UPDATED! NHC Invest 90L Goes Red 70% Chances of Developing in FIVE DAYS. Once It Gets UP into the GOM. Models Staying With It. Social Media Paraparazzi All Over It :) Some Weather History in 3 Part Harmony

Fast fire update here with some quick thoughts to keep in mind while watching Invest 90L down on the Yucatan slowly develop as it moves up into the Gulf of Mexico over warmer water. While the water may be cooler out by Africa currently it is plenty warm enough in this part of the world close in to create an environment for development as shear becomes less of an issue. Note again TD1 or Alberto could form ANYWHERE in that red grid the NHC has highlighted. This is NOT a cone for direction or movement or landfall, but a grid for an area where it will develop. If it develops sooner (not likely) that would change the timing, if it develops slower closer in to the Central Gulf of Mexico Coast it would be another situation (EURO)  and if it develops closer to Tampa it would be more of a hook right into Florida as the GFS model suggests. It's worth remembering currently it is pretty much over land with the stronger convection still being blown off by shear to the NE. See image below.

Note the position on the map below.

Also note the stationary front to the North.

Weak cold front going stationary.

Not the best set up for a fast mover.

Note the models below.

While I do not expect it to take any one path shown above it's worth noting there is one that shows a loop. If the models later tonight continue to support that possibility what the models are really showing is an environment that this developing storm might wander into that could play out with weak steering currents as it approaches landfall. That would NOT be a good set up with regard to anyone area getting more rain on top of the rain it is already getting. Worse case scenario is it stalls out for a bit wandering about close in dumping rain everywhere and that's supported by the rainfall totals forecast for the next 5 to 7 days. There is also the question as to what happens after landfall? Does it move inland slowly spreading more rain into Alabama and Georgia or does that weather hook to the right and slide out by the Outer Banks?

4 to 5 days time frame up above.

6 to 7 days time frame below.

That's a lot of rain.

Let's say TD1 or Alberto takes the path shown on the NOAA Government map below, seems they are erring on the side of the EURO there, and it makes landfall as a weak, wet system.  Again it could slide into the Big Bend should the cold front not be weak and pick it up, especially if it's a stronger system is more easily picked up by fronts. It could stall out a bit in the North Gulf of Mexico while we wait to see who gets the official landfall... while everyone gets rain. Lots of questions remain.

When we have a designated system....

...we will have more reliable models.

Just keep watching the moisture flow.

The pushing West of the High (blue)

Eventually the pieces will come together.

It will only have one place to go.

Note tropical wave around 45 W.

That's foreshadowing.

Beautiful swirl by Portugal. 

Please continue reading below for my thoughts from earlier today which are still valid. As I said if the NHC has confidence in the models that are calling for development we will go up 10% on each statement until we are ready for an actual upgrade to Depression status unless it develops winds that are stronger. It needs to be in the water, away from the Yucatan to really get going and form. These statements are currently issued from the NHC in their Pre-Season mode of putting out a statement around 7 pm and 7 am give or take whenever they decide to put one out. These are in fact special statements and we are still days away from the official start of the Atlantic Hurricane Season though we can pretty much say in a de facto way we have begun the 2018 Hurricane Season with the discussion on Invest 90L. 

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Going to try and keep this a #mediumread blog this morning and go over the 3 main details that need to be kept in mind while waiting not very patiently for something to actually form down in the Caribbean. To start off with this whole Invest thing is based on the marriage of modeling and satellite observation. For years without modeling meteorologists were able to forward move the various weather aspects (fronts, highs, lows) across the weather map done by hand, day by day and make fairly good guesses as to what would happen next. More often than not they were right and that is why they attained the status of "my favorite weatherman" by the people who followed them most often on TV.

Let's take a step back. Flying into cyclones really became a thing in the 1940s when the American Armed Forces tried to get a handle on the most dangerous weapon the Japanese had in the Pacific that being the Typhoon as ships at sea and or troops scattered on small Gilligan like islands were extremely susceptible to these dangerous storms that were putting our men in danger more than the actual Japanese forces. So they began flying into the stormy skies and allowing those soldiers with a natural ability for radio and mathematics to try and get a handle on these dangerous monsters. Remember in the Pacific in that region the average cyclone could be close to 200 MPH unlike our normal Gulf of Mexico Subtropical cruisers in May or June. Many of those people later went into meteorology once back in the USA after WW2. Some of our best, brightest meteorologists who set the standards for those here today came out of their service in WW2 or later military service.

Fast forward to the 1950s and the 1960s when Television and the Space Race came into being and put the knowledge of meteorology combined with the ever evolving new satellite imagery onto your TV screen every evening at 6 PM. As your family sat there eating their TV dinners because Momma had a hard day they watched as the local weatherman came on TV to tell you and show you with very rudimentary satellite and radar imagery what was on the weather map and what might be in store for you tomorrow when you marched off to school. Believe it or not.... back then people thought they had come so far in the field of meteorology and weather forecasting and people have an odd measure of confidence in their local weather person. Note "local" being a key word as the local guy really knew the generalities of local weather and were at a TV station so long they were basically their franchise quarterback. Professors of meteorology and people employed at the NHC for years were part of this process of investigating weather with the new science of satellite imagery combined with a learned knowledge of climatology.

A few of these great weather luminaries are shown below:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hope_(meteorologist)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_M._Gray
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Mayfield

So after a period when they tried to control the weather to help us lead better lives by using silver iodine (Project Storm Fury to name one) and other great ideas most meteorologists settled down to trying to better forecast the weather with a succession of models that one by one out performed the last. Once upon the time we thought the NOGAPs was the best or the MRF or the Aviation model that Hurricane Andrew and Bryan Norcross made famous as the better of the new models that had the best handle on which way and what Hurricane Andrew was going to do down the road.

The one constant here is that every few years we think we have discovered the best new model since someone created a machine to slice bread. That was big back in the day when people ate bread with every meal, trust me on this...   So now here we are with what seems a couple dozen "good models" but we only pay attention to basically the GFS and the EURO model as if we are watching a shoot out that's as good as the one at the O.K. Corral. In truth the GFS and yes even the EURO will in time be made fun of and put in the same category as when people say "remember when the MRF developed phantom hurricanes every May and June?" Oh... my bad, we might be there already. Time will tell, but the one thing you can rely on is our modeling with get better and better. Satellite imagery gets better and better. Well it definitely gets better from an artistic, picayune level of slicing and dicing the atmosphere and watching developing tropical systems.

http://www.cowboysindians.com/2015/08/top-10-gunfights/

So now we have covered #1 the issue of Modeling and how it developed over time. Why is this important in reference to today's tropical weather and Invest 90L? Because we are following it's every intimate detail of development because the models have sniffed out development and yanked the chain that ends up with TWC showing Invest 90L with graphics and loops trying to show you where it will or won't go. Using modeling they can show you it doesn't really matter where the center goes (well unless the Canadian model is right) as everyone gets weather from it over the upcoming Memorial Day Weekend.

Nothing exists there currently that would draw attention to it as an area ripe for tropical development if this was 1955 unless a good meteorologist had an educated hunch and thought it had possibilities for development. But now in 2018 we have raised the name Invest to near Hurricane status on all social medias and even still on the old TV set. Can you believe they came out with TV dinners BEFORE the invention of the microwave. Something to think on... while waiting for Invest 90L to develop. People had to actually wait 30 or 40 minutes for their Swanson Turkey Dinners to properly heat all the way through! Luckily in 2018 we have a 5 day cone warning us before a landfalling killer storm hits your backyard and we can microwave a TV dinner in approximately 5 minutes!

#2 What is an Invest?
Back in the day (meaning the 90s and the turn of this century) we used to have a blast on various weather message boards discussing this Invest or that and all of the possibilities. It was really fun and there were the perennial naysayers who insisted it wouldn't develop along with the ones watching the waves travel Westbound cloaked under the cover of layers of SAL debating whether it might survive and develop into a storm to remember. Somewhere along the line the Invest project (using that name for the sake of keeping this into the Mediumread category vs Longread) became a known, publicized thing and quite frankly it no longer was any fun. Our little "Invest areas" now have their own graphics and their every cloud burst is analyzed as if it's an important NFL football game. It's just in reality an area being Investigated by meteorologists with satellite imagery using modeling to give us a valuable clue as to what it might do down the tropical road. You see how I tied #1 and #2 together here? Thanks. You can see Invest 90L in all it's glory below in various modes the NRL and we all use to see down into the area of messy weather to tell us what is going on. Currently, not a lot is going on.

The NHC raised it's chances of development in the FIVE day to 60% so we are 10% by 10% going up in it's odds of development. But note again most of what they are doing with those odds depends on the various model runs . . . so if the models pull back on development we could go back to 50% and if they show better chances of development than the NHC may raise the odds to 70%. This is model driven as currently there is nothing much going on there. Why you ask? Short answer is it is too close to land and land interaction is not good for a developing tropical system. Then again it's in a sweet spot there like a quarterback in the pocket with good protection as it waits for it's receivers to get down the field in the same way Invest 90L is waiting for the shear to let up before it has a real chance to develop.

Cliff notes on models today. Euro insists on going more to the left and threatening Louisiana and Mississippi and the GFS takes the right path towards Florida. Right meaning East not necessarily "right" vs "wrong" just to be clear. Until a true center develops the models are mostly a stab in the dark and doing the best they can to forsee what is really going on. Can you see what is going to happen?

Could you tell from this water vapor what will happen?

Jim Cantore probably can.

Actually a lot going on there.

In the general flow not specifically 90L.

As always it's a process.

Lastly we come to the two terms that are going to be bandied about so often you will want to turn off the TWC and go to the beach except your beach may be getting heavy tropical rains from the overall system that is currently known as Invest 90L. You will soon begin to hear the term Subtropical Storm and possibly Hybrid Storm ad nauseam with long discussions that will make TWC sound like Mr. Rogers does weather wearing great short dresses and spunky bow ties rather than his regular sweater. 

They use these names often when it looks like it's not going to develop into a Hurricane or even a Tropical Storm but the potential is there and it needs to be tracked and watched carefully and names are everything. They save face for forcing us to deal with graphics for a week on an Invest and in case it actually develops suddenly close into the coast over very warm water and it endangers people's lives so out of an abundance of caution we have begun to name Subtropical Storms. It's not a bad thing but it becomes confusing.

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

At times I think they went with publicizing Invests to get better ratings after years of slow hurricane seasons where there was nothing much to track or hype. Then again it's not longer our little secret and in the public eye and once it's out there people want to know more about it so I as well as everyone else out there online discuss them on Twitter. Well except for the naysayers and you know who you are .. hint you can find the answer in a fortune cookie :) 

I do want to give a real shout out to Mike from www.spaghettimodels.com who does a great job on his morning Facebook Live broadcasts where he shows and teaches people who to wander and work their way through the various confusing weather links he links to on his site. If you watch what he does vs what he is saying about Invest 9OL you will learn how best to use the sites with the multiple tabs at the top that seem difficult to navigate. He's a great teacher and a good guy, friend, father, husband, the list goes on. It really does take a village at times to truly understand what is going on and in truth anyone who has been under the gun from a wet, moist, tropical system that got stuck in weak steering currents allowing it to dump tons of rain on your neighborhood causing flooding and roof leaks generally wants better heads up on what is developing down the tropical road. Once burned.... you generally pay way more attention the next time something begins to develop in the tropics especially when the models show it possibly stalling out over Alabama and dumping more rain over Florida.

Heads up to TWC for really showing people from the NWS this season as this has been the weak link in getting the word out as when you have a system like this the NWS probably is your best bet for the most information you need for your particular area vs when there is a Category 2 Hurricane barreling towards Punta Gorda, Florida. Punta Gorda may not be in any cone for Alberto (if it develops) but they may be under the gun for intense amounts of rain in an area that has already received heavy rain.

So keep watching Invest 90L but understand how we got here that we are talking nonstop about something that is barely noticeable on the satellite imagery but may come out of cloak mode and develop when it travels up into the warmer Gulf of Mexico where shear is FORECAST by the MODELS to lessen and give Invest 90L some running room in it's attempt to get a name and some fame by messing up Memorial Day Weekend and grabbing the headlines away from the volcano in Hawaii. Respect the process and the history that got us to where we are that we can forecast five or seven days out giving people the more time to properly prepare for what may be a very messy weekend at best and at worst a Subtropical Storm Alberto...or even Tropical Storm Alberto which is possible but not very probable. Keep watching. What's really in a name when you may have 7 inches of rain headed your way? What's in a name? Ask Prince.... no matter what name he wanted to use or how he wanted to identify himself we all thought of him as Prince.

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on Twitter

Ps.. I will of course update at the top if chances go up for development or if something changes dramatically before Thursday Morning. Keep watching. Keep reading and as always reminding you if you follow me on Twitter I update in real time as things are popping moment by moment.