Tropical Storm Nadine and the Atlantic Blob: October 2, Update A

Just a quick update due to a complete and utter lack of time (all this work malarkey keeps getting in the way! ;-)).

Tropical Storm Nadine
They decreased her official winds after my last update and she was downgraded from a hurricane to a Tropical Storm yesterday morning, which is groovy. Currently her winds are officially at 65mph, central pressure 995mb. I agree with this assessment… her circulation is holding pretty steady and is good in the lower half of the troposphere. Interestingly, this is not because of the ocean – water temperatures are really cold at around 20-21 deg C! It is because she is stuck under a low pressure front (trough) that extends all the way to Europe. So strictly speaking she’s not really a Tropical Storm but should really be a Subtropical Storm.

She is officially at 34.5N, 38.1W, currently heading ESE at 7mph, however she is about to turn to the left, heading E and then ENE and then NE… if you have lost track of her track (J), here is a map that I pulled from a Navy site:

She really really *really* wanted to visit the Azores and it looks like she’ll finally get there this week (as a Tropical/Subtropical Storm). With the GOES satellites messed up in the eastern Atlantic it is tricky for me to assess how much convection she has. As an aside, I am not sure why the NOAA Tropical Cyclone Imagery page has not had anything on her for days now whilst the Navy has at least managed to show us some visible images. There is not even a note to say why there is nothing there (it just says ‘no storms’ in the Atlantic – clearly not true!).

Atlantic Blob
The circulation for this blob has not really improved over the past day, but the NHC now give it a 60% chance of development. It is currently at around 12.5N, 37W, heading WNW at 10-15mph. The convection has improved, but that is because it is over warm 28 deg C waters, and is now also over deeper warm waters (26 deg C in the upper 50 m). There is  bit of wind shear, but it looks like that will decrease, so there is room for some development. It looks like it will continue generally WNW for now. There is a good chance it will turn northward into the Atlantic before getting to the Caribbean, but it is not a certainty yet (hopefully later today/tomorrow).

More later!
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.
-----------------------------