Ex-TD 7 reawakening; Gordon Azores-bound; 94L may be a long-range threat
Satellite loops show that a small area of disturbed weather with an increasing amount of heavy thunderstorms has developed in southern Gulf of Mexico's Bay of Campeche, in association with the remnants of Tropical Depression Seven. Heavy rains from ex-TD-7 are beginning to impact the coast of Mexico between Tampico and Veracruz, and radar from Mexico shows some rotation to the echoes, but little in the way of spiral banding. With wind shear a light 5 -10 knots and very warm ocean waters of 30°C to take advantage of, ex-TD-7 has a 70% chance of becoming a tropical cyclone before it makes landfall over the Mexican coast on Saturday, said NHC in their 8 am EDT Tropical Weather Outlook. A hurricane hunter aircraft will investigate ex-TD-7 this afternoon around 2 pm EDT. Ex-TD-7's west-northwest to northwest motion should continue through landfall, and the storm may be capable of bringing heavy rains of 3 - 6 inches to the Mexican coast near Tampico. Brownsville, Texas should stay just north of the heavy rain area of ex-TD-7.
Figure 1. Morning satellite image of ex-TD 7.
Tropical Storm Gordon heads toward the Azores
Tropical Storm Gordon continues eastwards towards the Azores, and is not a threat to any other land areas. Satellite loops show Gordon has a respectable amount of organization and heavy thunderstorm activity. Gordon's environment has gotten marginal for a hurricane--wind shear is moderate, 10 - 20 knots, and ocean temperatures are near 26.5°C, which is right at the border of where hurricanes can usually exist. Water vapor satellite loops show a large region of dry air on the south side of the storm. The 8 am EDT run of the SHIPS model predicts that wind shear will remain moderate through Saturday night, then rise steeply to 30 - 40 knots on Sunday. At the same time, ocean temperatures will drop to 25°C. By Sunday, the combined effects of high wind shear, dry air, and cooler waters will likely act to weaken Gordon and make it no longer tropical. However, Gordon will probably still be strong enough Sunday night to potentially bring damaging winds and heavy rain to the Azores Islands. The extratropical remnants of Gordon will not bring any strong winds or significant rain to Europe.
Figure 2. Tropical Storm Gordon as seen by NASA's Terra satellite at 10:25 am EDT August 16, 2012. At the time, Gordon was strengthening, with 50 mph top winds. Image credit: NASA.
94L developing off the coast of Africa
A large tropical wave emerged from the coast of Africa Thursday night, and was designated Invest 94L by NHC this Friday morning. The models have been very gung-ho on this system, and develop it into a tropical storm by the middle of next week. 94L will follow a west to west-northwest track over the next week, and may threaten the northern Lesser Antilles Islands as early as Friday, August 24. This storm could eventually affect Bermuda, the U.S. East Coast, or Canada 10 - 14 days from now, but could also recurve harmlessly out to sea well before reaching the Lesser Antilles, as suggested by the 00 UTC run of the GFS model. In their 8 am EDT Tropical Weather Outlook, NHC gave 94L a 10% chance of developing into a tropical depression by Sunday morning.
Figure 3. MODIS satellite image of Invest 94L taken at 8 am EDT August 17, 2012, off the coast of Africa. Image credit: NASA.
I'll have a new post this afternoon.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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I think they are seeing more ridging than what the models are depicting.
Enjoy
Goodnight, Happy Tracking. Stay well, Stay safe :-)
It'll be tough for it to intensify much beyond 45- 50mph or so though, since it will either make landfall too soon to strengthen much or upwelling will hurt it if it stays over water.
Might have to modify this comment after looking at the new visible frame update from NASA. Center looks to be consolidating awfully close to shore already, very near the large blow up of convection. A nice band has developed to the north and it is feeding in to the system. Will be interesting to see if the approaching trough to the north will be able to stall the system enough for it to begin the more northward movement I mentioned.
That trough is moving south... expect a turn to the north soon.
August day....
GOERRS plots show a wide, wide, wide range of possibilities.....
I was thinking that earlier. Fairly interesting.
It is for this reason why I am not completely sold on a 24hr landfall/continued inland track that track modles are showing - GFS and others have been insistent up to this point on a land hugging system making it's way slowly north up shore. But hey, I am not the NHC and am probaly wrong. Only thing I can possibly see in the track models being correct right now is if GFS, FIM, and others are initilizing further East than where center actually is for BOC system. But again, I am just a blog poster on WU and not the NHC :)
Will 94L do this? Maybe the trough will try to pick it up, but the high will build back in and push it northeastward towards the East coast due to the zonal flow... And I'm not saying that it will be like the monster that Isabel was, but that is the best I can come up with.
Is this what the HWRF is showing. Note the high precip off Tx and La.
Goodnight all.
"...a day OR SO..." GFS still not showing landfall.
Don't be surprised of we have a storm sitting off the coast of Texas in a week.
Several different model runs of 94L disagree on the future track. The GFS and Canadian take it into the North Atlantic about halfway across and the Euro and Nogaps have a much lower and more Westerly track as a potential threat to the Northern Antilles.
It is too soon to say which camp has a better handle on this and we have lots of time to watch it. It would seem that the CV season is about to get rolling in earnest.
As for ex TD7, the BOC is the area where I posted a few days ago we could see a piece of energy left over from the Caribbean making it into that area and acting as the seed for a regeneration of the system so not much of a surprise there. Whatever develops there will likely go ashore soon.
Curious, what is the track record for the EnKF ensembles?
two separate pieces of energy?
I said that twice on the last blog. you can check if you want.
Ok, I'm really going to bed now.
Goodnight all
Watching the moisture coming down from the north makes me sad...looks like it's all going to be just east of me again.
Part of the HFIP program launched in 2009. Basically they are just higher-res GFS and FIM ensembles with some minor physics tweaking.
I've been using them since 2010, and they seem to do best with well developed systems.
Good synopsis. Just noting below that SAL will not be as much of an issue for 94L as it lies within a very nice surge of moisture at the moment.
Current SAL:
Link
This looks like a T.D. to me... Depends on if we have a closed surface low or not... But I'm guessing that it does.
Largely negative anomalies for a good portion of the Atlantic.
There is more than one short wave present, one is already in the eastern gulf, granted it's a very weak one but even a weak one such as this is normally plenty enough to produce significant rainfall around Tampa Bay with such a pattern. This one is not, why I don't know, but it is what is.
In theory, this could be very problematic for any forecast track.
BOC!
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