An early start to hurricane season?
The Atlantic hurricane season officially begins on Wednesday, June 1, but the Caribbean is already showing signs of the change of seasons. Moisture and heavy thunderstorm activity have increased in the region between Central America and Jamaica in recent days, and rainfall amounts of 1 - 2 inches have been common over the past three days over Cuba, Hispaniola, and much of Central America. The subtropical jet stream has been bringing high wind shear of 30 - 50 knots over the Caribbean the past week, but this shear has fallen to 20 - 40 knots this morning, and is predicted to fall below 20 knots by Thursday. All of the computer models predict that an area of low pressure will form in the region between Jamaica and Honduras by Thursday. This low will have the potential to develop into a tropical depression late this week. There is some dry air over the Western Caribbean near Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula that may retard the process, but a surge of moisture accompanying a tropical wave currently passing through the Lesser Antilles may counteract this, when the wave arrives in the Western Caribbean on Thursday. Water temperatures in the Central Caribbean are about 1°C above average, 29°C, which is plenty warm enough to support development of a tropical storm. Some recent runs of the NOGPAS model have predicted development of a tropical depression by late this week, potentially affecting Jamaica and Eastern Cuba. The other models have not been as gung-ho, but have been showing the potential for a strong tropical disturbance with very heavy rains forming late this week. In any case, residents of Jamaica, Cuba, the Cayman Islands, Haiti, Honduras, and Nicaragua should anticipate the possibility that heavy rains of 2 - 4 inches may affect them Thursday through Saturday this week.
Figure 1. Total precipitable water (a measure of how much rain would fall if we condensed all the water vapor present) for May 31, 2011 at 7am EDT. Plentiful water vapor in the SW Caribbean would create about 2 inches of rain (50 mm, orange colors) if it were all condensed out. Image credit: University of Wisconsin CIMSS.
Receipt did not travel 525 miles from Joplin tornado
The May 22 EF-5 tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri did not set a new record for longest transport of debris by a tornado. According to MSNBC, a couple living in Royal Center, Indiana, in North Central Indiana, 525 miles from Joplin, found a receipt from the Joplin Tire store three days after the tornado hit Joplin. However, a press release from Purdue University clarified that the receipt did not arrive via the tornado, but had been left behind by a relative that had visited Joplin before the tornado. The longest distance recorded for debris from a storm was a cancelled check that traveled 210 miles after the 1915 tornado in Great Bend, Kansas.
The death toll from the May 22, 2011 tornado in Joplin, Missouri is 139, although there is still considerable uncertainty about this number. The Joplin tornado is the 8th deadliest in U.S. history, and the most deadly since the 1947 Woodward, Oklahoma twister that killed 181 people. The tornado season of 2011 now has approximately 520 deaths, which would make it the deadliest tornado season since 1936, according to statistics compiled by NOAA. In the 1936 tornado season 552 people died, mostly because of violent tornadoes that hit Tupelo Mississippi (216 killed), and Gainesville, Georgia (203 killed.)
Figure 2. Satellite image taken at 23:45 UTC (7:45pm EDT) May 22, 2011, showing the line of tornadic thunderstorms that spawned the Joplin tornado. Image credit: NOAA Visualization Laboratory.
Jeff Masters
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ok fine but if nothing happens you owe me a nice ice cold beer
Link
Endeavour will head to the northeast across the west coast of Florida near Fort Meyers Beach, triggering dual sonic booms minutes later when it slows to subsonic speeds at about 2:31 a.m. Commander Mark Kelly will align Endeavour with Kennedy’s northwest to southeast runway 15 and touch down at 2:35:23 a.m. EDT
Distance to KSC 5000 miles
LOL
All of the attention 93L is getting is funny... It's what it does AFTER Florida that we should be concerned about...
See the Handy Troll Training Map I'm attaching:
Edit... I'm not real good at linking Images LoL, that was my first try... It's more readable here:
Troll Training Map
OK, I'll keep the bad humor limited now that the season is officially started! ;)
In my experience I have seen much worse looking tropical cyclones compared to what 93L looks like now. ASCAT shows a healthy surface circulation with several 25KT vectors and satellite shows deep convection continuing to fire near the center. 93L could very well be a tropical depression right now.
I imagine that's at least partially because of a very poor initialization of the vortex on part of both models (the GFDL didn't seem to initialize it at all, while the HWRF initialized it way too far to the west), and not necessarily a reflectivity of poor atmospheric conditions (though they aren't optimal at the moment, either).
I'm not the only one who thinks 93L is more then an invest....
Frank Strait:
"This little critter east of Savannah is a problem. We don't really know what it is because we don't have many assets in the area ... no recon, no buoys and it's outside of radar range. But it seems to be maintaining convection, it's producing 25-30 knot winds according to SSMIS data and it is just getting to the warmest part of the Gulf Stream. It should get to Florida near Flagler beach in the 8-10 a.m. time frame."
btw, I am only 15 minutes away from Flagler Beach. I am concerned and I should be. People were NOT warned about this feature.
Sounds about right. Given the current steering pattern and latest trends, Invest 93L most likely will come ashore around the Jupiter area sometime in the mid morning hours. Given the continued SSW to SW motion with this disturbance, the BAM suites can be thrown out as they anticipated near immediate WSW motion. The incoming European model shows the disturbance exiting Florida around the Ft. Myers area.
thanks cchs last ? could it stall and remain offland and try to consolidate further thanks again
Ehh, right now I don't see this pulling a Humberto. However, a tropical depression or minimal tropical storm isn't out of the question. This will just bring some much needed rains to Florida with little of a wind threat.
Also, based on the ECMWF and other computer models, we should see the Caribbean disturbance organizing tomorrow as the tropical wave over Venezuela interacts with the surface trough over the SW Caribbean.
Not a bad looking little storm for DAY 1!!
Given the rapid steering currents around the ridge over the Southeastern US, this will quickly move across Florida and into the Gulf of Mexico. It will exit Florida within the next 12 to 18 hours into the Gulf of Mexico.
And? Ignorance is bliss and ASCAT doesn't lie. 93L has established itself at the surface with a circulation evident on the image below. Satellite imagery and CIMSS products as well as buoy data further backs this statement.
yeap and its dmax time and looks like both blobs are looking better at this hour hmmmmm
Sure was hoping for a Floater with the TWO.
Though, from the WV Loop, Texas deserves a Floater before either of the AOIs.
I guess if no one there is concerned I shouldn't be either... Do they have an evac slide for that sort of thing?
93L is a vigorous piece of energy that originated in the mid-west several days ago as a MCS. Its a tough system and I suspect isn't just going to disappear overnight. Especially since it is moving into an ever more conducive environment. Floridians will likely wake up to a surprise tomorrow morning.
OK, I didn't want to sound ignorant, but I am and I have to know... What's an MCS? I'm guessing it has something to do with a mid-level circulation or something?
Does this thing slow down after crossing Florida or does it get picked up by a trough? Hopefully the models can initialize on it better now.
No, it's definitely not normal. They just said what it was that's burning and I missed it because of a car alarm. They don't seem that worried about it though.
"After landing, the crew goes through the shutdown procedures to power down the spacecraft. This process takes about 20 minutes. During this time, the orbiter is cooling and noxious gases, which were made during the heat of re-entry, blow away. Once the orbiter is powered down, the crew exits the vehicle. Ground crews are on-hand to begin servicing the orbiter." (howstuffworks.com)
I'm thinking it's just a burn off of those "noxious gases".
good post but unless it does something unexpected like stall it dosent have much time to intesify altho we have seen stranger things happen so if it doesnt come ashore in 6 to 10 hours or fizzles out then i agree it will be a whole new ballgame but still a surpise to say the least waiting to see what happens by the time frame
...Always a pleasure to answer questions
MCS is just an acronym for Mesoscale-Convective-System.
You can get a good read up in the link below.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoscale_convective _system
Of course I'm just biased... They're sending it to Cali anyway... I would have rooted for it to land near me at Edwards AFB. :)
Thanks TWM!
It's funny, how my friends think I'm the big meteorologist in our group, when all I do is read this blog and watch the 5 day forecasts more than most. I know just enough to BS my way through a lunch conversation about weather and climate.
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