Best Advice and Prediction for 2018 Hurricane Season - From Ormond Beach Thoughts on the 2018 Atlantic Hurricane Season.

In Ormond Beach this morning enjoying the sunrise. I'll update the blog later today. But this is the best advice I can give you above.  Take it to the bank.  Prepare.

I also believe  GOM will continue to be in play as well as the East Coast from Florida Georgia line to Maine this year. A cooler distant Atlantic doesn't stop Home Grown from developing.  And usually only the strong waves survive the trip and can turn into deadly storms that make it to higher latitudes.

Many meteorologists make predictions as do government agencies. They can tell you why this year is different from last or the one before the last one. They can tell you there is a cool pool of water out by Africa in late May going into the season and that would inhibit tropical waves from developing into Hurricanes in the MDR. That is true, it also inhibits the development of strong, early hurricanes that become Fish Storms and curve gracefully out to sea. They point to a ton of factors all of which exist and all of which are part of the mathematical problem they are trying to solve that being predicting what the 2018 Atlantic Hurricane Season will be like. 1985 and 1989 were years with similar conditions and they brought Hurricane Gloria in 1985 to the East Coast and Hurricane Hugo in 1989 to South Carolina. The rains from Hugo spread far inland into areas where mudslides and flash flooding were caused this week by residual tropical rain from the remnants of Alberto. This May in North Carolina was one of the wettest Mays on record and it reminds me of interviews I have had with old timers who always tell me that the year of Hurricane Fran was a very wet year when the soil was already soaked before Fran made it to landfall and kept on going all the way to Raleigh.

No meteorologist, not even the best, can tell you which city is going to get impacted until after the final Cone from the NHC has been posted and after the last reporter leaves town. Jim Cantore can tell you where he's going and where he's been, but the season unfolds in real time in the rear view mirror. Andrew was the first named storm of the very slow 1992 Hurricane Season and no one in South Florida will ever tell you 1992 was a slow season, it is synonymous with Hurricane Andrew a worst case scenario that happened.

This is the truth, real truth, take it to the bank .... the ONLY thing you CAN know for sure is that you have prepared as best you can for your particular harbor ...or home. Each person has a different priority and each home has a different priority. If you are elderly and have special needs or if you have 3 small children under the age of 5 you have your own particular needs. A big house with large windows has special needs that a small condo with one sliding glass door facing the ocean on the 18th floor might have. An ocean front Studio Apartment with an awesome view or a 13 room 2 story house with multiple windows and a leaky roof each have their own point of entry where the wind could get into their home, their lives and leave memories. Many kids who went through Hurricane Andrew have ....and they were the FIRST to get out of DODGE when they thought Irma was coming to Miami.

Trust me... being Hurricane Strong is the best thing you can be to give the best chance of making it through this Hurricane Season. Do not be distracted by exotic scientific words in reports explaining why this may be a weaker year or why it is comparable to such and such a year. Prepare as if this is the year that you get your Hurricane Andrew, Fran, Hugo or Gloria. And remember far from where Subtropical Storm Alberto made landfall near Panama City, Florida people were killed in Interior North Carolina from residual effects of intense, tropical rain that caused their homes to collapse, a tree to fall on the car of two reporters covering flooding and there may be more to come.

Take it seriously. Prepare. That's the best advice I can give you. And, IF the East Coast gets to see a Hurricane up close and personal later this year don't say I didn't warn you.

http://www.publix.com/pages/publix-storm-basics

Reporting in from the always beautiful Ormond Beach where we spend quite a bit of time on our way back and forth from Miami to Raleigh.

Besos Bobbistorm
@Bobbistorm on Twitter

Ps... Got to see the sunrise and the moon set this morning at the beach. How incredible is that?

Maria Cat 5 Devastates Dominica Now Cruising on towards Puerto Rico. Very small compact dangerous storm... Jose Going Nowhere Fast But Will Jose Erode the High and Give Maria a Way Out of Making Landfall along the East Coast. If Not... Well Pray Jose Does His Job.

Watching the hurricanes from far away..

..in Ormond Beach.

Always beautiful here.

Maria below is beautiful.

But Maria is deadly.

Link to Discussion for Jose and Maria.

The main part of the discussion is that Maria is going over warm water with low shear and the only intangible on landfall is if Maria will be going through an eye-wall replacement cycle. That's it and that means a truly catastrophic hit on Puerto Rico unless something unforeseen happens. Although much of PR is built better than the smaller islands,  when you are talking about a buzz saw category 5 Hurricane moving directly over it you are talking about a variety of homes and geography. Granted the metropolitan areas often have better built homes yet they are often built closer to the water and those structures will be dealing with storm surge of historic proportions at the immediate site where the eye wall makes landfall. Up in the hills, mountains and valleys there will be wide spread flash flooding and possibly mudslides.... etc, etc...  What doesn't anyone understand about the word "catastrophic" ??

I've had people tell me they hate hearing that word, it's over used. Well I could describe for you what Marathon looks like and that was North of the eye that ripped apart Big Pine Key and Cudjoe. Marathon in the Florida Keys looks like a nuclear bomb went off .... yet some of the better built properties are still standing. And with all of the military personal and first responders, military aircraft coming in and out it feels like a war zone in all ways. It's bad and Maria will trash PR at best and destroy a good part of the infrastructure at worst. Not to mention loss of life and notice I am not mentioning "death toll" for Irma as it is a moving target. They are still going through home sites, docks, beaches and every inch of the Lower Keys looking for those lost souls who decided to stay and ride out the hurricane. I know that for a fact as my son-in-law was involved in the search ....  The death toll in Dominica will be much higher and I can only imagine what it will be in PR where flooding and mudslides in the interior region could cause massive loss of life. I hope not, I really do but it's about as dangerous as it gets. I know after watching a 185 MPH hurricane this seems "weaker" but weak and strong are relative this year.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCDAT5+shtml/190853.shtml

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCDAT5+shtml/182048.shtml?

What do you need to know?

Maria barely blinked going over Dominica.

Cat 5 cruising along.

NHC going with Left side of track.

This still keeps Maria way off shore of Florida.

As for No Way Jose...

Wind Probs offer clues.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIAPWSAT2+shtml/190838.shtml

I want to be clear here there are watches and warnings along the coastline as effects from Jose could have an impact along some areas. Not the center, there barely is a center as it's more extratropical than not, but winds across a large area will have an impact. Especially as Jose is prone to stalling, looping and not going anywhere rapidly. High tides, riptides and beach erosion are concerns. There may be some delays at airports, etc...  The big favor that Jose will do for Florida if the models verify is that he erodes the Western edge of the High Pressure allowing Maria to escape and go out to sea. Should that not work for some reason and the escape route doesn't appear then Maria would be trapped under a large high pressure and be moved more to the left where she could come in contact with the East Coast ... more likely but not for certain the Carolinas. If the models are correct and the forecast verifies we can thank Jose the way we can thank Cuba that Irma did not hit South Florida with 185 MPH winds... and as the water is warmest over the Florida Straits and the Gulfstream . . . it's unimaginable but possible that it could have been stronger than 185 MPH. Irma was a very rare hurricane with few analog hurricanes that we can even compare it to. Bryan Norcross said on air he had never seen a hurricane like it .... so let that rattle around in your brain a bit.

Maria size wise and intensity wise is much like Andrew and it can wobble a bit due to eye wall replacement cycles. Time will tell but before we obsess on it's long range track let's pray for the people in it's path in the Virgin Islands (it may go to the left of them ... with luck on their side) and the Island of Puerto Rico.  Anyone who stayed up last night listening to live radio reports from Dominica with the Prime Minister posting reports until his roof tore off and he had to be rescued in the lull during the eye knows what the people of Puerto Rico are really facing.

I want to remind people "Lee' is out there.

Remnant sort of low.

Downgraded. 

Still there.

Most likely goes North.

With a name or without one.

There is also an area of convection....

...in the SW Caribbean. 

Bears watching.

And a wave is out near Africa...

... but we will wait on that for now.

I'm on the road today.

Interviewing some people.

Documenting damage.

Obviously enjoying the beach.

I will update later today and tonight.

Not much more I can say.

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on Twitter

Faster updates in real time on Twitter.

Check out Spaghetti Models for more information

http://spaghettimodels.com/