Hurricane Fay and Tropical Storm Gonzalo: October 12, Update A

A travel day today (sitting in San Francisco Airport as I write this) so I'll jump right into the thick of things... and I have to say, there are a few thick things about! We have a veritable smorgasbord of storms today as in the last ~24 hours three, yes three, storms made landfall (and one overachieving storm decided to make landfall twice)!

In the western Pacific, Typhoon Vongfong made landfall in Okinawa as a cat 3 and then moved on to make landfall on the island of Kyushu in southern Japan as a weak cat 3. Last week this storm was out there in the Pacific as a cat 5 storm with winds of 160mph. It has caused quite a bit of havoc as it's moved along.

In the Indian Ocean, Cyclone Hudhud made landfall in eastern India as a strong cat 3 storm. About 400,000 people were evacuated ahead of this storm in an effort to save loss of life.

Meanwhile, in the Atlantic, Tropical Storm Fay passed directly over Bermuda. She was still a strong Tropical Storm at the time, not a Hurricane, but they got quite a lot of strong thundery weather. She has since moved away and it looks like Bermuda may have re-opened for business.

 

I agree with the NHC on their analysis of this one in that she will not be a hurricane for long (currently she is a weak hurricane with winds of 75mph, central pressure 986mb). She is heading into the Atlantic to hang out with the cute fishies for a while:

That leaves one of the Atlantic Blobs from yesterday, which is now the very weak Tropical Storm Gonzalo with official winds of 45mph, central pressure 1002mb. He is centered at 16.4N, 59.7W and is heading west at 10mph. He does have some circulation, which you can see in the visible satellite image:

But the convective action is not yet fully developed as we see in the infrared satellite images:

However, this one will definitely develop. I think he may be a little stronger than 45mph at the moment, but not by much. Wind shear is pretty weak and looks like it will remain weak. The sea surface temperatures are currently between 28-30 deg C, and it looks like they will increase to 29-31 deg C closer to the Leeward Islands. Water warmer than 26 deg C can be found in the upper 100-125m of water, which means he has lots of stuff (technical term ;-)) to fuel him.

His current forecast trajectory takes him through the northeast corner of the Caribbean as a Tropical Storm on Monday and Tuesday.

The only reason he won't intensify too quickly is because he is going to be interacting with the islands soon. He should bring some rain - you guys want rain, right?

I've gotta run and catch my flight (it's a long walk from SF to LA!), but more tomorrow!
Tally ho!
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.
-----------------------------