Tropical Storm Bertha: August 3, Update A

A lovely Sunday with tea and Jaffa cakes and classic Dr. Who (the first one with the third Doctor, John Pertwee, is really good by the way :-)).

Meanwhile, over in the Atlantic things have also been moving along as suspected... Tropical Storm Bertha is still a Tropical Storm but has, indeed, intensified and now has winds of 65mph (1007mb central pressure). To re-cap from yesterday, this is because she's moved away from land (including the soggy Bahamas), wind shear has decreased (although there is still some), she's moved out of the dry and dusty SAL, and sea surface temperatures are now 28-30 deg C with waters warmer than 26 deg C.

She is not very organized at the moment but it looks like she will get stronger because all those conditions remain the same for the next day or so (wind shear will weaken a bit) and she'll probably be a weak hurricane tomorrow, which is in agreement with the NHC.

She is currently at 24.9N, 73.2W heading NNW at 17mph. The track looks more-or-less ok and she'll stay away from the US and Bermuda, possibly clipping Canada as a weaker storm in a few days:

So that's the Atlantic. Meanwhile, in the Pacific we have a few interesting things going on... the best looking of which is Hurricane Iselle, heading for a vacation in Hawaii on Thursday/Friday. She currently is a borderline cat 2/cat 3 (cat 2 range: 96-110mph, cat 3: 111-129mph) storm with winds of 110mph:

And in the West Pacific, Typhoon Halong is supposedly a border-line cat3/cat 4 storm because it has winds of 130mph, and is therefore stronger than Iselle. Although it is bigger, it does not have a very well-formed eye at the moment so I suspect it may be a bit weaker than a cat 4! (maybe a cat 2):

Not to be outdone by Iselle, Typhoon Halong is going for a vacation to Japan on Thursday/Friday. Japan really does not need more rain this week... I heard some parts had about 40 inches this weekend!

This large difference in the intensity of the storms (relative to their look) is because agencies from different countries issue the forecasts for storms in different parts of the world. Because they don't have enough data (or even the same sort of data) from inside these storms when they are over the ocean, it's pretty tricky for them to figure out their intensity (not for me, obviously, but I use magic ;-)  and I've been doing this for yonks!).

There are a few other blobs and blobettes in the Pacific, but that's all for now folks!

Until tomorrow,
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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