Hurricane Gordon and TD 8: September 13, Update B

Right... I inadvertently put my foot in it in the last blog entry by
(a) calling Gordon 'cute' when he should have been 'handsome', and (b)
signing off 'later gators' which was supposed to be short for 'see you
later alligator' (something we even say in the UK), but in Florida
'gators' refers to the UF college football team which apparently has
some very very loyal supporters and some very very strong rivals. :)

Hurricane Gordon:

Gordon is a very handsome storm, with a very handsome eye and a very
handsome circular outflow. :) He's a strong cat 2 now, and is still
taking his time crossing that warm water. Combining the warm water with
very minimal wind shear, it does look like he'll become a cat 3
overnight. In his case, it was atmospheric conditions that allowed him
to become so very strong. So, he'll be our first 'major' storm of the
season. I'm quite happy that he's well behaved and will stay away from
land. He really is a beauty to look at in the satellite image and I'm
attaching a picture, taken from the GOES-East satellite for you all to
ooh and ahh at.

As for my comment about the model that overestimated the intensity of
this storm...I take it back (sorry Dr. A. ;) ). It looks as though this
model has the atmospheric component correct, but not the oceanic
component. But I believe my friend & his colleagues are working on
correcting that for next year. This model does have one of the better
track records for well... getting the track correct. :)

TD 8:

Thanks to this system, I found out something very interesting today.
Until today, this storm was so far in the eastern Atlantic that I was
looking in a different place for the satellite imagery (from Meteosat
instead of GOES-east which is my normal source). It looks like the water
vapor levels in the Meteosat image are much higher than the GOES image!
which is why I said yesterday there was hardly any dry air around this
system. Well TD8 is now visible in both satellite frames, and in the
GOES image there is plenty of dry air around this system and although it
doesn't look like much is being entrained, some is and that's helping to
keep the intensity down.

Not too much change since the last update. The storm circulation is
slowly improving (although no-one can find the center), and there is
more convective activity. It is still in pretty good wind shear, and as
I said there is some dry air, but given the warm water etc, there's a
good chance it will become a TS sometime tomorrow.

O.K.... later 'hurricanes' (I believe that's the UM football team)...
hmm... just doesn't have the same poetry to it, does it?
J.
------------------------------------------------------
DISCLAIMER:
These remarks are just what I think/see regarding tropical storms (my
storm blog). If you are making an evacuation decision, please heed your
local emergency management and the National Hurricane Center's official
forecast. This is not an official forecast.
------------------------------------------------------