracking SW of the Florida Keys...then they found one SW of Key West that continued North (not NE) and then NNE and now ENE (never wanted to do the NE movement) and made it's way across South Florida without officially ever having a "landfall" because basically it pole vaulted over land or never really had a true center to find the point of landfall? You can't make this up....

And, yet........this is a true October Tropical Disturbance merging with a Cold Front during a time of weather transition perfectly in tune with Climatology. 

I wrote this last night in an update to yesterday's blog and I'm putting it here again as it's as basic as it gets.  Why they cannot do this I don't know. I get the need to be accountable with meteorological lingo and try to validate the previous forecast so that it verifies but in the end it leaves the "general public" with a lack of faith in what they are trying to do... that being "warn the public of approaching tropical weather and it's inherent dangers" and it should be in language they understand.


What's more interesting is the topic of "landfall"
Did it or didn't it?
Only the NHC knows...

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As if Philippe was a broad Tornadic Tropical Gyre (new term I made it up) and it started off offshore Key West, crossed South Florida and never made "landfall" and you can see this in the loop above. The strong convection that did not have an actual center did stay down over Cuba where their original cone showed Philippe being. A small vortex (additional "center") popped up near Fantasy Fest near Key West, cross the state yet never made landfall. If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there did it make a sound? It should be interesting to see if they downgrade this in Post Season Analysis. 

Now what you are wondering? I see a downgrade very soon and the NWS is going to have to figure this one out fast as it has the ability to mess up a lot of NFL Football games and make a mess if the weather itself stays close to the coast. In Raleigh it's foggy this morning and warm enough that I didn't even need a jacket despite being officially 61 degrees when I woke up. I went outside, took some pictures of the fog and came inside and nudged the thermostat so that the AC would come on long enough to make the place feel better. Then I opened the sliding glass door outside to let whatever "cool air" is out there inside. October is a nowhere place to be sometimes when it comes to weather prediction. Better to play with pumpkins and dress up in costume popping candy corn in your mouth and debating whether to chew them or let them melt slowly than to try and pin down a tropical system or a cold front this time of year. It's an odd time of year. No one would drink Pumpkin Spice Latte most any other time of year, but in October ... anything goes.

In a world where we can do the most amazing computer graphics showing multiple ideas easily it's hard for 2 dimensional graphics to catch our attention or truly show us everything in one picture. In a world where I "talk" to my younger kids on Snapchat mostly  just using pictures as we convey what we are up to and what we think the other one will think is interesting... we can do so much better than most government agencies do as they are tied down in lots of red tape. And, that's why I get most of my best information online from friends who I trust. These graphics below explain the story of what will evolve and happen easily. All the characters are on the map and the arrows show the plot development. The image below is shown over the radar image.... in 2017 it's easy to do this and private meteorologists do and they do a great job. 



The images below show what Philippe did in South Florida.



Tropical Crime Scene... indeed.


The tropical system known as Philippe did cause damage from multiple possible tornadoes across South Florida.  Heavy rain in some areas and extreme happiness over the cold front pushing down providing cool relief to what was an extremely hot, long summer. Tonight it's forecast to be 55 degrees in South Florida.




Have I mentioned Travel Delays?
From the JetBlue site





Boston is watching ...
Remnants of Philippe and the Cold Front.


Merging together into one heck of a Winter Storm.
Winter Storm in October.
So maybe call it an October Gale ;)


Politically correct Fall Colors Shown Below..


NE expecting storm conditions.
NYC expecting something....


Portland Maine further up the coast.
Weather only Stephen King could love.


Winter moving in before Halloween.
Going to be an interesting winter.
You can quote me on that!

I'll update later.

Oh wait.......
There's an area in the Atlantic.
Orange like a pumpkin...



A  meandering Low.
The plot thickens...
Non-tropical... moving away.
"We see it... but just ignore it"
Keep watching.

To be honest I saw this scenario coming but it's hard to explain what you know without explaining it in proper terms and correlate that with models that were offering different solutions. And, in truth I knew this was going to play out like this.... a messy October "kind of a tropical storm" yet mostly a "tropical disturbance" that was going to ride the Florida Keys with wind displaced from the stronger rain and then merge with the Cold Front... 

October 23rd.
In discussion on Twitter.


No one wants to tell the Lower Keys they may get tropical weather.
So the NHC didn't....they made Craig Key famous.
S Florida was told to watch carefully.
Tornado Warnings by the NWS
Nuff said... let's move on.

Besos BobbiStorm
@bobbistorm on Twitter.

Ps...today's agenda calls for some shopping, planning, watching football and listening to some Country Music.















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