40% Orange Area in MDR. New Wave Off Africa Rocks with Color. Convection in GOM. Islands Need to Watch as a Tropical Depression May Develop as the Wave Gets Closer In.. Models, Thoughts and Discussion on 2024 Hurricane Season.
Somewhere in this area a center should form.
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Really so hard to stop and put down thoughts this morning as so many thoughts are racing through my head. Some tropical and others regarding what to make for dinner and a to do list a mile long that's gonna probably sit there as I loop loops, look at models and listen to thoughts online. In reality THIS is the time that being online talking with friends about possibilities is the most interesting, as once we have a well developed system even without models those of us who know ... know where it'll go in the overall flow of the atmosphere. At that point there's a ton of NHC Cones littering X & Insta as everyone is just posting the newest Cone and it's a different ballgame. The name of the game then is to get the word out and hope that what you say and how you say it will help someone in the path of a hurricane prepare better and take the proper precautions.
How things can change on a dime in the tropics as we end August and move towards September. That's the rhyme.. September Remember. And, it's that way as many times we sail through July and August with not much going on but when September comes around it's important to keep in mind the old rhyme, September Remember...
Most of this week there was a litany of how the season was dead and all the models were off and the forecast for a busy season was a bust and a lot of whining and complaining with great amounts of angst. One group was annoyed we told them to prepare and the other group annoyed chasing pickings were getting slim and slimmer in the Atlantic Basin. The rest praying for more cold fronts to come down and debating how to decorate for Halloween not afraid that any hurricane will go blow their goblins away.
As much as I LOVE Hurricane History, if I saw one more video or image yesterday of a hurricane making landfall on that day in history, reminding everyone how slow it is this year.... I might have lost it. That said maybe it was good as one of my kids sent me a NWS discussion before Katrina explaining what those in New Orleans in it's path would see as the wicked, wild hurricane made it's way towards New Orleans and it's neighbors in Mississippi. Everything East and Northeast of New Orleans IS Mississippi not Louisiana as seen in the map below. Again Katina did NOT make landfall in New Orleans, but further East on the Mississippi coastline ....but the levee failure that was always predicted to be one of America's worst case scenarios actually happened in the same way Hurricane Andrew made landfall in Miami Dade county as a worst case scenario.
And, maybe that was the important message for now, he's one of those kids who is sure all hurricanes turn before Miami as Miami has been magically lucky for a long time now. In truth Mother Nature doesn't give a damn about what might be good or bad for you living in hurricane country, she will do what she wants to do and worst case scenario be damned even if it means the dam actually fails and the levee lets loose and floods an entire area that was spared the eye and stole the attention of the world from places such as Waveland Mississippi that took the brunt of the eye of a Cat 5 monster. Over 1,390 people died from Katrina, that's the official figure given...at least.
Memory is strange ...what we remember and what we don't remember... and how we remember it.
Forecasts were made for a very busy hurricane season. The question is how do you define a busy hurricane season?
All names will be used up by named storms?
How many Major Hurricanes there were in 2024?
You were hit by a hurricane?
How much ACE we had in 2024?
There will be multiple storms and areas of interest to watch (tho they could be mostly weak but named)
There were strong, long tracking storms like Beryl that bumped up the ACE?
Everyone has their own thoughts. A bevy of named but weak tropical systems sputtering across the Atlantic shipping lanes with names as we move all the way past P to me isn't the most memorable hurricane season even if we broke records for most names used or on the map at the same time. Neither 2022 or 2023 will be remembered name by name for all the ocean spinners, yet both will be remembered ironically for the 'i' storms Idalia and Ian. 2021 will be rememebered for many storms, but Ida the "i" storm also rated as one of the most memorable. Perhaps we should start worrying on the "i" storm as much as people in NC and FL are worrying on the F storm Francine.
I storm this year is Isaac. Keep that in mind, just saying.
So long story short.
Perhaps the models and forecasts were correct, but they were translated by humans as a hyperactive, seemingly neverending hurricane season with every name being used vs intense long trackers building up ACE and endangering many cities along the way leaving large swaths of devastation and destruction. I mean any year with Beryl in it is not a quiet or easily forgotten hurricane season. And, while we did have Debby on the map a long time as well as Ernesto, they were center stage mostly with little competition from colorful areas of interest in fall shades of yellow, orange and red. Perhaps the forecast based on the models were not so off, but how we interpreated them was a bit off. And, maybe we will have a late season, what we call backloaded with lots of hurricanes all through October and activity into November but the season didn't pick up in quantity until September the way the old rhyme goes. However, we sure had quality with Beryl.
Something to think on ...while wondering if this new area we are watching is a problem for Florida and the Bahamas and ultimately Carolinas or it gets into the Gulf of Mexico....
Today we wonder and watch. In a week from now we will know and have hard facts and probably lots of Cones posted online.
And we will also know if this awesome new wave leaving Africa is the player many think it can be or we turn our attention closer in to the Caribbean and late blooming waves that flare up before the Islands the way this season began. And, what will come out of the deep SW Caribbean later in the season? And will strong cold fronts call to those Caribbean cruisers and will they take rides on the fronts the way Wilma did as well as countless others where fronts became the driver of how a hurricane gets out of the Caribbean and where it goes. Wilma in South Florida was remembered for a rare hurricane passage that brought comfortable cooler air but that was October 25th, not August 25th.
Stay tuned. It's not over til it's over and it's definitely not over.
A friend said to enjoy the ride. That is true in that years ago when I was little first tracking hurricanes by coordinates given out on the radio and listeing to the weather radio for each new detail... it was a process and ships at sea would give information on a vigorous tropical wave that the NHC would relay to the rest of us as we marked our hurricane maps tracking along as the NHC posted new information. Every little detail mattered from barometric pressure to forward speed to actual coordinates.
Then we moved into the world of online tracking and everyone was able to access satellite imagery as if we were a fly on the wall of the NHC. Note they have many computer screens on each desk, but we had the one in front of us and we were excited when the image finally downloaded and sites online showed the advisories with all the info we desired for tracking on our maps at home. Then MEMES and GIFS came out and people tracked online or watched sites that track online and everyone went wild with watching the models, now accessible to everyone online. Then people began to argue models :( and on some level many online now, do not appreciate the slow process of waiting to get information and the analysis by experts who weren't using models that they could argue over.
I loved it when I was little. I love the way it is now. I love having access to satellite imagery, models and even recon information in real time. I also appreciate how we got here today. I very much appreciate the exchange of information from professional meteorologists as well as those who have made it an almost full time hobby while doing their jobs in other fields. I've had young kids reach out to me in meteorology school to talk on how they navigate the future with their careers and I've had many a person who got a degree in meteorology tell me why they are doing another job as it's easier to make money, pays well and yet they still love meteorology telling me how many hurricanes they have gone through or chased.
Just remember models are forecasts made by a machine with data that's put into them. Long range model forecasts are stabs in the dark. When we have a center, a closed center there is more light to see better where it will go and well as always garbage in ...garbage out. Dropsonde data in almost always means a more reliable forecast.
The season is memorable already. We already have a lot of ACE. We are just getting into the heart of the season. Remember that.
posted by BobbiStorm @ 9:14 AM
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