Tropical Storm Gordon: September 4, Update A

Why is it that every time I travel to the wondrous Planet DragonCon (where my movie had its World Premiere! Hashtag trailer: https://vimeo.com/231982386), Mother Nature sneaks in a storm or TWO?!? This is a quick check on Gordon who is going to be touring the northern Gulf of Mexico coast later today. I'll look at the Hurricane Lady Florence later. 

Tropical Storm Gordon, currently at 28.5N, 86.8W is heading NW at 15mph. His track looks like he'll be making landfall somewhere close to the Gulfport/Bay St. Louis area in Mississippi: 

I would agree with the NHC on the track. 

Regarding his intensity, he is currently a mid-to-strong Tropical Storm with winds of 65mph (TS range: 39-73 mph) with a central pressure of 1001mb. He has some wind shear, so almost all the strong convection is to the east of the storm:

This means that although landfall will be on the western side of Mississippi, the rain and any thundery sort of weather will mostly be to the east of that - including Alabama and a bit of the Florida panhandle. 

Interestingly, his central pressure is quite high at 1001mb, so although the official forecast is that he will become a very weak cat 1 hurricane later today... that's because they don't think that the wind shear will be strong enough to keep him in check. It doesn't look like there's too much going on in the ocean that will cause a him to grow, so it is down to the wind shear. Alas, the latest wind shear data is not available at the moment, but if he does grow stronger it won't be by very much at all and he will really be a borderline Tropical Storm/cat 1.

Gordon will mostly bring water issues (with some wind impacts of course) - in addition to the convection on the east side, he is also going to be pushing water on-shore on the east side. Currently, it looks like water levels in places along the north-eastern Gulf are around 1ft above normal. If you want to look up the storm surge for yourself in the area closest to you, read the <Technical Alert!&gt in this post which discusses NOAA's replacement storm surge site tidesandcurrents (https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/).

Stay safe out there my peeps! I'll be back later with an update on Gordon & Florence. 

Ciao for now,

J. 

Twitter: jyovianstorm

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DISCLAIMER:
These remarks are just what I think/see regarding tropical storms. If you are making an evacuation decision, please heed your local emergency management and the National Hurricane Center's official forecast. This is not an official forecast.
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