Hurricane Preparation - Volcano Evacuations - Seasons Change - What Does Continental United States Mean? Hmnn Colors of Spring & Summer... Caribbean Blue

Let's start with the tropics first. The system we were watching in the Caribbean split into two areas of energy. One hanging back down in the Caribbean near Cuba and Jamaica and the other piece of energy got sucked up towards the Carolina Beaches mixing it up with a slow approaching front. Satellite loop above. Image is shown below. 

Note the waters of the East Pacific are beginning to get more active and it is possible there could be an Invest Area there in the near future. Shear there is strong as it is here so time will tell but the area is trying to juice up and officially their season begins on May 15th. It's also worth pointing out that while it may seem counter intuitive the area around the Bahamas and Florida is referred to as the NE Caribbean and that's why I use that term even though it is in the Atlantic Ocean. For cruise purposes, no I am not taking one, you can see what I mean on this map below.

I also want to mention water temperatures. Oddly water temperatures are warmer than usual in some places and cooler in others. What that means when the real hurricane season hits us is still up for grabs but it's a good indicator of what will happen over the next month or so.

The area around Florida and Cuba is warm.

Odd areas off the East Coast are warm.

Epac is warm in odd places further from land.

The world is so beautiful.

From outer space.

Down below it gets violent sometimes.

The scenes below are from a real light volcanic nightmare that is going on in parts of the big island of Hawaii that is one of the 50 states of America yet you won't see much about it on the news. Politics and odd local stories usually involving alligators, cockroaches and mosquitoes take precedence often. It's sad because this is going on in America and it's creating toxic gas, lava flows and evacuations. The situation could get worse as volcanoes are hard to predict and it's hard to know for sure when enough steam has been released or whether more is going to burst out suddenly. If this were going on in a populated city in the Continental United States I'm pretty sure it would be lead national news the way flooding in Houston during Harvey grabbed the headlines and reporters were there day after day covering the aftermath. Compare and contrast the problems Puerto Rico is still having after Hurricane Maria slammed the island back a century or so into the past knocking out electric and all sorts of every day modern life. They are still cleaning up and trying to get the power back on and yet it's a small story buried in the back of the newspaper or your news feed. True Hawaii is an actual state and the people there have more rights than they do in Puerto Rico which is still a territory but they are not part of the "Continental United States" which is a geographic term, but I'm beginning to wonder if it's really a political term. I have a degree in International Relations with special emphasis in Geography so that's how my brain works. 

That is not a scene from Jurassic World.

Real life drama.

As for lighter thoughts I want to point out the seasons are changing and thankfully so are the make up palettes as the powers that be have been shoving the natural nude make up look down our throats for the last few years. While there is a time and place for a "natural look" that needs much make up to actually achieve it's time for it to go.

Spring is here.

Color is back in style.

Smokey look is gone.

Natural look is gone.

Poof gone with the wind...

Color is in...

Something to think on...

Be like the Conch Nation.

Be prepared for Hurricane Season.

 EVERYONE from the Texas Border to the coast of Maine and every where in between needs to start preparing NOW for Hurricane Season. Key West sits down there a rock in the Caribbean hoping this year's hurricanes miss the rock we love so much. So go light a candle in the Grotto on Truman Street and keep praying. But before they appear on satellite imagery heading WNW you can start preparing NOW. If you are not in the "Continental United States" and live in Hawaii or Puerto Rico you may want to start preparing for hurricanes also. Alaska gets earthquakes just so you know Mother Nature ain't leaving anyone out.

Kind of looks like the blue Dior palette!

Are the colors of the Caribbean in style this season?

I think so.

But that's a blog for another day.

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on Twitter

Updated! PTC9 FORMS ... Race For the Name Harvey... Waiting on Recon. 3 Waves & An Area Near the Windward Passage Consisting of a Tropical Wave & ULL Anchored There ... The Road Ahead

Potential Tropical Cyclone Nine Forms From 91L
Forecast to become Harvey

Cone:

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCDAT4+shtml/171440.shtml?

Take the time to read the discussion as it's well put together and explains the problems and potential of Tropical Storm Harvey.

Watches and warnings.

An example being their main models do not keep this feature and loses it in the Caribbean. However other modeling packages develop it into a hurricane and show other possible solutions. The NHC is walking a delicate line here and they can pencil things in now and outline then in bold marker later in the week. For now watches and warnings are up.

Good discussion out of NHC doing a good job giving the Islands heads up as PTC9 is forecast to become Tropical Storm Harvey and Hurricane Harvey further down the road. Based on satellite imagery and various products the NHC uses in addition to Hurricane Recon they have upgraded this wave to post watches and warnings for the places in it's path. As I said earlier and further down in this post the satellite presentation of 91L really showed it's potential. The image the NHC posted a short while ago before the upgrade.

Also you can see the "roll" going here below.

Worth taking a look at cities possibly in the path of TD9 forecast to be TS Harvey. That's a lot of cities spread throughout the Caribbean into Central America and Mexico. And might note includes places in Cuba on the North side of the cone. So pay attention over time as these change and the track becomes more firmed up.

ISLE OF PINES  34  X   X( X)   X( X)   X( X)   X( X)   1( 1)   3( 4)

GUANTANAMO BAY 34  X   X( X)   X( X)   X( X)   1( 1)   2( 3)   X( 3)

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIAPWSAT4+shtml/171439.shtml?

Please keep reading if you have not. The Red Circle AKA Mustang Convertible definitely was worth getting the expected upgrade. The fact that they put it out before Recon is because they can as we now have Potential Tropical Cyclones (good idea if you are in the path) and as I have said on Twitter it is moving very rapidly West making a bee line for the Islands now already given an official heads up. 

The big round circle is NOT PTC9

Also notice the stalled out front.

Tropical Wave and ULL

Then PTC9 aka Harvey and 92L waiting it's turn.

You can see 92L below in the blue line..

..up in the upper right tracks for Harvey.

What will be with 92L and the wave behind it? Good question. Note we are now discussing it on Twitter and it needs to be watched. On one hand it will help steer and shear 92L but it could also become a home grown problem for someone. It's so big it almost eclipses "Harvey"

Highlighted system of the day.

91L

90% chances for development.

Gets a visit from recon.

Harvey?

Goldilocks has escaped the 3 bears.

Cat 2 hurricane. Impressive late life.

Back at the tropical ranch...

Sticking with 91L currently.

And the color scheme of the day.

Yellow, Orange, Red.

You can see 91L leading the way.

92L following.

Recon it seems is going in today. No recon for Gert. But 91L headed into the Islands gets recon. What seems to be destined to be Harvey is getting a visit from recon today so it better put on it's best dancing shoes as we know they can be hard to please sometimes. And then sometimes not. TD4 found no love from the NHC. Will they give 91L the H name and put up cones for the Islands? Stay tuned.... I'll update in real time later today. 

Let me introduce the players here.

Lead wave is 91L with a 90% chance of forming after the NHC looked at First Morning Visible. Definitely deserves capital letters, it's a THING. That's about as good as it gets with the NHC so we are obviously waiting on recon to make this call.  It is forecast to form by a consensus of models but nothing big currently is forecast to happen. Another low rider, west bound into the Caribbean. Usually the Caribbean is dry and inhospitable but not this time of year. Things are not forming there, that's interesting to note, however they are cruising in and sometimes moving on straight into the Pacific. We are not expecting Harvey to be wild, but who knows down the tropical road. Just to get a name and a cone is pretty big so keep watching. I will say something for 91L it knew to take the low road, well traveled road and avoid the shear in the Atlantic so that's impressive. There's whispers it can eventually go where Franklin went before. Keep watching.

Behind 91L is 92L visible above but SAL is taking a bit of a bite out of 92L. 91L was born in easier times with less Sal about and you can see the difference. Below you can see Gert going to England to see the Queen while she's still in charge. A large convective mass that steals your attention around PR that we are ignoring for now. You can see small, well built 91L moving west and 92L on a sort of leash behind him but having problems following his lead. The real race here is for the name Irma not Harvey. The African wave that has not yet been designated 93L but will most likely be when they write Gert off could get the name and 92L could stay weak battling the area of convection and shear we are ignoring.  Isn't ignorant bliss? Or not..  You can also see a front moving East across the United States and far to the North an even more impressive system is about to dip down that makes August feel more like September. Bring it on I say. I can almost smell Pumpkin Spice Latte when I walk into Starbucks. Not I'm not a fan of the drink, but it's a good measure of time moving on in the corporate world in which we live. Kroger has lawn ghosts (I kid you not) outside by the curb... white Casper the Ghost like lawn statues and ceramic pumpkin plant holders. And we have Cabo Verde Waves waiting on recon... feels like September.

92L below up close and scared.

Note the SAL to the North of 92L

When it gets past the SAL...

... a wall of shear is waiting.

You wonder why 92L doesn't just tuck it's head down and try to follow 91L westbound. What's odd here is that in many years that is what happens. They follow each other especially when they are this close and already in the Central Atlantic. Far to the East it's typical for one to normally develop fast and be pulled NW early on while a lead weaker wave continues west. This is usually the pattern. The tracks the models are showing sort of fight the typical scenario but this year has been, like last year, a weird year. The same models that play down 92L were hyping 92L a few days ago, and that's worth remembering. What the models put out, they can change, rearrange at any given time. So for now it's best to watch the systems on satellite imagery and wait until they develop a closed core and get good recon from dropsondes giving us hopefully better model output. 

Behind 92L is a system that could be 93L

You never know for sure til it is.

Home Grown sometimes pops up.

Steals the name and the game.

You can see above the area we are ignoring just north of Hispaniola, 91L headed West into the Caribbean, 92L a bit further North trying to take on the SAL and a low latitude large wave.

91L is red and headed west, 92L is orange and headed WNW and supposedly the unnamed wave that is yellow at the top of the screen will eventually head NW. I'm not ready to buy what will happen to that wave as it's a long time off and it's a large wave that might end up with multiple centers or poor alignment before it even tries riding a motorcycle after what could be Irma (92L) in a tropical storm. Just too many variables going on ... 

As for the models I'd also like to wait a bit before going long on what will or won't happen. Nothing is happening over the next few days. So enjoy the weekend, work on your hurricane plan, enjoy the Eclipse and keep watching the tropics. Note discussion below showing the problems that the wave closest to Africa  (the yellow circle for now) that most are expecting to be 93L eventually if nothing else steals that designation closer in. The NHC does not paint a pretty picture in the short term.  Let's wait and see where things go with regard to the big, large, huge African wave. Again, small systems like 91L can go where larger systems cannot. They can spin up faster, maneuver and get a job done faster. Large, lumbering areas of convection are more like big trucks that take longer to turn and to develop. 

Note the word usage.

ENGULFING.

Designation on hold for now.

Can change anytime.

Stay tuned.

The last player here is the area we are ignoring that's an odd mix in it's own way of characters. A real drama going on there much closer in than the African Wave. In this case I will quote the NHC below because it's complicated.

There are 2 features.

Or really 3. 

Models from Mike.

http://spaghettimodels.com/

A diffluent flow pattern between an ULL ANCHORED over S Georgia and a low centered near the Windward Passage is creating what looks like one heck of a tropical wave about to become a tropical storm. Looks can be deceiving. It's pretty to watch. It's going to knock 92L out for a bit and exhaust it while it tries to move WNW towards the Caribbean, Florida, the Bahamas and possibly the Gulf of Mexico. Some models just kill 92L off from shear. Time will tell. The "Shear zone" or  "wall of shear" are words you will hear yet remember that embedded in that mess we are ignoring is a tropical wave. Interesting to watch with so many other factors on the map. As for the models check out www.spaghettimodels.com because he specializes in the spaghetti models ;)

Again it's really too early to pay much attention to any of them other than 91L that is projected to become Tropical Storm Harvey if recon can find a west wind and strong enough wind speed. Oh look...here's an image from Earthnull below.

91L has a nice closed looking signature. 90%

92L wider chance circulation.

93L HUGE.

Again BobbiStorm's Bottom Line.

91L 

92L better put the top up.

Too much SAL 

Yellow Wave near Africa

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on Twitter in real time.

Hurricane Models. Will MJO & Kelvin Wave Give the Tropics the Kick It Needs to Knock Out Some Real Hurricanes? Fall Fashions. Green is Good Remember That. Extra Credit... Will a Hurricane Hit Charleston on Eclipse Day. I wonder if there is a line on that in Vegas yet? Hmnn Men, Music, Memories

Top part of above graph is most current time period.
Bottom part is as we move deep along in time.
A 40 day forecast...
You know me I don't like to go beyond the 7 day.
But it's worth talking about.

Continuing with yesterdays fashion theme. One of the colors for Fall is green. Not a bright green, but it's green. We associate green with fertile, tropical foliage begging us to take selfie's to send home in the middle of the cold, white winter or post on Facebook. Green mean "GO" and we all learned in high school it's the light at the end of Daisy's dock begging Gatsby to GO for Daisy the love of his life. And when dealing with the tropics the MJO "GREEN" is good, brown is not. So let's look at the MJO up there again and think on it a bit. Mike brought this up on Facebook this morning so it's fair game today. You can join in the discussion there as he loves to shoot the tropical breeze and we love talking tropics with Mike from Spaghetti Models.

https://www.facebook.com/mikesweatherpage he's all over the MJO this morning. I'm trying to lose myself in something like fashion as we are weeks away from football of any kind and just as many weeks probably from football. Thankfully I have other interests...But the dots connect or in this case the colors do! Follow along it's not all fashion but hey you might learn something. Oh and I'm doing the music thing this morning while the TWC is on MUTE so sing along!

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And then one fine morning—So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." That's the actual quote just so you know..

In school I was taught it meant money*

He needed money honey to woo Daisy

I always felt it meant GO for Green.

Who knows.

The goal here on this blog is to talk on the tropics

The tropics are not cooperating.

Some people don't believe in the whole MJO thing.

Jim Williams from www.hurricanecity.com doesn't.

He calls it "mostly junk observations"

Jim is sort of a purist when it comes to weather.

Jim also lives on Climo Wheaties.

He doesn't read the back of the cereal box until August.

Of course if something has a name he will be forced to...

Some of us stare and follow every wave across the Atlantic.

In hopes we will one day reach out, stretch out arms...

...and see a real hurricane forming in the Atlantic one day.

Ignore the wave approaching the islands.

Going poof.

But it's there......remember that.

;)

So let's look below at some old graphs.

Old as in yesterday's fashion.

Ignored like the Revlon pale pink polish marked down to $1

Oddly it still works and Opi is selling that color for $10

The graphic below seems out of fashion these days.

Look at all the tropical possibilities out there today.

Purple beads across the Atlantic.

Red candy striped in the Atlantic.

Yellow long range splotches in the Carib.

The only purple the NHC knows is "NO NO NO!"

It's not happening today.

Which brings us to another color.

Purple.

Years ago in the distant past we used to look for purple.

Purple meant we might get something spinning soon.

But alas the EURO and GFS are color blind.

The CMC is not and is way more fun but I really digress ;)

NHC on the main stage ignores the wave that made it across.

At some point they will not be able to keep ignoring them.

Sorry Uncle Albert.......

Or Uncle whoever..............

Should I talk about the models, the inconsistent models??? (quoting Willy here) 

So many are so "it's not gonna happen... we are never gonna have a hurricane ever again" Oh Lord got to let it go.. It's July. Give it 10 days or 11 days as we move day by day towards August and then there is September when Hurricanes really do happy. Summertime is for being down and and hot and singing the blues... saying goodbye, thinking it's all over and then...comes September.

Okay so fine.. I'll do the models. Follow along but remember they could be wrong.

Euro hints at some subtle changes but not crossing the pond on a row boat for Emily.

https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/?model=ecmwf&region=atl&pkg=mslpaNorm

You know often when the real players refuse to show up the Canadian does and boy does he show up. Seriously NEVER disappoints ... really. Trying not to digress here but definitely smiling.

Talk about orgastic!

Begins here by the way below from an African Wave

You know those persistent waves.

To stay in tune with our fall colors see below.

Switching over to another other site less in vogue.

But still a good site!

Loop and have fun... a real Cane shows up!

http://moe.met.fsu.edu/cgi-bin/cmctc2.cgi?time=2017072500&field=Sea+Level+Pressure&hour=Animation

Green is good.

Brown is not.

The longer term model keeps on going.

Could just be a fish storm.

Time will tell.

The A Team is watching the dance in the Pacific.

The FUJIWARA dance.

Hilary and ?

I'm really trying not to follow that plot line.

It's like GH I just pretty much gave up on it.

But a lot of people are enjoying that scenario.

Other dream scenarios include a hurricane over Charleston.

Well you know on eclipse day.

With the skies clearing just in time to see the total eclipse.

Oh what dreamers we meteorologist be.

(That's pure BobbiStorm not Shakespeare)

So below this is the track of Hugo in 1989.

Next we have the track of the Eclipse.

Climo wise that could verify ...

..or come close enough for Jimbo to cover both in one spot!

Add in the secret ingredient.

The KELVIN WAVE

You can read up on this more if you desire. Google Kelvin Waves. Trust me Jim Williams doesn't think much on Kelvin Waves either. What he does believe in is CLIMO and hurricanes will happen trust me.

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/belletal2007.pdf

I'll leave you with a nice song to let you think on the following names in the Atlantic. Maybe by the time we get to H and J we will have something intense we won't forget so easily and won't remember how we sat around in July complaining there was nothing out there to get excited about. There are a lot of names to think on. I personally love the Harvey name and "Jose does Miami" would look great in headlines. Katia... ummm  Stay tuned. Find whatever it is that makes you smile and enjoy it. For some it's a hobby, for some it's a lover, for some it's a walk on the beach or a dance in a disco. Just do it! And as for summer it moves on into Fall. Fall Fashion colors below. Soon I'll be wearing leggings with my short skirts and taking long walks outside feeling a cool breeze and swearing I will not drink a Pumpkin Spice Latte but you know I will. Well, unless I'm home in Miami cause no cool breeze there til after the hurricane season is over and in Miami I only drink Cuban Coffee. Again remember seeing Green is good... beige, brown are not good. Watch the fashions, watch the MJO and keep on reading my blog. Going way over a Million hits gave me a huge smile. Thank you...

Which name will you remember?

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm

Ps This blog should be renamed "trying to make Fishing laugh" and remembering the men and the songs I've loved.

* Masters Classes in Fitzgerald, Faulkner and Hemingway. (Did you really scroll down to see if I left an Asterisk???)