Tropical Storm Ophelia: September 20, Update A

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. Has it only been two days when last we met? Ophelia has achieved the glass of fashion in the storm world, and is now a fully-fledged little Tempest. But what’s in a name? And what the heck have I just been babbling about? ;-) … Well, with our newly formed Tropical Storm Ophelia out there, how many Shakespeare quotes can you find in here (answers tomorrow… assuming I can find them all ;-))?

This poor little Atlantic blobette has been struggling for the past few days. I expect she was wondering whether to be or not to be (oooh… a pun AND a quote! Sometimes I amaze myself… ;-) ). However, today there are more things in heaven and earth: her circulation improved during the day, and her convection is slowly slowly improving. Ophelia has had some lower tropospheric rotation for the past couple of days, but the convection just wasn’t coming together. This morning the clouds were rather disjoint and although the convection is a bit stronger now, it is still not very cohesive, but I say let every eye negotiate for itself. The first satellite IR image I saved this morning, and the other one just now – 12.5 hours later:



Officially she’s at 12.2N, 40.1W, moving W at 9mph. But all that glisters is not gold and with wind speeds of 40mph, she’s barely a Tropical Storm (range: 39-73mph). Central pressure is 1006mb.

I think she’s a little farther west than the official location, but for now I agree with the NHC and reiterate, go thou with her to the west, with a gradual turn to the NW. Her center of circulation is on the west side of the convection and she is weak because she’s experiencing wind shear from the west, which looks like it will continue for now at least. At the moment I agree with the NHC assessment of intensity as well and don’t think she will get to hurricane strength – wind shear looks like it will remain quite chipper.

More tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow.
Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.
J.

Blogs archived 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 "run away, run away" (Monty Python), I'll let you know.
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