Hurricane Harbor: Sunday Afternoon - TS Fred Takes the Lead Back - Grace Demoted to Tropical Depression. Invest 96L Still There...

TS FRED 45 MPH Center Stage in E GOM

TD Grace looking strong but 35 MPH.

(lots of convection needs a center)

Invest 96L East of OBX

Mess of Clouds E of Miami.

Writing this as I listen to Kenny Rogers infamous The Gambler Song... because really that is what life comes down to sometimes, especially for weak tropical systems with too much blobby convection and tilted centers that fall over every six hours.

NHC raised intensity to 60 MPH on landfall.

Fred is consolidating in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico and there is a serious chance he could flirt with Hurricane Intensity very close in as it's common for weak, stubborn storms to ramp up as they sniff landfall. So that needs to be kept into consideration, however not expecting that much other than the typical blustery day, heavy rain, some flooding on low lying local roads and yet that rain when it runs up against the mountains in Apalachia can become a problem. Some place like Chattanooga could get way more of Fred than it bargained for...

As for Grace she is battling herself; she's kind of her own worse enemy in that she was born from two blobs that were competing for dominance and even the NHC had problems deciding which center would win out in the end. Models grabbed the top blob and ran with the ball for the End Zone and models that went with the Southern center pulled it into the Caribbean. Models have been everywhere and as I always say, always and forever, until you have one strong verified center that has been there for a good 24 hours pumping you cannot get good model output. Only when we have real data to prove where the center is and how formidable it is can we get good model data - garbage in and garbage out rules and that's why the models have been messy. Is this the end for Grace? I don't know. August 20201 has been a difficult, unclear period of weak named storms with competing blobs. We have seen forecasts for fronts that never dipped down nor did they grab anything and there was nothing there to grab. Really... how bad can models get?

I'd go with the bottom half of the Cone.

I put the line in so you can see it clearly.

Weak systems go West.

It's a rule even tho rules get broken.

96L is up there in the Atlantic.

Seemingly inconsequential tho it spins.

NHC has it at Orange.

Wild card is the convection N of Grace.

Looks impressive right?

But it has no signature on Earthnull.

What the hell is it?

Grace's curves are there.

When you use the Water Varpor.

You see a ghost like Upper Level Low nearby.

Inhibiting Grace's Northern side from developing.

Shearing both systems in mysterious ways.

https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES/fulldisk_band.php?sat=G16&band=08&length=24

Loop that and watch how it dips down, almost ghostlike and rips off the top of Grace's circulation.

Ghostlike feature.

Very subtle.

Very significant.

Years ago in a horrible NY Jets Football game when Joe Namath threw 4 or 5 interceptions and looked like crap in the locker room during a Press Conference some gutsy young reporter asked him "what did he have to say to people who said he had purposely thrown the game" and Joe Namath looked up at him with a combination of utter disgust and annoyance as if to say "are you the stupidest person in the world" and explained methodically if a QB wants to throw a game the LAST thing they do is throw 5 interceptions, they just bobble a handoff and the timing gets messed up. Glaring, staring he reminded him that NO QB wants to throw 5 interceptions ever and basically got up and left the room. I was young, it made a big impression on me because he was right. It's never the obvious things but the subtle, barely noticeable things that do in tropical systems.

If I had a dollar for every person who basically repeats Joe Bastardi's rant on how he was taught as a young kid how Hispaniola breaks up hurricanes that would, could slam into the USA I'd be a milolionaire. Years back I watched him tell his story about him and his father over and over and everyone wrote down every word and today they repeat it over and over. And yet they don't mention him because his view on Global Warming and other topics is not popular. But Hispaniola only gets credit for that deed when there is a REAL VIABLE HURRICANE. When there is a system misaligned that has multiple centers and is tilted and running on fumes and the High Pressure behind it wanes and shear pops up from Upper Level Lows and it barely can crawl up onto the beach of the Dominican Republue before tilting over like some dinosaur choking on meteor fumes - - - everyone points to Hispaniola screaming "It slammed into the high mountains and.........." and yes there are high mountains but no it was Dead on Arrival when it hit the beach in the Dominican Republic after barely showing up in Puerto Rico with any wind. Yes, every crappy tropical disturbance can cause horrific flash flooding in Hispaniola but Fred had problems way before the mountains were on the horizon. And, yet.........Fred lives. And, it's those stubbong "come back to life" storms that often cause more problems down the road when they find their groove again.

In a few weeks we will be dealing with better systems, possibly less shear from Upper Level Lows and much warmer, more supportive water temperatures and that is the real season. Today was PreSeason NFL Football. I watched the Carolina Panthers blow a lead and probably lose one of their better young players with a knee injury and then they went to NASCAR on my local channel with 2 laps left (so you knew any minute there would be a crash) and bamn there was the expected crash.

This is not rocket science.

Tropical Storms that don't die and were born by Africa can cause problems on landfall in Florida as they try and do the Appalachian Trail. Remember that.

What does worry me?

The constant moisture feed in the Mid Atlantic. The nonstop storms in Vrignia on the Maryland border and NC border, the high heat that usually is only broken by a hurricane because any "cold front" diving down is not that cold so that leaves a hurricane. It's always easy to say "NC and OBX" gets some hurricane clipping it's beautiful beaches but sometimes they can plow into NC and keep on going up the Mid Atlantic. It doesn't happen often but it can and could this year. Also New England is ripe this year for a hurricane to come and find them the way rain has every other week or so with flash flooding and severe weather. Texas always gets a stray storm that slips under a huge High and Florida forever gets lucky tempting the fickle finger of fate.

I wrote days ago the beaches of the Florida Panhandle were the likely target for Fred after it flirted with Cuba and that is what played out. Not because of any one model but the Water Vapor Loop showed the models were corrupt and broken. Again until there's a viable, hard core closed center with convection swirling around it for 24 hours models are want to be wonky and unreliable at best. How sharp an approach makes the difference between Panama City or St. George Island... and the list of beautiful beaches goes on and on.