Hurricane Harbor: Philippe Causing Flooding in the Islands... A Look At What Happened vs What Was Forecast. Questions on What's Next

My thoughts on Philippe this morning.

Things changed. Models were wrong.

Part of life.

Sadly some flooding in the Islands.

I'm starting with this because honestly Philippe's forecast from NHC has bothered me since the very beginning. I don't like to argue with the NHC as it's confusing to people who are trying to get a good forecast. And, yes years back I'd go on long rants, but this has been an exhausting season of mostly crap storms (it's true) and the troubling Idalia and the leftovers in the North Atlantic of many storms have created problems way out to the North of the tropics. I've read discussion, I've seen models confuse Philippe and Rina (happens especially as they were so close they were for a while as close as siamese twins) and didn't see where Rina would thrive and Philippe would die or just follow dociley along after Rina. Rina died as I suspected it would and Philippe stayed alive enough to stay together (not a hurricane) and moved further West and landed in the Islands with a landfall and kicking up weather and flooding far to the South of it's "center" and let's get real it's a minimal Tropical Storm and I've said this over and over they are the hardest to nail in a forecast. Very long run un sentence ... kind of like Philippe.

We are always learning sometihng that'll add to better forecasts down the road. Each hurricane season is a work in progress and I'll add a research project in real time. Small systems are hard for models to nail down and two so close together make it very difficult for a model to be right.

I've said that here and nonstop on Twitter. And, I was right as Philippe got far enough West to be a landfalling storm and to create troubled weather with flooding ...in an area that was told repeatedly it'd turn. It'd turn...it would turn... it hasn't turned, it'll probably turn as the end game with almost all tropical systems is finding a way North towards the Poles. On occaisions they die, unraveling because of shear or they continue West and collide with Central America. Note always pay attention to NHC, but until that storm lifts way to the North of us keep watching your local weather experts and the storm itself!

It's October fronts are on the move and with every front high pressure gets pushed down for a few days before lifting up. The tropical surge of rain lowered pressures and raised rain rates in South Florida all weekend.

1 of the first cones above.

First forecast had a "nothing to see here" message.

Just another clone of the last several storms..

...that all turned before the Islands.

For a while the Islands were in the Cone ....

..after the SW movement

Then the cone went North again.

Sharply,

Too sharply if you were watching WV vs models.

Rina died, Philippe survived.

Oh well....

NHC posted TS Warnings quickly ...

Today 8 AM Philippe doing the Islands.

Troubled weather deep into the Caribbean.

While "cute" I hate the cartoon graphics above.

The NHC main page doesn't tell the story.

Look at those deep reds pushng West.

(NW as per NHC forecast)

In the Caribbean.

When you "track" by hand or computer

You are a step ahead of the models.

Water Vapor also shows the truth.

Philippe's weather 100 miles S

.....of where well u know...

As there's shear wxr is everywhere.

Far from center NHC tracks.

This is a good lesson!

NHC tracks the center not the weather. We know that, they tell us and it's on every Cone that impacts may be outside the Cone. We learned that again with Idalia when Tallahassee lost power and 100 year old Oak Trees and Vidalia Georgia was getting slammed with strong weather while Idalia was far to the South and everyone was talking about where it might make landfall. Storm surge showed up (always does) and the violent hurricane winds barely did though hurricane force gusts were recorded near landfall. Confusing storm, lessons we should learn and remember.

I started following this account this year.

Mr. Weatherman

He does a good job with the Islands.

And the tropics.