Saturday, September 15, 2012

Hurricane Nadine and the Atlantic Blob: September 15, Update A

I’m adding earthquake, heat wave (temps in LA around 100-104 deg C), and brush fire (taken from local grocery parking lot in LA)

to my personal ‘natural disaster’ tally for this summer (tropical storm, near-by tornado, and dust storm). All I need is a 1 cm tsunami and a minor volcanic eruption and I think I’ll have the complete collector’s edition. Maybe it would be better for everyone if I just stayed at home and read books and watched movies for the rest of the year? ;-)

Hurricane Nadine
The NHC decided to finally upgrade TS Nadine to Hurricane Nadine yesterday. Funny timing really, as it happened just as the wind shear picked up and the circulation decreased. But at least it matched what they (or the models) predicted so who really cares about reality, hey? Still no eye though… so in the future if you ever hear anyone say there isn’t an eye so it’s not a weak cat 1 hurricane, feel free to tell them that is complete codswallop.

Her winds are now officially 80mph, central pressure 983mb. I think she’s weaker than this. Not only is she experiencing wind shear, as you can see by the clouds streaming off to the north and east in the satellite image (below), but her convection has decreased quite a lot since my last update (before she was ‘upgraded’ to a hurricane).

She is moving ENE at 15mph, and was at 30.9N, 49.9W at the last advisory. She looks like she’s now at around 40.1N, 48.1W. Despite their appalling ability to get the intensity right, I think they have done a pretty good job with the track forecast for Nadine. She did head north at around 54W, and then curved as expected and is now heading ENE. She’s supposed to reach the Azores as a Tropical Storm on Thursday morning. I don’t think she’ll be that strong (wind shear will remain strong), but they can expect a few clouds.

Atlantic Blob
A blobbier blob I never did see. This guy is still pretty weak.  He’s near the southern end of the Lesser Antilles, somewhere between 10-15N, 50-55W, moving W at 10-15mph. There’s a toot of convection with a sloosh of circulation in the lowest part of the troposphere. The NHC give him a 20% chance of developing. I’ll write more if he improves (by a lot). The next storm gets an Oscar (as a name… although if he’s as fictional as some of these storms, it may be as an award for best fictional screenplay).

Travel day tomorrow! I’ll try and hop onto a machine if I can.
Toodle pips!
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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