Tropical Storm Humberto: September 9, Update A

Hey hey hey… it looks like we have our first hurricane of the season! Although the NHC still have him as a Tropical Storm with winds of 60mph (TS range: 39-73mph), Humberto’s circulation is very strong in the lower half of the troposphere and he is the first storm this season (that I recall) that even has circulation in the upper troposphere – enough to classify him as a very weak cat 1 storm (cat 1 range: 74-95mph). I’d estimate his winds to be in the 75-80mph range already (but definitely not yet as high as 90mph).

He also has very strong convection in the center, as you can see in this infrared satellite image:

He is currently at around 13.9N, 25.9W, heading WNW at 10mph. Central pressure is 1000mb.

There is a little wind shear but not a lot and it doesn’t look like it will pick up tomorrow either. He is moving over waters with sea surface temperatures around 28-30 deg C - definitely warm enough to keep him going. I think he will continue to intensify – even the air around him is full of water vapor, and not that dry dusty stuff that was inhibiting storms earlier this season (which is, by the way, one of the reasons why they didn’t form (there are a couple of others, as I’ve mentioned throughout this season)…)

As for track, to me it looks like he will continue generally westward for now, although not at a very quick pace because there is an area of high pressure in front of him. The official track takes him to the north almost immediately and by this time tomorrow he will be heading almost due north:

Since the last half of last year I think the NHC have generally had a pretty good assessment of the track within 2 days (with very few exceptions).  For me it is a little tricky to tell where he will go because of this high pressure, so I’m not yet convinced that this is the track he will take: I think he may head westward for a little longer.

I definitely do see an alliterative future for Humberto! J

I’ll be back tomorrow!
Night night!
J.

(p.s. I’m watching that blobette in the Atlantic too… the remains of Gabrielle… she doesn’t have a very good structure at the moment, even though she’s a bit on the cloudy side of the er cloud spectrum ;-) ).  

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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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