Tropical Storms Ophelia and Philippe: September 28, Update A

I’m running a tad bit late… I was doing my homework (i.e. watching episodes of Dr. Who ;-)).

Tropical Storm Ophelia
Officially she’s at 19.4N, 60.7W, heading NW at 6mph. Winds are now 60mph, so she’s a mid-to-strong Tropical Storm (range: 39-73mph), with a central pressure of 995mb. The forecast calls for her to become a strong cat 1 hurricane on Friday, and crossing Bermuda on Saturday evening (as a hurricane). You guys must be used to this by now though! Steve, make sure you have your tea before the storm arrives this time.

She doesn’t look quite as robust today as she was looking yesterday (when she wasn’t even officially a Tropical Depression), but the wind shear has chopped her circulation off a bit so we can quite easily see her center of circulation. The islands had a relatively lucky time, because not only was the wind shear from the west (which means most of the convection was on her east side), but also she’s finally decided to make a move! Hurray. She’s heading northward(ish) at a slow pace. I agree with her location and direction, but I’m not sure wind speeds are as high as 60mph. Here are the visible and IR satellite images:



You can see that she is experiencing wind shear and is not very well put together at the moment.

Tropical Storm Philippe
Officially he’s at 17.4N, 40.8W heading WNW at 13mph. Winds are still those of a weak Tropical Storm, and are at 45mph with a central pressure of 1005mb.

He is a little more classic looking - a fine shape and demeanor. J Although officially he is a weaker storm than Ophelia, he does actually look stronger and better developed. Here are the IR and visible satellite images for Philippe as well, so you can see the difference between the two storms:



I’m not sure I agree with his central location either, but it’s night time so it is a bit tricky for me to see that anyway. It looks like he might be about 1 degree to the north.

The forecast track continues to shift to the west, instead of that silly NW track they had when he first emerged. I agree with a more westward track for now.

Both storms are very similar in terms of the amount of circulation they have. It’s just the convection that differs. It looks like Ophelia might continue to experience more wind shear than Philippe, so I’m not sure she will even turn into a hurricane.

Keeping with our Shakespeare theme (cos we’re so edumucated ;-)), if you find yourselves in London next year, Shakesperian plays will be performed at The Globe Theater… in sign language and hip-hop. I’ve seen one of his plays as a hip-hop musical. It was brilliant. Here’s the scoop: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-15058047?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter.

Night night until 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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