TS Emily: August 2, Update B

Goodness me but Emily is a tricky little storm! She’s done all sorts of things today, like get stronger and stayed a little more westward.  She’s now moving WNW though at around 14mph , with a center near 16N, 66W (this is my estimate, which is slight east of the official one at  16.2N, 66.7W).

There are still a number of factors at play – the dry air continues of course, but wind shear is also increasing and of course as she gets closer to the islands to the north she will be impacted negatively. Despite this, I think she might have room to get stronger. She currently officially has winds of 50mph, central pressure is 1005mb. Although this officially makes her a fairly weak system (TS range: 39-73mph), the convection is really really strong… if even one of those inhibiting factors went away, we would probably have a hurricane.  The dry air and wind shear is stopping the worst of this getting to the northeastern Caribbean. Tom from St. Thomas sent an ‘on the ground’ update:

“Other than some wind gusting and cloudy skies we have gotten a small amount of rain considering what is all around us”

(Thanks Tom!)

I can see why the NHC has her track curving to the northwest. I don’t have time to go into that at the moment (it involves actual science though.. ooh aah… the really fun stuff! :-)), but it is quite possible as track scenarios go. I do agree that for tomorrow she will have room to move in a more WNW direction, which is something she really didn’t have today, which is why she carried on bravely westward. Tomorrow I’ll have a better idea about how much she will curve – so just get ready if you are in the official cone (and even if you are not)!

I’m traveling today/tomorrow (I’m sitting here, overlooking Canal Street from the 41^st floor of a building!), but will check in at least once. Hopefully she’ll have sorted herself out a bit more and decided if she wants to visit Hispaniola (which, by the way, will be a bit of a mess if she has the convective activity she is showing at the moment because Haiti has the propensity for landslides in that mountainous terrain).

Night for now!
J.

Blogs archived at http://jyotikastorms.blogspot.com/
Twitter @JyovianStorm

-------------------------------
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.
------------------------------------------