Beryl a little stronger, closes in on Southeast U.S. coast
The beach-going weather this Memorial Day weekend will deteriorate rapidly this afternoon along the Southeast U.S. coast near the Florida/Georgia border, where Subtropical Storm Beryl is steadily closing in. A hurricane hunter aircraft found top surface winds near 60 mph in heavy thunderstorms to the northeast of Beryl's center at 9:15 am EDT this morning; top winds in the region to the southwest of the center were a little weaker, near 55 mph. This region is now approaching the coast of northern Florida. Winds at the Buoy 41012, 46 miles ENE of St. Augustine and to the southeast of Beryl's center, hit 38 mph gusting to 49 mph, at 11 am EDT this morning. Wave heights at the buoy were 12 feet, and Beryl is driving heavy surf that is generating dangerous rip currents along a large section of the Southeast U.S. coast. On Saturday, at least 32 people were rescued by lifeguards at Tybee Island, Georgia due to strong rip currents generated by Beryl's crashing surf.
Figure 1. True-color MODIS satellite image of Beryl taken at 12:20 pm EDT May 26, 2012 by NASA's Aqua satellite. At the time, Beryl was a subtropical storm with winds of 45 mph.
Figure 2. Morning radar image from the long-range radar out of Jacksonville, FL.
Forecast for Beryl
Beryl is still a subtropical storm, as evidenced by its large, cloud-free center, but the storm is steadily building a large amount of heavy thunderstorms near the center this morning, as the storm traverses the core of the Gulf Stream. The warm 27 - 28°C (81 - 83°F) waters of the Gulf Stream are helping warm and moisten the atmosphere near Beryl's core, and it is possible that Beryl will become a tropical storm before landfall late Sunday night. As I explain in my Subtropical Storm Tutorial, the fact that the storm has not been able to generate a tight inner core with heavy thunderstorms near the center will limit its intensification potential, and we need not be concerned about rapid intensification of Beryl while it is still subtropical.The clockwise flow of air around an extremely intense ridge of high pressure that is bringing record heat to the Midwest this weekend is currently driving Beryl to the west. As Beryl approaches the coast tonight, the storm will move off of the warmest Gulf Stream waters into waters that are cooler (25°, 77°F), and with lower total heat content. A portion of the storm's circulation will also be over land, and these two factors will limit the storm's potential to strengthen. Beryl is also struggling against a large amount of dry that surrounds the storm, due to the presence of an upper-level trough of low pressure. The 11 am Sunday wind probability advisory from NHC gave Beryl just an 6% chance of becoming a hurricane before landfall. Flooding due to heavy rains is probably not a huge concern with this storm, particularly since the Southeast U.S. coast is under moderate to extreme drought. The 3 - 6 inches of rain expected from Beryl will not be enough to bust the drought, since the Southeast U.S. is generally suffering a rainfall deficit of 9 - 12 inches (Figure 4.) Heavy rains from Beryl will begin affecting coastal Georgia and Northern Florida near 3 pm Sunday.
Figure 3. Predicted rainfall from Beryl, as taken from the 06 UTC May 27, 2012 run of the HWRF model. A large area of 4 - 8 inches of rain (dark green colors) is predicted for the drought-stricken areas of Northern Florida and Southern Georgia. Image credit: Morris Bender, NOAA/GFDL.
Figure 4. Much of the Southeast U.S. needs 9 - 12 inches of rain (red colors) to bust the current drought. A drought is defined as "busted" when the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) goes higher than -0.5. As seen from the HWRF precipitation forecast in Figure 3, most of the drought relief from Beryl will occur near the coast, and the most needy areas (purple colors in Figure 3) are expected to get little rainfall. Image credit: NOAA.
Links to follow
Wundermap for the FL/GA coastal region
Long-range radar out of Jacksonville, FL
Jacksonville, FL live pier cam
Scorching May heat wave hits much of the U.S.; severe weather expected in the Midwest
An exceptionally strong high pressure system anchored over the central U.S. is bringing record-smashing May heat to much of the country this Memorial Day weekend. Dozens of daily high temperature records fell on Saturday, including several all-time records for the month of May. Vichy-Rolla, Missouri hit 98°F, beating its all-time May heat record of 95° set on May 15, 1899. Columbus, Georgia hit 97°F, tying the record hottest May day on record. Saturday's high of 100°F in Tallahassee was the second highest May temperature since record keeping began in 1892. Pensacola's 98°F on Saturday was its second highest May temperature since record keeping began in 1879 (the record May temperature in both cities is 102°F, set on May 27, 1953.) Nashville, Tennessee hit 95°F on Saturday, just 1° shy of their all-time May heat record. That record could fall today, and numerous all-time May heat records will be threatened in the Midwest, Great Lakes, and Tennessee Valley. As is often the case when one portion of the country is experiencing record heat, the other half is seeing unusually cool conditions, due to a large kink in the jet stream. Billings, Montana received 1.3" of snow Saturday, and Great Falls had received 2.3" as of 6 am this morning. The dividing line between the warm conditions in the Eastern U.S. and cool conditions to the west lies over Nebraska and Kansas today, and NOAA's Storm Prediction Center (SPC) has placed portions of these states in their "Moderate Risk" area for severe weather--the second highest level of alert.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 — Blog Index
Yeah, I know, it's not a change in direction, but could still mean another 30 mins with the core over water.
That is a great thing you did!!
Link?
I have completely different data from that...
I used the Google Earth thing.
I don't see anything that would indicate a hurricane.
Yep... 8PM intermediate advisory should be out within 45 minutes
02L/H/B/C1
MARK
30.07N/80.13W
FINAL APPROACH
Dropsonde Reports
Hopefully I am done rescuing cats, dogs and flags and can stay in for the remainder of the storm...
It's a hurricane?
Yes, they did a while back. And Jason is under a new handle.
Its most recent (27May6pmGMT) position was 30.0n79.9w
Its vector had changed from WSWest at ~9.6mph(15.5km/h) to WSWest at ~10.6mph(17km/h)
MaxSusWinds had increased from ~50knots(58mph)93km/h to ~55knots(63mph)102km/h
And minimum pressure had decreased from 998millibars to 997millibars
For those who like to visually track TS.Beryl's path...
COI is MerritIsland . KXFL is FlaglerBeach . FD48 is PonteVedraBeach
Easternmost dot on the connected line-segments is where Invest 94L became SubTropicalStormBeryl
ENEasternmost dot on the westernmost line-segment is where STSBeryl became TropicalStormBeryl
WSWesternmost dot on the westernmost line-segment was TS.Beryl's most recent position
The westernmost line-segment is a straightline-projection
through TS.Beryl's 2 most recent positions to the coastline.
The FD48*dumbbell was the endpoint* of the 26May6amGMT* straightline projection*
connected to its closest airport.
The KFXL dumbbell was the endpoint of the 27May12pmGMT straightline projection
connected to its closest airport.
On 27May6pmGMT, TS.Beryl was headed toward passing over PalmCoast,Florida in ~2&12.hours from now
Copy&paste eyw, fpr-27.39n80.26w, fpr-27.426n80.274w, coi-28.3779n80.6w, kxfl-29.515n81.145w, fd48-30.20n81.366w, gge-33.292n79.172w, 32.3n74.9w-32.4n75.3w, 32.4n75.3w-31.9n76.0w, 31.9n76.0w-31.6n76.3w, 31.6n76.3w-31.0n76.9w, 31.0n76.9w-30.6n78.0w, 30.6n78.0w-30.3n78.9w , 30.3n78.9w-30.0n79.9w, 30.3n78.9w-29.601n81.184w into the GreatCircleMapper for more*information.
The previous mapping for comparison.
* 30.8n78.1w was re-evaluated&altered to 30.6n78.0w. So an incorrect vector(direction&speed) was calculated for 26May6amGMT from using the original incorrect position.
Through recalculation using the correct position, the vector has been corrected to reflect that change.
The original incorrect vector produced an incorrect straightline projection leading to an incorrect endpoint at the FD48 dumbbell
Nonetheless I am reposting that incorrect FD48 dumbbell to maintain historicity with the previous map.
That is Dropsonde data Link indicating 60mph surface winds.
Thanks - I also brought in the cat form across the street that was left outside with no food, and two outdoor neighborhood cats. I now have 6 cats in the house with my daughter and I... can't stand to see animals out in a storm.
Not to mention he posted the same image 3x within 100 posts of each other... with the caption "LOOK AT THIS". He's looking for attention.
On a side note, iirc there's a byline in the blog rules that basically says (paraphrased) "During times of heavy activity with a storm that is a threat to life, blog comments should be limited to the topic at hand." Feel free to correct. I'd rather pay attention to a landfalling 70-75 mph storm than some t-storms in the itcz. that can wait til tomorrow.
Now... within the main circulation of the "eyewall", there's a faint green cloud zipping around on the south side... is that a mesovortice or the true center? looks to be rotating around to the NE from it's current posit.
Nah Keeper just trolls everyone and makes them himself.
I was looking in the COC.
Sponde was in the NE quad.
that is why it is wobbling, core structure is changing
Tidbit.
And on an on topic note, I don't think Beryl is the end of everything for now. We may not get any more named storms over the next 2-3 weeks, but it certainly looks like the MJO is in our area, and both the EPac and WCar look ready to fire off another one.
Buoy off the coast near St. Augustine, on the southern edge of the COC.
I hope this doesn't play out badly, but I suppose we will find out tonight and tomorrow. Either way, this storm was very underestimated, it seems - I guess the commenter a while back who said that sub-tropical cyclones that manage to become tropical storms can intensify rapidly under even remotely favourable conditions was correct.
Again, we will see, but the show Beryl has been putting on these past few hours is nothing short of impressive.
That makes for a compelling argument (and research papers) if you look at several storms in the Bay of Campeche, this One, and the topography/"curvature" in the Central Gomex which has numerous strong spin-ups over the decades.
It shouldn't, because the land is flat. The mountainous topography around the bay of Campeche slows wind form certain directions, this tends to enhance (counter-clockwise) angular momentum.
You are doing a great thing but keep yourself safe. A guy in my neighborhood in Chesapeake VA during Bonnie about 13-14 years ago had both his legs broken by a small tree branch that blew into him, and all he was doing was standing on his front porch watching. Similar storm here (as far as a strong TS strengthening at landfall). Be careful!
Viewing: 1601 - 1651
Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 — Blog Index