Tropical Storm Fiona: August 17, Update A

Woohoo, it's wine o'clock! Umm, I mean it's time for Tropical Storm Fiona! ;-) 

She has been slowly developing over the last few days, and is now a fully fledged Tropical Storm with officially whopping winds of 40mph (TS range: 39-73mph), central pressure of 1006mb. Her convection has improved in the last few hours, as we see from the infrared satellite images:

But her vorticity (or circulation if you prefer) has decreased. Although it is strong throughout the lower half of the troposphere, it looks like is not as strong as it was earlier today (if you have forgotten all about the troposphere and atmospheric structure check out this Science Alert! from waaaaay back in early June). This suggests that she is a relatively weak Tropical Storm - so I would estimate somewhere in the 40-50mph range at the moment, which is in agreement with the NHC. 

She is at 15.5N, 39W, heading WNW at 16mph. She's heading no-where in particular... oh, except for that little island called Bermuda perhaps:

Honestly, do you guys have a Hurricane magnet you set up every year? For such a relatively small land mass in such a vast ocean, how do you manage to attract so many storms?! ;-) Actually, it is really too soon to tell where she is heading, although that general direction is quite likely given the pressure fields. I will hopefully have more to say on this tomorrow. 

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the general Atlantic area are the Olympics. As I marvel at the greatness of these events and the amazing athletes that compete, I wonder where off the coast of Brazil are they doing the 'Seahorse Racing' event ... 

:-) This is from a neat book by Isaac Asimov, Futuredays: A Nineteenth Century Vision of the Year 2000. It's a great collection of paintings from around the 1900s showing what artists thought we would be doing in the year 2000. You can see some more and get some of the history here at The Public Domain Review website. (Where is my flying car?).

I'll return tomorrow... (must actually catch up on the news from the massive flooding in Louisiana - and if you are looking, here is the most comprehensive list of ways to help that I could find).

Toodles,

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.