TS Fay: August 23 Update A

Yes, she's *still* over Florida. She got to the Appalachicola region as
planned this morning, and has more-or-less stayed over land since then.
Her winds are 45 mph (central pressure 998mb), so she's a very weak
Tropical Storm (TS: 39-73 mph), but there is a lot of convective activity
associated with her on the north and east side of the storm - as you will
know if you live in northern/western Florida, Georgia, and Alabama. The
rain is coming from the Gulf of Mexico waters now, which are over 30 deg
C.

As a weak system it is not easy to locate the center from satellite or
radar images, but the NHC have it at 30.5N, 85.9W which seems about right
to me. It looks like she'll remain over land from here on out. Her motion
is W-NW at 7mph. I think track will be a little north of the forecast one
(but still in the cone), so she may not exit into the Gulf again - it
means she'll be moving more NW because the low that I mentioned a couple
of days ago is now northwest of her, and is beginning to create a path of
lower pressure for her to take. But the reason the forecast track is a
little to the south is because they think another region of high pressure
will develop to her north as she approaches Alabama, keeping her south. In
any case, it is all within that cone.

I think she wins the medal for most number of hits by one storm on any one
state - four so far.

Someone asked if it was possible for a cat 4 or 5 storm to slow down or
stall like TS Fay. It's very rare, but it can happen. The most notorious
example perhaps is Hurricane Mitch in 1998, which led to almost 9000
deaths in Honduras and Nicaragua alone from landslides that resulted from
the storm. He slowed down as it approached Honduras as a cat 5, and then
stalled for a few hours as a cat 4. By the time he really got moving
again, about 2 days later, he had downgraded to a Tropical Storm.

If there's any change in track or intensity I'll send out another update,
otherwise have a safe day - and for those of you in the
Pensacola-to-Mobile area, the rains a' comin, so don't forget to polish up
your wellington boots! :)

Toodles,
J.

Blogs archived at: http://www.jyotikastorms.blogspot.com/
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DISCLAIMER:
These remarks are just what I think/see regarding tropical storms - not
the opinion of any organization I represent. If you are making an
evacuation decision, please heed your local emergency management and the
National Hurricane Center's official forecast and the National Weather
Service announcements. This is not an official forecast. If I "run away,
run away" (Monty Python), I'll let you know.
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