PTC8 Still.... Name Helene Is STILL in Play It Seems. Some Tropical Thoughts from 3 AM - Height of the Season That Reads Like A Broadway Drama.... Potential Tropical Cyclone & Decayed

 

PTC8 close to crossing land.

Cool air here and tropical rain.

Sounds of steady rain.

Strong breeze in squalls.

Using NHC Interactive Cone.

Strongest weather to N/Right of Cone.

(Bryan Norcross talking on this ...)

I'm from Miami ...

"in Bryan Norcross we trust!"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subtropical_cyclone Link from Wikipedia explaining when and why NHC began naming Subtropical Storms that are often Hyrbid versus truly tropical. 

Being honest, taking the day to just enjoy the beautiful mix of cooler air and tropical rain squalls from my balcony in Raleigh while sipping some pumpkin flavored tea I bought at Sprouts. Southport is getting pounded by rain and lightning. To the North of our No Name Storm there is flooding going on along the coast already. Again much of the weather is to the right of the the track of the storm as the NHC tracks the approximate center of PTC8.

There is a strong chance that something comes out of the Caribbean in the next week to 10 days and it could impact Florida, possibly Cuba depending on where exactly it forms, sets up and moves and depending on where it crosses Florida it could also impact the Carolinas as in "let's do it again" as it's a popular pattern and song in 2024. More on that later, today is all about PTC8 that may not become Helene but do I care? I have rain, dancing pines and cool air... I'm almost in love!

I wrote the rest of the blog earlier at 3 AM when I couldn't sleep and at some point my battery died and no I didn't notice as I was writing, working my way through my thoughts one word at a time. Luckily, it's still there and I am going to print it out and shove in a box somewhere to read again :) 

I'll update any new news on PTC8 if it's newsworthy. This is the 2nd system that came inland towards the general Raleigh area and I'm taking the day off to watch and go out somewhere soon to get some pics and video. I'm also going to proof read it before I print it but it is what it is... my messy, busy mind at 3 AM unable to fall back asleep and realizing in ways how much I have become a Carolinian!

3 AM thoughts on 2024 Hurricane Season.

This blog post may get hiden away somewhere or I may print it out old school style and shove it in a box somewhere to read again later in another year when looking back on the year that was 2024 in the Tropics. 

Does Grok ever get it right? Do we care?
I finally tried Grok.
Sounds like a beer.

Winter beer.

Does it ever get anything right?

But hey it's pretty right?

We got around all those copyright pictures!

The reason our world is a big, blue, beautiful spinning ball is because we have an atmosphere that moves and spins and rearranges itself and is not stagnant. Seasons come and go somewhere within their normal parameters. Energy from the equator in early September begins to take shape and travel a long, circuitous route and that normally aids in the change of the seasons. Over time, and I am talking centuries, Equinox Storms we’re recorded in diaries by candlelight by pen and scroll and people waxed poetic about the huge storm from the West Indies that had punched it's way into their bay or bayout suddenly one September evening without much warning or fanfare. The storm rearranged the ships in the harbor and they wrote of the many rescues that were made and listed how many people were saved or died and the sort of damage the storm did to the trees and vegetation. Vegetatation in those days was important, both as crops in the field and the crops in the gardens people kept in their yards. They recorded if small fresh tree branches broke off versus old dead branches were pruned and whether the tree itself fell down or if it was ripped from the ground and they added they had not seen tree damage as such in the last 8 years. Data was recorded, saved and sometimes shared with other like minded souls who sat up by candle light recording the daily and weekly weather at 3 AM. 

They didn't spend three weeks watching a tropical wave with potential roll off the coast Africa and stuggle to stay alive in Saharan Dust that they followed on satellite imagery nor wondered and worried if this wave was going to die or redevelop closer in where it might hit land versus being a Fish Storm. Unless there were seafarers in their lives, they never really knew if a ship went down in a Fish Storm and they never knew if there was an Invest for a vigorous tropical wave.  They just knew the young peach tree snapped out of the ground in the middle of the night at the height of the storm and they found a ship that had gone aground and after taking the goods off and wondering if anyone on board may have survived they recorded the contents of the ship and made good use of anything that was worth using. And, this scene was repeated from the Florida Keys up towards the Carolinas and all the way through the region of the Potomac River Basin and sometimes even all the way up to New England....where ever some West Indies Cyclone spewed out it's last breath before cooler air began to drain down through the region and help deliver a change in the seasons from Fall towards Winter, with Summer far in the distant past.

Today we watch incipidly weak waves make their way West to great online fame as everyone online watches and debates and wait for the next model run to see if this little wave is going to go the distance or if maybe the next wave will light the spark for the very strange 2024 hurricane season. 

People ask what purpose hurricanes serve and why can't we just kill them off like a bad character that drags down the plot line that we could definitely do without. Hurricanes are a needed part of the story, the drama of weather and the atmosphere and they help rearrange things properly and keep the air moving, the seasons moving and lastly Planet Earth is not a stagnant planet. Winter Storms do the same thing in their season.

To everything there is a season and a purpose under heaven as the old saying goes from the Bible or a song you liked once upon the time. 

Turn, turn, turn as the saying and the song goes on... and our planet spins, the storms spin and life goes on as we know it on Planet Earth. And, sadly sometimes storms do horrible damage and then we learn to pick up the pieces and move out of Homestead or use the insurance money to add a pool and put in new windows with hurricane approved glass and storm shutters. If you were in Miami in 1993... you would know I'm no just being silly at 3 AM, but realistic as many left town and many stayed. After the 1926 Great Miami Hurricane a train was sent to South Florida carrying coffins to bury the dead and free passage out of Miami was offered to anyone leaving and many left fast going back up to Ohio where winter weather suddenly didn't seem to bad. FPL trucks drove around town offering jobs to anyone who would hop on the truck and help string eveything back together again.

2024 will either go down as one of the weirdest, messed up years in the hurricane world that was given high expectations... like high bouncing ball expectations and yet ended like an intercepted pass thrown by a suddenly injured Quaterback whose team watched the game slip away. It's not a shut out, but it's not the season that was promised. The Hail Mary Pass either gets caught and wins the game with seconds left on the scoreboard as time i running out or it falls in the endzone admist a group of players on both teams trying to catch it all all crashing into each other.

September 16th, 2024
Even the satellite loop is broken.
Kind of says it all...
....yes this is a loop.

It barely looks like it's moving.

Horrific storms slammed into Europe this week causing epic flooding with videos I didn't verify yesterday as I didn't sleep the night before and we all have our own priorities.

I live in inland North Carolina, not in the mountains and not at the beach and yet we can take a drive in either direction and see both. Winter weather sometimes gets us and sometimes tropical weather makes it inland as it did this year when Hurricane Debby was near ending her road trip she began back in Africa. 

It's truly an incredible process when it works right. When it doesn't we have horribly long hot spells and droughts or a never ending hurricane season like in 2004 when hurricanes tried to seperate Florida from the rest of the Union. They tried, but Florida is still there hoping to get lucky before the hurricane season is over. Florida, forever scared of the I storm... Ida, Irma, Idalia, Ivan...long list. 

I'm not really going to try and explain storm chasers to you ...because either you get it in your gut or you never will. I can wax poetic on facing storms in the eye and living to tell the tale and talk endlessly on the howl of a hurricane and the sideways rain that lashed the coast as waves pounded the beach and squalls repeatedly lashed the land with torrents of rain and debris and everything seemed in motion like a scene in the Wizard of Oz but you weren't in Kansas but a beach in Florida Keys or Louisiana or the Carolinas. 

When I was young I learned most of this long soliloguy from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof that was written by the incomparable Tennesee Williams. I got parts of the drama, though mostly I wanted to get the words right and follow my cues and hope I did it justice and I looked good all at the same time. I loved Cat on a Hot Tin Roof as we'd do old dramas often and it was more alive and less depresssing in ways than The Glass Menagerie. Somewhere, even today someone is learning scenes from Tennessee Williams for a High School Play the way you would Shakespeare which I did as well but this is not about Romeo and Juliet nor 10 Things I Hate About You or Taming of the Shrew.

I woke up at 2 AM to loud noises after falling asleep early because I really needed to sleep and it really didn't matter if I didn't see the 11 PM advisory on Potential Tropical Cyclone Number Eight. I woke up rested and cleaned the kitchen and was kind of happy I could go online and watch the loops loop and wonder what exact track the potential Helene would take and write a bit just for fun.

In truth this matters to me as I live in the path of the once and future maybe Helene and as we rarely get real weather in Raleigh I'm happy to get any and having 2 tropical systems this far inland is sort of a bonus in an otherwise empty season that didn't live up to it's potential as forecast as we all know 

I love to chase sometimes and I love to write always and I love to research Hurricane History and whether it's a season that verified some forecast or not, it's a season in history and if you are still reading this then you must be into history or one of my best friends here. Thanks.  

My phone lights up telling me there's a "Flood Watch Until Tuesday" and I really do get why people take the Weather Apps off their phones :(  

This season is not over and everyone is tired of being told that and yet it's true. The very hot waters of the MDR did not deliver and La Nina dawdled doing odd things in odd places, but is seemingly getting it's act together for either one wild Hail Mary Hurricane or a Winter that some people may not forget if they live in the place where La Nina delivers. 

Weather thrills. 

Weather disappoints.

Weather surprises us. 

And, life goes on... 

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on Twitter and Insta

Twitter mostly weather..

Insta whatever.........