Post-Tropical Storm Colin: 7 June, Update A

Things are looking good today as Florida and parts of the eastern US dry out after getting a few tonnes of water dropped on them ... 

(thanks to Emily S. and Fred G. for sharing this one)

And it's the last day of the big wet sop formerly known as Tropical Storm Colin. :-) 

His last official location was 36.5N, 72.2W, heading NE at 40mph (!!! - most definitely too fast for a tropical storm of any description). Winds were 60mph, central pressure was 996mb. He did change from being a Tropical Storm to what the trendy kids call Post-Tropical these days, but essentially he got swept up in a low pressure front. Here's the latest infrared satellite imagery:

Pretty unimpressive (unless you are in diving in the Atlantic...).  The NHC have stopped their updates, and so too shall I. :-) 

The next named storm will be Danielle, followed by Earl (Gray Tea). 

Normally I would stop right now and go and have a glass of celebratory wine. But I wanted to say a word about storm reporting ... 

<Minor Rant Alert!> Luckily for the interwebs it's been a while since I've had a little rant-o-roo!! I was sent an article which talked about how Florida was bracing for record-breaking Tropical Storm Colin. Gasp! Surely not record-breaking Tropical Storm Colin?? How scary! And why is he record-breaking I wonder? Is it the super-high winds? Is it the expected deluge of rain or gigantic storm surge? No. It is because he is the earliest third-named storm ever! Really? Earliest third-named storm ever? I'm sure Floridians were quivering in their wellie boots at having to face the terror of the earliest third-named storm ever! Sigh. <shaking my head> <End Minor Rant!>  

That's it for today. Now I will go and have a lovely glass of wine. :-)

Ciao,
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.

Tropical Storm Colin: 6 June, Update B

Reports of flooding have been ...er... flooding in all day! Storm surge has been over 4ft above normal in some places and the big story is, of course, the coastal flooding along the west coast of Florida. Tropical Storms rotate in an anti-clockwise direction, so as Colin headed north, he pushed a lot of water onto the coast. 

But before I get to that, Tropical Storm Colin is currently at 29.8N, 83.8W, heading NE at 22mph and I think he just made landfall in the Big Bend area. His current track is:

His winds are officially at 50mph, central pressure is 1002 mb. As we know, the worst of the weather was on his east side where the convection was, which means pretty much most of Florida, as well as parts of Georgia and South Carolina (at least) got a few buckets of rain-plus (by the way, if you can figure out how to get them through the postal service, we could use some rain over here in California). 

Looking at his overall convection, it looks like that wind shear is really spreading him thin across most of the eastern seaboard, which means rain and thundery weather all the way... 

This sort of spread means he is beginning to lose his Tropical Storm structure and become caught up in a low pressure front. But to make sure it is a front and not only wind shear that is doing this we have other data we can look at. As I said in the vorticity Science Alert yesterday, we can tell what sort of stormy weather we have by where and how strong the vorticity is. Here's the lower tropospheric vorticity map at 850mb:

And here's the mid-level vorticity map at 500mb:

You can see that he is not as 'circular' as he was yesterday and is starting to stretch out along the eastern seaboard. He's not fully caught up in the front yet, but is almost there. The other clue that he's not a Tropical Storm really is his forward motion... 22 mph is very fast for a tropical storm!

He is moving so fast that he may already interacting with the deep warm waters of the Gulf Stream, which means there's a good chance for some stormy weather and storm surge in Georgia and the Carolinas too. 

Storm surge is running rather high at the moment in Florida. It is 3ft in St. Petersburg, but looks like it has peaked there and is on the way down now. It is 3.5 ft at the Old Port Tampa station. And here's the Cedar Key station, which is showing 4.5ft above normal...

You know what such high storm surge means... yes, obviously that means it is time for the mermaids to frolic in the streets...

(in Shore Acres, St. Petersburg, FL - thanks Keith L. for this one)

I think that's it for today! Definitely more tomorrow as he continues to speed along!
Toodle Pip,
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.

Tropical Storm Colin: 6 June, Update A

Monday morning here... so just enough time for a quick update with my morning cuppa tea! 

Officially TS Colin is currently centered at 26.4N, 87.3W, heading NNE at 14 mph. Winds are 50mph, central pressure is 1004mb, making him a weak mid-level Tropical Storm (TS range: 39-73mph). As I thought, he is stronger. I think he still has time to get a bit stronger, despite the wind shear. I wouldn't be surprised to see him reach around 60-70mph later today, before landfall.

It looks like landfall will be this evening in the Big Bend area...

I don't think the NHC really know quite where his center is because of the large amount of wind shear he is experiencing. The report last night said that the low level center was to the west of the mid-level center, but a Hurricane Hunter plane was going in this morning and should be able to locate the center. 

Here's his latest visible satellite image: 

I will say that it is difficult to figure out a good center in this - so I'll go with the NHC version from the plane. Regardless of the center, the main activity (and we all agree on this one) is to the east. Here's the infrared satellite image:

Looks like rain! I hope everyone in Florida, Georgia, and up the eastern seaboard have got their wellie boots out and polished.

<Technical Alert!> Satellite Imagery: I mainly use three sorts of satellite images: visible, water vapor, and infrared. To access these, go to this NOAA website: http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/TROP/floaters.html. Click on the storm of interest, and then I usually look at the 'Animated GIF with Lat/Long' column. But you can have a play and click on the rest of the images because it's fun! :-) 

The visible one is obvious… it is what you would see if you took a black and white photo. Best used during daylight hours of course! ;-) 

The water vapor image is also pretty obvious…it shows how much water vapor there is in the atmosphere. Brown areas are dry (think of parched deserts) and any other colour indicates some amount of water vapor, with green being a lot. 

The infrared satellite image is the most interesting though because not only does it show where the storm is, but it also gives us an indication of how strong it is and what sort of weather we have. (To get to these, click on the link marked 'AVN'.) The colours represent how high the clouds reach into the atmosphere because they are based on the temperature at the top of the cloud (which is what the satellite sees). It gets colder the higher you get in the troposphere (you should know all about the troposphere by now!), so we can tell from cloud top temperature how deep the clouds are and therefore how strong the convection is! The red colours are very big high clouds with the coldest temperatures (other than a dark gray), and blues and whites are lower, warmer clouds. The redder the cloud colour, the more active the convection. My general rule of thumb (having seen these images and lived under them at the same time) is that blue and yellow areas are mostly clouds, with some rain in the yellow areas. But as you get to the orange and red, you get thunderstorms and possible tornadoes (especially in the red/dark gray areas). To try and see the center of circulation of the storm, I look at the visible satellite imagery - never the infrared unless it is a very well defined storm. There is no point looking at infrared imagery to find the center for weak systems. The clouds are too messy. < End Technical Alert!>

Here's the water vapor imagery for Colin at the moment (just in case you somehow didn't know that there was a lot of moisture here! ;-)):

Storm surge is currently dropping in southern west Florida, around 1-1.5 ft above normal in central west Florida, and around 2 ft in the Big Bend area (Cedar Key included). 

I must run. Apparently I have to do some of that work malarky now... I'll be back at Wine O'Clock! Oh, but before I go, here's 'What to do in a Hurricane' - thanks to Mark Z. for sharing this one! 

Stay safe - listen to your local experts: Emergency Mangers, NWS etc. They know the local conditions.

Ciao for now,
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.

Tropical Storm Colin: 5th June, Update A

A bunch of stuff to cover today - Tropical Storm Colin's intensity, forecast, location. Also today you get a double bill: a Science Alert! AND a Technical Alert (on how to find out about storm surge)! I think I'll need another glass of wine! ;-)  

The official word from the NHC is that Tropical Storm Colin is currently at 23.4N, 87.8W, heading N at 9mph. He is barely a Tropical Storm though, with winds of 40mph (TS range: 39-73mph) and central pressure of 1004mb. I have a couple of things to say about this. 

First, I agree that he is a Tropical Storm - actually, I think they may have underestimated his strength and so I wouldn't be too surprised if he turns out to be a bit stronger than expected. 
  
Second, I'm not sure they have his center quite in the right location at the moment. Here's the latest visible satellite imagery:

It looks like his center is closer to 23.5N, 85.9W and he is moving NNE. But the other reason I think his center is east of his current official location in the Gulf is because his vorticity (circulation) is strongest to the east of that location.

Uh-oh... I feel another Science Alert coming on... are you ready? ;-)

<Science Alert!> Vorticity: I'm sure you have heard that a storm has 'circulation'. It seems pretty obvious what that is, right? The storm system is going around a central point - kind of like a carousel. Well, vorticity is essentially the way we can measure the amount of circulation that a storm has. It's a very useful tool actually and I've used it for ages - it's almost, but not quite, as useful as a corkscrew for opening a delicious bottle of wine. ;-)

How is vorticity useful? Well, all types of stormy weather have a recognizable vorticity signal in the troposphere (have a look at the Science Alert from yesterday for 'troposphere' - although you should be memorizing everything I write of course! ;-)). Like a fingerprint, you can figure out what sort of storm system you have if you know what and where the vorticity is.

The vorticity for low pressure fronts look different compared to tropical storms. For low pressure fronts, the vorticity stretches out in a long line. For tropical storms, the vorticity is confined and generally circular. You can also tell how strong a tropical storm is depending on how strong the vorticity is and how high into the troposphere that signal can be seen. A Tropical Storm ALWAYS has a vorticity signal that reaches the middle of the troposphere (around 500mb) because this indicates that there is some deep convection (big thundery clouds). <End Science Alert!>

Here is a map of the vorticity for Tropical Storm Colin close to the surface (at 850mb):

 

Here is a map of the vorticity for Tropical Storm Colin in the middle of the troposphere (at 500mb):

(These amazing maps are produced by the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies - and a jolly good job they do too!)

You can see the circular red 'splodge' (very technical term! ;-)) that is Colin near the tip of the Yucatan Peninsula and the tip of Cuba in both maps - a little to the east of the official location. This is approximately where I think he is and it matches with the visible satellite imagery. Also, given that the signal is throughout the lower half of the troposphere and that it is quite strong (red, not all orange or yellow), I would agree with the NHC that he is a Tropical Storm.

He is still under some strong wind shear though, which is helping to keep him in check... we can see this in the infrared satellite images because most of the convection is to the east of the center:

I'm not surprised that he has a lot of rain and thunder in him - he is still over very warm ocean water. Sea surface temperatures are around 29 deg C, with the upper 75-100m warmer than 26.5 deg C. Definitely warm enough for big bunches of rain!

As for his track, I think they more-or-less have the correct landfall area, in that we are looking at somewhere on the west coast of Florida or the panhandle area - a mere few hundred miles to chose from...

Normally I would say that one day from landfall we should go with the official NHC forecast and the cone of uncertainty. The tricky part with this cone at the moment though is that if they have his center in the wrong place, the models are going to be wrong. Incorrect data in, incorrect data out. That's my only niggling issue with the cone - it could still shift to the south a bit because of this. But perhaps I am wrong about the center - they did send in a plane so they will have the best info!

I agree with the blue bit though - everyone in that area should be prepared. Have you got your water, ice cream, candles, wine, radio and batteries, ice cream, a good book, sunscreen, more wine, and a corkscrew ready?

One last thing... if that forecast track is, indeed, Colin's path, then I would expect him to be a bit stronger than currently forecast as he gets closer to the Big Bend area. Get ready for some storm surge if you are south of the storm - that includes Tampa Bay, Sarasota etc. Also, residents of Cedar Key be ready... I've noticed over the years that you guys usually get the highest surges with storms on this forecast track. This reminds me very much of Tropical Storm Andrea that made landfall in the Big Bend area, about 35 miles north of Cedar Key on the 6th of June, 2013 (3 years to the day) - she had a few tornadoes as well. 

To look at the storm surge, I use NOAA’s National Ocean Service website, Tides Online, which is an excellent site: http://tidesonline.nos.noaa.gov/geographic.html. (Thank You NOAA for not changing this website - it's great as it is!!). Click on the State you are interested in, and then the location within that State. For example, here is the data from St. Petersburg, Florida at the moment:

It looks like the data is intermittent at this station, but essentially the top graph shows the water level. In this graph, the red line is the actual observed sea level, the blue line is what the predicted water level would be because of the tides, and the green line is the difference between the two. The height of the green line gives you the storm surge level, so St. Petersburg is currently about 1ft above normal.  The graph below that is wind speed and direction. Below that is air pressure (which you can see dropping), and below that is air and sea surface temperature.

I think that's it for today. Stay safe out there!

Ciao,
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.

Caribbean Blob and the remains of TS Bonnie: 4th June, Update A

Finally, it's wine-o-clock and that means I can sit down and have a look at the tropical shenanigans of the day. :-)

Caribbean Blob
I see they have increased the chances that this will be the future Tropical Storm Colin to 80%, which pretty much means that he will become a Tropical Depression tomorrow (Sunday), and a named storm no later than Monday. Although his satellite images are still on the shabby side of the spectrum, he is slowly beginning to get better organized. Here's his latest infrared satellite imagery:

He is supposed to be centered somewhere around ~17N, 87W, which doesn't look like it has much going on from this image. I think that is partly because of the strong wind shear that he is experiencing, partly because he is interacting with land, and partly because he is so disorganized that they don't really know where his center is.

However, when I look at his circulation, there has been a small improvement in the lower levels of the troposphere during the day today. 

And in case you were wondering what this 'troposphere' is - it's where you live! You thought you lived on planet Earth? Nah... you actually live in the troposphere. Really, you do... 

<Science Alert!> The troposphere. Our atmosphere is divided into layers – like a delicious trifle or seven-layer dip or lasagna (depending on what country you are from). In each layer the air temperature either increases with height or decreases with height. The troposphere is one of these layers. It is the lowest section of our atmosphere and extends up from the earth (ground zero if you like) to about 15-16km in the equatorial regions, and to about 8km in the polar regions of the planet. This is the layer of the atmosphere we live in, this is the layer we breathe. All our 'weather' essentially occurs in the troposphere. The troposphere is defined by decreasing air temperature with increasing height. You would know this if you climbed a mountain. Or the easier option, of course, is to just look at pictures of mountains and see the snow at the top (known as the ‘Flat Florida Option’). J The top of the troposphere is called the tropopause. Strong tropical storms have clouds that reach as high as the tropopause - and in a few very strong cases, they can extend even higher into the next layer up - into the stratosphere, which is the layer of the atmosphere above the troposphere. The stratosphere is defined by air temperature increasing with height. The ozone hole is in the stratosphere. The top of the stratosphere is around 50km height and is marked by the stratopause. And the layer above that is mesosphere, where air temperature decreases with height again... and so we go on until we get to space... <End Science Alert!>

Back to the Blob. He is still over very warm water, with sea surface temperatures around 30 deg C, and the upper 100m of the water column warmer than 26.5 deg C. I expect him to have a lot of clouds. But he is in an area of very high wind shear, and it looks like that will continue if he moves northward into the Gulf. He'll be a wimpy TD tomorrow - if he can survive the wind shear.  

The other change I'm starting to see is in his path. Either he is going to take a little longer than we think to move, or it looks like the northern/central Gulf coast is now also a possibility for his track. Again, this part is tricky because he is such a weak system.

Former Tropical Storm Bonnie
Of course someone who reads this is going to be one of the few people in the Atlantic. I should have guessed! ;-) Well luckily for you John S. and anyone else out there, it looks like she is going to be a non-entity by the time she/you get to the Azores:

Looks like it was a lovely and slightly breezy day in Bermuda today.  This really is my last update Bonnie! :-) 

I'll wrap with this quote: "Don't count the days; make the days count." - Muhammed Ali 

Until tomorrow!
Ciao,
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.

Tropical Storm Bonnie and the Caribbean Blob: 3rd June, Update A

Didn't I *just* say that Tropical Storm Colin wasn't supposed to show up until July?!? Sigh. No-one listens. ;-)

I've had a few queries from the lovely but marginally concerned citizens of Florida today about the Caribbean Blob, so here's where we are ...

Caribbean Blob
He is over very warm water with sea surface temperatures of around 29-30 deg C (toasty) and the upper 100-125m of the water column is warmer than 26.5 deg C. This means that this blob has enough to produce a lot of rainfall, some heavy, thundery clouds, and generally look mean on satellite images. BUT, he is currently facing a lot of wind shear and has been all day (and looks like he will tomorrow), so he's a bit weak and not looking quite as well put together as he was earlier this morning (Friday, 3 June morning) as you can see in this satellite image... what do you mean, which blob is he? He's that one... you know... er... 

Yes, precisely - it's a bit of a mess down there. He's actually the blob at around 16N, 83.5W ish. 

The pressure patterns do currently show a path towards Florida. He could do a sharpish turn and just scoot over the Keys, or he could dilly dally and go and visit the Panhandle. He's too weak and it's too soon to say. For now, I'd remember the iconic words engraved on the cover of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: "Don't Panic!" ;-) 

I think he won't be a whopping big hurricane because of the time and location of formation.

<Science Alert!> Ooh… first one of the year! Oh what a lucky day for you! ;-) It’s not unheard of to have storms this early and especially storms that pop up close to the coast and in the Caribbean or Gulf of Mexico, but the good news is that they are generally dinky little things that usually bring that much needed rain. Here is a figure that I made some years ago that shows the track of all storms from 1851 to 2005, divided into the month they formed/existed (graph credit: MOI!). 

In the early and latter parts of the season we have storms that develop in the western Atlantic/Gulf of Mexico/Caribbean region. But early in the season things are still warming up and because they are so close to land, they don’t usually have time to develop into anything major. During the peak months it’s another story! Storms develop in the eastern Atlantic and have lots of space and time (but no TARDIS, thankfully!) to get nice and strong before getting to land. This figure also shows why we have a ‘hurricane season’. 97% of all storms form between June 1 and Nov 30, with 78% forming during the peak months of Aug-Sept-Oct (stats from Landsea’s 1993 paper). But you can see that every so often we do get storms that develop outside of the season (including January - which is what we had this year with Hurricane Alex!). Not common, but definitely not impossible! <End Science Alert!> 

Tropical Storm Bonnie
Agh, she came back! She is barely a Tropical Storm with winds of 40mph (TS wind range: 39-73mph), central pressure 1006mb. She is located at 35.9N, 69.9W, heading east at 12mph. Not really a threat to anyone unless you are sailing in the middle of the Atlantic, in which case you may have noticed a bit of a bumpy ride. She has bits of convection, but is also in a region of wind shear so we can easily see the center of rotation in the satellite images:

Unless she does a U-turn and heads back to the coast, or actually get to land somewhere, I won't be saying anything more about Bonnie. 

I'll be back tomorrow evening!
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.

June 1: Start of the 2016 Atlantic Hurricane Season!

Greetings and salutations my friends! I hope you are all well. I know it's been an age since I was last here, but I'm back because, well, 'tis the season ‘n stuff. ;-) So... Welcome to the Official Start of the 2016 Atlantic Hurricane Season! (And thank you John S. for being the first person ever to send me a 'wake-up for the season coffee’ via twitter). 

I missed a bit here and there since the last season, but I wasn't really asleep. I got swept up in a new role at work! (I know, I know, how could I let pesky work get in the way!?!).  But it’s super-interesting… I am now the Prize Lead for the newest Ocean XPRIZE - the $7M Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE - in which we are embarking on a journey to discover what’s at the bottom of our oceans.

(more info at oceandiscovery.xprize.org and in case you can’t read, we have a lovely video overview here (wait, why are you here if you can’t read?!? ;-))). 

That was a beginning. There was also an ending of note since the last season: Dr. William Gray (Bill Gray to some), one of the pioneers of hurricane science and the person who started the number of tropical storms/year prediction passed away a few weeks ago. Although I do not agree with the idea of estimating the number of storms in each season (as I may, perhaps, have mentioned once or twice or thrice before), the work that Bill Gray did for hurricane science was pretty darn tootin great. I was privileged to meet him a couple of times and hear him talk once. I toast to a life well lived. Thanks for everything!

Now onto the business at hand. Speaking of hurricane predictions, here is what the Usual Suspects have forecast for this year:

Tropical Storm Risk (prediction date: 27 May): 17 (+/-4) named storms, 9 (+/-3) hurricanes, 4 (+/-2) major hurricanes. 

Colorado State University/Klotzbach-Gray (prediction date: 14 April): 13 named storms, 6 hurricanes, 2 major hurricanes.

UK Met Office (prediction date: 12 May): 15 (+/-4) named storms, 9 (+/-2) hurricanes.

NOAA (prediction date: 27 May): 10-16 named storms, 4-8 hurricanes, 1-4 major hurricanes. 

Interestingly, they are all forecasting a slightly above-average active season (with the usual wiggle room of below average in case it doesn’t pan out of course). The long-term average number of named tropical storms is 12, and the long-term average number of hurricanes per year is 6.

I can say with 100% certainty that there will be at least one Hurricane (let’s call him Alex shall we?) and one Tropical Storm (and we’ll call her Bonnie) in 2016. In fact, I’ll be bold enough to forecast that the next named storm is going to be called Colin! I know, amazing, aren’t I? ;-)

Ok, I may have cheated a bit J … we already had Hurricane Alex way back in January, when everyone was still getting over their holiday food-comas. He visited the Azores and decided that was enough. And we just had Tropical Storm Bonnie who is currently winding down by dumping a bunch of rain over the Carolinas as she works her way up the US East Coast. She’s going to continue with the rain dumping because she is interacting with the Gulf Stream, but because she’s also interacting with land, it doesn’t look like she’ll get any stronger.

This wouldn’t be the Official Start of the Season if I didn’t cut and paste my top ten notes about this blog from last year so you have a reminder of what you are getting into for the next ~6 months! These are well worth reading again, but remember, if you get bored, it is also the Summer season so you should be able to watch the grass grow.

Top 10 things about this blog:

1. These updates are about fun, forecasting, and education... and tropical storms (and whatever else pops into my head that may, with some imagination and possibly after a glass or two of wine, fit those three words). It is just what I think.

2. I have a British sense of humoUr... you have been warned.

3. This is my hobby - sometimes you'll get one update a day, sometime four. If you are really lucky, you won't get any. If you wish to pay me to write, let me know and I'll send out updates as frequently as you like.

4. I hope you like Monty Python, Eddie Izzard, The IT Crowd. And other Funny Stuff.

5. If you have any questions (preferably about tropical storms), please do not hesitate to ask. I will be happy to make up the answers for you. I can also cut and paste from previous entries (I’m very talented) so if I say something or use some "scientific jargon" (ooh ahh, how thrilling), please ask me about it. 

6. I often write tongue-in-cheek, which sometimes hurts my cheek but what can you do? Gentle sarcasm, irony, and puns are all acceptable forms of communication. Unfortunately, they don't always translate in writing so please don't be offended - like Planet Earth, I'm "Mostly Harmless" (Douglas Adams). Have a piece of chocolate or a drink instead.

7. I'm sure every cloud in the Atlantic is exciting to some but, unless I'm bored, I'll usually write about those that I think have a chance of developing. 

8. Despite what you may have heard, I am not always right. But then neither is anyone else. Forecasting is complicated. Sometimes the crystal ball gets smudges and you are all out of Windex to clean it and the store is closed. So PLEASE pay attention to the National Hurricane Center, National Weather Service and your Emergency Managers - especially when a storm is looming because they have the most up-to-date information!! 

9. I have stopped adding people to the listserve, so if you are still on that I highly recommend going to the website posts (http://jyotikastorms.blogspot.com). They are much prettier. I am working towards transitioning to the website only format anyway… as a part of my top-secret grand plan to take over the world (bwa haa haa - evil laughter in case you were wondering). 

10. I confess; I am a twit. I am on twitter (@jyovianstorm). Twitter is cool. Just like bow-ties are cool. (Dr. Who). I will post these updates on Twitter, but I’ll also tweet about storms in other basins so if you want to catch up between updates, that’s the place to lurk.

That’s it for today! All quiet on the Atlantic front for now, so I’ll try and jump back on when there is something out there. Colin better not show up in June though… I have a busy travel schedule! ;-) 

Toodle pip for now!

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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