Jyotika's Tropical Storms Blog: May 2012

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Extratropical Storm Beryl: May 30, Update A

Goodness me… what a note-worthy sort of day today turned out to be!

After yesterday’s post, I dreamt I had made “Bring Back Beryl” t-shirts and started a campaign to get the satellite images back on-line (yes, I have exceedingly boring dreams), but apparently my ‘mild rant’ yesterday did the trick because when I woke up this morning the GOES Floater imagery for Beryl was back on the website after a two day hiatus!! Of course it could be a remarkable coincidence, but it’s much more fun pretending that ‘a Jedi Master I am’, with powerful mind-influencing abilities (“these are not the droids you’re looking for” etc). ;-) (drat… if only I’d had a mild rant about something really useful like the numbers of the winning lottery ticket). Anyway, THANK YOU to whoever/everyone responsible for bringing the floater imagery back on-line. It was lovely to see Beryl this morning. J

The second amazing thing today was that I (almost) completely agreed with the NHC on their analysis of Tropical Depression/Extratropical Storm Beryl (umm… other than I still use the old-fashioned ‘extratropical’ instead of the new-fangled ‘post-tropical’ wording). I think this might be the first time I have agreed with (almost) every word I read from the NHC! In my <ahem> humble <ahem> ;-) opinion, they had the correct wind speeds posted throughout the day (because we have actual observations from buoys at sea as well as stations on land), they had a good handle on the location and direction of the storm, and they did not bump her up to a Tropical Storm again once she left the coast (at North Carolina) but realized she was moving faster than they expected yesterday so she didn’t have time to get stronger and went straight from Tropical Depression to Extratropical (post-tropical) Storm.

Around the middle of the day, when the storm ‘center’ was about 5-10 miles from Wilmington, North Carolina, I got an email from a fabulous on-the-ground reporter. Jennifer said: “It’s wet, wet, and more wet in Wilmington. It’s been raining here since last night and continues to be gray and, well, wet. Not terribly breeze, which is good because my gladiola’s were been beat up over the weekend with all of the wind.” A lovely rainy day... what more could one ask for? Sorry to hear about the damage your gladiola’s sustained. I hope they make a speedy recovery.

The NHC have stopped posting on Beryl, and so shall I. If we have any more, the next one will be Chris. As that is unlikely in the next 48 hours, I will be back for the official start of the season.

That’s all for now folks!
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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Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Tropical Depression Beryl: May 29, Update A

At the moment Tropical Depression Beryl is still over Georgia (just about), centered at 32.2N, 81.3W, moving ENE at 10mph. The estimated central pressure is 1004mb, with a sustained wind of 30mph. Most of the area of the storm has winds in the 12-15mph range, but there are some observations off-shore and also in North Carolina with winds in the 23-30mph range. She still has small pockets of rain, but really not much at all. There is dry air in the system, and neither the satellite imagery nor the radar show “heavy rain” anymore. She still has some circulation in the very lowest levels of the troposphere, but that is weaker now than it was this morning. The NHC center of cone shows that she will leave the US coast from South Carolina tomorrow (Weds) morning and become a Tropical Storm by tomorrow afternoon. I suppose this is possible because she will be close to the Gulf Stream again, but it depends on how fast she is moving and I think she will still be quite weak.

As there is not too much more to say about Beryl for now, I think I will have a little rant (laced with large dollops of sarcasm). <begin mild rant> I would like to know who decided to make the fabulous <ahem> improvements <ahem> to the satellite imagery/NHC website in the off-season?!? In the past, the satellite imagery page was great (ok, maybe not great, but definitely functional) because it had the larger satellite GOES-East images (which shows the same fixed part of the planet e.g. North Atlantic) as well as the more focused GOES Floater Imagery (which would show a close up of a storm if there was one out there). Now, it takes about 3 or 4 more clicks of buttons to get to the same close-up images because “they” have moved the GOES Floater Imagery to a ‘new’ page (NOAA’s Satellite and Information Service page). This new page is terrible for a number of reasons. I won’t even bother going into most of them right now, but at the moment my main complaint is that they removed anything to do with Beryl yesterday which means that we can no longer see a close up of the storm! You aren’t missing much because she’s not really much to look at, but I’m a weather junky and I like watching washing machines spin … I WANT to see what she’s doing and I can’t! In ye olde golden days of yore (e.g. last year) they would keep the floater imagery up until the NHC said they were done with a system. So either this means that one part of NOAA (the satellite folks) don’t agree with another part of NOAA (the NHC) because they have ‘No Storms’ on their website compared to the NHC’s ‘Tropical Depression’, or the Satellite and ‘Information Service’ page are not doing too well on this whole ‘Information Service’ concept! <end mild rant>

And on that note… time to say tally ho for today!
J.

Monday, May 28, 2012

Tropical Depression Beryl: May 28, Update A

I’d have to say that so far, Beryl has been a well-behaved little storm. She made landfall last night and as of 11 am this morning, as expected, the NHC downgraded her to a Tropical Depression. Her winds are now 30 mph, central pressure is estimated to be 1003mb. She is still bringing some much needed rain to Florida and Georgia. I expect her to continue to decrease in intensity. She is currently centered at 30.8N, 83.1W, heading NNW at a stately 5mph, and is about 10 miles east of Valdosta, GA.

The NHC forecast track shows her turning North and then Northeast tonight, heading towards the Carolinas and then back out into the Atlantic on Weds afternoon, and turning into a Tropical Storm again on Thursday afternoon. One possible scenario that I think might happen is that she will continue inland for a bit longer (or slow down even more whilst over land) and weaken more than they currently expect. If that’s the case, then I’m not sure she will become a Tropical Storm again, although at the moment her circulation is still pretty strong in the lower part of the troposphere.

Right, for now all is good so I’m off to find me some wine (honestly, it’s not my fault… it’s for a good cause… someone’s <something-with-a-zero>^th birthday and 5-year-cancer-free party – congratulations K.M.!). J

Happy Memorial Day!
Toodle Pip,
J.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Tropical Storm Beryl: May 27, Update B

Beryl is on the verge of making landfall in the Jacksonville area and part of her rather large eye is already creeping over land. The center is officially at 30.2N, 81.1W and she continues to move generally westward at 7mph so she will be completely inland by the time we wake up from our beauty sleep tomorrow. They sent in another plane this evening and, as I thought, it found increased wind speeds so they increased her winds to 70mph (central pressure 993mb), which makes her a very strong Tropical Storm (range: 39-73mph). However she is already looking weaker than she did this afternoon and she is already about to make landfall so she won’t be a hurricane (phew!).

Although there is not a lot of convection in Beryl, her outer rain bands have already brought a few dollops (technical term ;-)) of rain across Florida, Georgia and have reached as far north as Savannah. I’d like to thank Beryl for doing such a lovely job cleaning the outside of my car. Here is a satellite picture showing where and what sort of convection she has:

The areas in white are light clouds, the areas in blue are just thick clouds but no rain, the yellow is just rain, no thunderstorms. From John, who is in Folkston, in Georgia, just NW of Jacksonville: “light rain, light breeze, some sun at 7:55 PM”.

That’s all for today folks.
Stay safe!
J.

Subtropical Storm Beryl: May 27, Update A

Subtropical Storm Beryl (actually Tropical Storm Beryl – I expect that change in the next advisory) is going to make land-fall today. She’s just off the north Florida/south Georgia coast, at around 30.1N, 79.6W. She is moving westward at 10mph. They sent a plane into the system this morning, and found that she was stronger than they expected, so they have increased her winds to 60mph (central pressure 998mb), which now makes her a mid-strength Tropical Storm (TS range: 39-73mph). I am not at all surprised by this increase. I still don’t think she will get to hurricane strength because although there is a bit of room for her to get stronger, she is already interacting with land which will keep her in check. She is now moving over the Gulf Stream so her convection has increased a lot since yesterday as you can see in this visible satellite image:

If you are in northeast Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, you can expect a breezy day and maybe some rain later (perfect late-May weather if you lived in the UK ;-)). If you are in other parts of Florida (like here in St. Petersburg), Georgia and the Carolinas you can expect some intermittent clouds and possible rain also because of Beryl – she’s like a spider… weak body but long arms! J

The NHC had a good handle on the track and have her forecast center of cone track going into the general Jacksonville area. You can now see the center of Beryl on the Jacksonville radar: http://radar.weather.gov/ridge/radar.php?rid=JAX&product=N0Z&overlay=11101111&loop=yes. However it looks like the bulk of the winds and rain will be over Georgia.

Northeastern Florida and Georgia have already had a 2ft storm surge (on a side note, I bet the surfers have had a great time over the past few days!). To look at the storm surge I use NOAA’s National Ocean Service website, Tides Online, which is an excellent site (I really hope they don’t plan to make it ‘better’ – I’ll complain properly about a few changes that have been made to other sites during the off season at some point… Why do people do that? Sigh.): http://tidesonline.nos.noaa.gov/geographic.html. Click on the state you are interested in, and then the location within that state. For example, I clicked on Florida and then on Mayport:

The top graph shows the water level. In this graph, the red line is the actual observed sea level, the blue line is what the predicted water level would be because of the tides, and the green line is the difference between the two. The height of the green line gives you the storm surge level. The graph below that is wind speed (still increasing at Mayport at this time) and direction. Below that is air pressure (which you can see is still dropping), and below that is air and sea surface temperature.

Finally for now, I just got my first on-the-ground report for this season! Yay! John is in Folkston, Ga, 50 miles NW of Jax. He says: “It's windy, about 30 mph, mostly cloudy. No rain and some sun. We can see the clouds moving counter clock wise. More later with any change.” Thank you John! J

And as he said… more later!

Ciao for now,

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Subtropical Storm Beryl: May 26, Update A

Must be quick for now… I have a ‘J.S. marries J. S.’ wedding to attend! J

Here’s the scoop on Subtropical Storm Beryl. She has slowed down to a halt, which was expected given that she is surrounded by high pressure and is currently hanging out at 31.6N, 76.3W. Officially the winds are still 45mph and central pressure is 1001mb, but they are sending in a plane to check on this. The wind shear is very weak now. Her circulation in the lower half of the troposphere* (*See Science Alert below) continues to strengthen, so I think she may be a bit stronger. However, she has very little convection (rain and clouds) so I can see why they kept her at 45 mph. There are two reasons for this the lack of rain: (1) from the ocean perspective, she is over cold water with nothing warm to get much moisture from; and, (2) from the atmospheric perspective, she is pulling in dry air which is coming from the south and west.

Her track is a little tricky still because she has stalled. The NHC did move it slightly north since my last update, but have shifted it back towards Jacksonville, FL. I will go with this for now, but I would still get ready for a breezy day in NE Florida and Georgia tomorrow and Monday! Her intensity is the part I’m not sure I agree with at the moment. To get to land she still has to cross the Gulf Stream. Unless she picks up speed and zooms across it, the chances are she will get a bit stronger. The NHC continue to forecast a peak of 50mph winds, which means she’ll be a very weak Tropical Storm (TS range: 39-73mph) at landfall. This is fine with me… so long as they don’t give us any of that ‘rapid intensification just before landfall what a surprise’ stuff. Given that she doesn’t have much moisture today, even if she gets stronger, I no longer think she’ll get to hurricane strength.

What a topsy turvy sort of start to the season! I haven’t even said ‘ello properly and I’m already launching into jargon… hopefully I haven’t lost everyone already. So, the first <Science Alert> of 2012! <Science Alert> For those who need a refresher, don’t know, or just want a chuckle… I keep mentioning “troposphere”. This is the lowest section of the earth’s atmosphere. It extends up from the surface to about 8-10km at the poles, and to about 16km at the equator. In this section, the higher you go, the colder the air temperature gets. The next section of the atmosphere above the troposphere is called the “stratosphere”, not to be confused with “The Stratosphere Hotel and Casino” in Las Vegas! Although like any casino in Vegas, the higher you get, the warmer it gets! J (unless you are very rich… and if, by chance, you are very rich and reading this, I have a great project you can sponsor…). Anyway, back to earth… you may have heard of the stratosphere as the home of the ‘ozone hole’ (and ozone layer of course). The stratosphere extends to about 50km above the surface of the earth. The boundary between the troposphere and stratosphere is called the tropopause. Most of our clouds are in the troposphere. However, with strong, fully fledged hurricanes and thunderstorms, the clouds can sometimes cross the tropopause and extend up into the stratosphere. Above the stratosphere is the mesosphere, where the temperature again gets colder the higher up you go. When I refer to the lower half of the troposphere, I am looking at from the surface to around 5-6km height. <End of Science Alert>

Ok… must go and party! I’ll still be watching out for Beryl to make her next move!

Cheers,

Subtropical Storm Beryl: May 25, Update A

For fans of Douglas Adams… Happy Towel Day! (http://towelday.org/) (although by the time I finish writing this, it will be the day after).

Today I (more-or-less) agree with the NHC on their assessment and naming of Subtropical Storm Beryl! J (or that could be a couple of glasses of wine talking I suppose… it is a Friday evening after all ;-)).

Officially Beryl is currently at 32.5N, 74.8W, moving northwards at about 9mph (I’m not sure I agree with this location or direction – see later). Her central pressure is estimated to be 1001mb, with winds of 45mph (Tropical Storm range: 39-73mph). The circulation in the lower half of the troposphere has improved quite a lot since yesterday and the wind shear is dying down. There is also some circulation in the upper half of the troposphere which is a bit troublesome at the moment because it means that she has room to grow (even to a hurricane, although the official forecast has her maximum winds peaking at 50mph by Saturday evening and on Sunday, which is a weak Tropical Storm). However, she is now over cooler waters, with sea surface temperatures of 25 deg C, and no deep warm water underneath and there is still some dry air to the south and west, so there are some inhibiting factors. It looks like South Carolina is already getting some of the ‘outer bands’… i.e. a bit of cloudy (no rain) weather. As she approaches the US Coast, she will cross the Gulf Stream again and she will pick up some moisture then (time to dust off your raincoats and wellie boots!).

The NHC wrote: “FROM NOAA BUOY 41002 THIS EVENING INDICATE THAT THE BROAD LOW PRESSURE AREA OFF OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES COAST HAS COALESCED INTO A TIGHT...WELL-DEFINED CIRCULATION. AROUND 2200 UTC...THE BUOY REPORTED A MINIMUM PRESSURE OF 1004 MB ALONG WITH PEAK 1-MINUTE WINDS OF 37 KNOTS...SUGGESTING A MINIMUM PRESSURE AROUND 1001 MB.” Being a sciency sort of geek, I thought I’d have a look at the data myself so I went to the National Data Buoy Center website (http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/), one of my usual source for buoy data. At around 2200UTC, the buoy (located at around 32N, 75W) does, indeed, show a drop in pressure… to 29.65 inches! I suppose it would be too user-friendly to have them displayed in the same units (mb). Why make things easy, huh? (mutter mutter, mumble, grumble…) I did the conversion and it is 1004mb. However, the winds peaked at 34 knots, not 37 knots… therefore I think the official windspeed is a teensy-weensy bit of an over-estimate:

I know this seems like a really small amount, but the difference is that 34 knots is 39.1 mph, and 37 knots is 42.5 mph… and to name a Tropical (or Subtropical) Storm you need wind speeds of 39mph or more, but 39.1mph is too close to the border and could be within the margin of error of the instrument, whereas 42.5 mph is a solid ‘above 39’ sort of number (given it was towel day, it’s too bad they didn’t pick something that converted exactly to 42.0! ;-)). However, despite this little umm…’discrepancy’, I still agree with naming Beryl because this is just one location, and looking at the circulation, even now she looks stronger than a 45mph system.

The forecast track takes her in a west-southwest direction. Although unusual, this is possible. I think she has already started on a westward trajectory actually, and I would place her at around 32.4N, 75.4W. She may slow down a bit tomorrow, because there is high pressure all around her (if you have forgotten the importance of this, not to worry, I’ll explain this later – maybe tomorrow, after I’ve had a nap). The official center of cone forecast track takes her into Jacksonville on Sunday evening, but as you can see here, the ‘cone’ of uncertainty is not quite a cone:

I think it is quite possible that landfall will be north of that, in Georgia or South Carolina. The reason why it is so ‘circular’ is because of the surrounding pressure fields (high) which makes it a little trickier to forecast.

The things to watch for tomorrow are how far west she goes before (if) she slows, and where she is relative to the Gulf Stream and to land and the circulation in the upper troposphere (I’ll explain that over the weekend too). That will at least give us an indication of her intensity. She could get interesting.

Night night for now!

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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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Thursday, May 24, 2012

Atlantic Blobette: May 24, Update A

So… we have a blobette off south-eastern Florida and over the Bahamas. I watched her as she came up from the Caribbean and crossed Cuba today. The NHC currently give her a 60% chance of being a fully-fledged tropical storm on Saturday, but I’m not sure yet. It is certainly possible because the circulation in the lower half of the troposphere was quite good earlier today and she is in the Gulf Stream region, so she has plenty of warm water to munch on. However, in the past few hours it looks like the circulation has weakened a bit, for a couple of reasons. First, she is in an area of very high wind shear from the southwest. You can see this if you look at the satellite image… the clouds are all to the northeast of the ‘center’:

And her other problem is dry air, which is to her west and south and is also being blown into the system. If it wasn’t for these pesky little problems, I’d say she would definitely be a storm. At the moment it looks like the wind shear might hang around, so we might get away without seeing Beryl (the next name) for a bit longer.

I was kinda wondering if I’d be back before the official start of the season… a couple of weeks ago there were signs in the experimental long-range computer models that there would be some sort of low pressure just off south-eastern Florida today (although I don’t remember seeing any signs of Alberto in there, so he just snuck in as far as I can tell ;-)). Of course I was a teensy-weensy bit skeptical (yes, moi! ;-)), but ta-da, here we are. I think it’s very groovy that models are being developed that can forecast these sorts of blobs and blobettes up to 10 days ahead of time (even if they are still a bit blurry around the edges)! J I know they were doing well a couple of years ago and I will be curious to see how they do this season.

As The Terminator said, “I’ll be back” (tomorrow). And one of these days I’ll get to the official welcome message… I might have to sneak it in before June 1 if these early storm shenanigans carry on though!

Ciao,

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Monday, May 21, 2012

Tropical Storm Alberto: May 21, Update A

Three cups of tea and two coffees later (<gasp> coffee!! <gasp>) and I’m now wide-awake and ready for the season. J I shouldn’t have bothered really because Alberto looks like he’s falling apart as I write. His center is now around 30.7N, 77.3W, central pressure of 1006mb, winds of 40mph. He is moving ENE at 8 mph. Although there is still good circulation in the lower half of the troposphere, as expected the wind shear and dry air took their toll so there are very few clouds and they are mostly to the northeast of the center. I agree with the NHC’s forecast track which will take him on a northeastward path and keep him away from land. They have him dissipating in a couple of days but I think he is already just a Tropical Depression. Unless he does something silly (unlikely), this is my last entry on Alberto. May they all be like this! J

Hmm… maybe there’s time for a short nap before June 1… anyone got anything really boring to read? Maybe ‘The Authorized Autobiography of a Snail’ or the ‘Dummies Guide to Watching Grass Grow’? No? Right… a glass of wine it is then. ;-)

I’ll be back for the ‘official’ start with a proper welcome message and hopefully NOT before!!

Toodle Pip,

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Sunday, May 20, 2012

Tropical Storm Alberto: May 20, Update A

Too early. Stop. Not awake yet. Stop. Still twelve days to the official start of the Atlantic hurricane season. Stop. Aaaargh. Stop.

I see that yesterday afternoon the National Hurricane Center named our first Tropical Storm of the 2012 Atlantic Hurricane Season (which officially begins on June 1). Quite frankly, I think it’s just impolite of Alberto to be making so much noise this early in the season, and on a weekend no-less! You’d never catch me vacuuming at 7am on a Sunday… my neighbours will tell you that I wait until at least 8am. ;-)

Tropical Storm Alberto is the first real pre-season Tropical Storm in the Atlantic since Tropical Storm Ana in 2003 (all the others have been Subtropical Storms). But he’s a cute little baby storm. J He has been hanging around off the S. Carolina/Georgia coast since yesterday and is officially at 30.5N, 80.1W. He is crawling southward(ish) at 5 mph and is now actually off the Florida coast. He has decent circulation in the lower part of the troposphere (I’ll explain this mumbo-jumbo jargon later, when I’ve woken up properly) but the convection is not very strong. At the moment his winds are officially 40mph (TS range: 39-73mph), central pressure 1007mb, so he is barely a Tropical Storm. Although he is close to the Gulf Stream, which has a lot of deep warm water, there is relatively strong wind shear in the atmosphere and a lot of dry air around him so it’s unlikely that he will get much stronger. In this I agree with the NHC.

The east Pacific had their first Tropical Storm of the season (TS Aletta) last week. Apparently this is the first time in our records that we’ve had Tropical Storms in both the east Pacific and Atlantic before June 1. Maybe we can get them all over and done with by July to make things easy for the new Director of the NHC (Dr. Rick Knabb, starts work on June 4). J

Until tomorrow,
Ciao!
J.

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Thursday, May 31, 2012

Extratropical Storm Beryl: May 30, Update A

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Tropical Depression Beryl: May 29, Update A

Monday, May 28, 2012

Tropical Depression Beryl: May 28, Update A

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Tropical Storm Beryl: May 27, Update B

Subtropical Storm Beryl: May 27, Update A

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Subtropical Storm Beryl: May 26, Update A

Subtropical Storm Beryl: May 25, Update A

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Atlantic Blobette: May 24, Update A

Monday, May 21, 2012

Tropical Storm Alberto: May 21, Update A

Sunday, May 20, 2012

Tropical Storm Alberto: May 20, Update A

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Thursday, May 31, 2012

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