Hurricane Otto and the Caribbean Blobette: October 9, Update A

I'm back after a day away. I'm sure no-one noticed, and Otto looked like he was on track to nowhere-in-particular (there's a road that goes there and a bridge...) so I figured I'd skive off and do other things. It's the weekend after all and it was actually sunny and warm in October in Manchester (UK)! (if you've been to Manchester, you'd know what a novelty that is). ;-)  
 
Hurricane Otto:
It was no surprise to see Otto become a hurricane yesterday. As I said, the vorticity was strong enough, it just needed a bit of help from other environmental conditions (e.g. decrease in wind shear). It looked like he stayed a cat 1 (range:74-95mph), reaching maximum wind speeds of about 85mph overnight. Officially he is now barely a cat 1 with wind speeds of 75mph and a central pressure of 984mb. I would have brought him back down to a Subtropical Storm (or even extratropical), but I'm sure they will do that in the next advisory. He doesn't have an eye and it looks like he's in the process of morphing into 'something not tropical' (clearly a highly technical explanation for what's going on ;-)). He's zipping along at 32mph and convection has really died down, both indicators that he's not really a tropical system. The current center is at 32.4N, 52.6W. After moving ENE for a while yesterday, he is back on a more north-eastward track and looks like he might go north of the Azores, and then turn right and head south towards the Canaries. They will experience some windy weather, but it shouldn't be too bad.  
 
Oh, apparently I do know at least one person (KF) who has been to the Azores! It was on his first oceanographic research cruise. How cool! From KF: [they sailed] "from Narragansett Bay to Punta Delgada aboard the RV Trident of URI, a verrrry long time ago. Getting there was rough, but the Azorean island we were on, Sao Miguel, was marvelous -- sunny, grand volcanic vistas, with at least one black sand beach, roads lined with flowers, sort of sleepy, a real getaway."  It sounds lovely. Although, he thinks it might be a tad bit different now because that was <ahem> years ago. ;-) 
 
Caribbean Blobette:
This little beauty has been struggling to develop into something for a few days now, but the vorticity and convection just couldn't reach agreement on where to meet until today. Although the NHC have this at 30% chance of developing into a tropical system, I think it's already a Tropical Depression because there is a clear, albeit slightly elongated, closed circulation at around 13N, 80.5W, just a bit east off the Nicaraguan coast. Because of wind shear the convection is to the west of the center, so I don't know if it will be able to develop into a Tropical Storm before it interacts with land. It is moving WNW.  

In sort of other news... I'll be doing a Twitter Interview on tropical storms next wednesday! It's the first time I've done a twitter interview. I'm supposed to write answers in about 120 characters (including spaces)! 120 characters!! I can't even tell you *about* the interview in that space! Do you think this might be my biggest challenge yet? ;-) Stay tuned for details.
 
More tomorrow!
J.
 
Blog archives at http://jyotikastorms.blogspot.com/
Twitter @JyovianStorm

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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 was there and was going to "run away, run away" (Monty Python), I'll let you know.
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