Remains of Gonzalo, Hurricane Hanna, Hurricane Douglas, and the Atlantic Blob: July 25, Update A

Saturday quiz time... 

Hmm. Tricky. What do you think? ;-)

Yesterday's Tropical Storm Gonzalo is now a bit of a will-o-the-wisp. Grenada had breezy winds of around 30mph and maybe a drop of rain. He's pretty much dissipated, so this is the last update on Mr TS Gonzalo.

Hurricane Hanna

She was finally upgraded to a hurricane this morning and is currently a cat 1 storm with winds of 85mph, central pressure 975mb. She did get close to cat 2 with winds of over 90mph (cat 2 range: 96-110mph) as she approached the Texas coastline, but since landfall has decreased in intensity a little. Landfall was on Padre Island in Texas about 3 hours ago (5pm CDT), and she is currently crossing Texas on her way to Mexico:

You can see that she is deteriorating quite rapidly as she interacts with land and her convection has decreased quite a lot. 

She's currently at 26.7N, 97.5W, heading WSW at 8mph. Her plans are to cross the US/Mexico Border and then settle down in Mexico. As we know, storms don't really care about walls. ;-) 

Unless something odd happens, I think this will be my last update on Hurricane Hanna as well as she's expected to be a Tropical Depression tomorrow. 

Two down, two to go.... :-)

Hurricane Douglas

Meanwhile, over in the Pacific, things are looking much better for Magnum PI and his pals on Hawaii (by the way, we've been re-watching the classic shows from the 80s and it is a hoot! :-)).

Douglas is now a cat 1 storm with winds of 90mph, central pressure 982mb, which makes him a mid-to-strong cat 1 (cat 1 range: 74-95mph). He is currently at 19.7N, 150.7W, heading WNW at 16mph and the track takes him close to the Big Island of Hawai'i tonight and passing near/over Oahu tomorrow: 

As you can see, he's not quite as well formed as he was even yesterday because of a bit of dry air (although that's decreasing now) and some wind shear: 

He has just moved back into an area of slightly warmer water with sea surface temperatures of 26 deg C, but he will continue to get weaker as he gets closer to the islands because the wind shear is also increasing. We can see the impact of the wind shear already because the clouds are streaming off to the northeast. The NHC forecast that he'll be in the Oahu area with winds of around 80mph, so as a relatively weak cat 1 storm. He may actually be a little weaker, but not by much - s0 expect a strong Tropical Storm/weak cat 1. I agree with the NHC on their the track and generally in their intensity forecast. 

Atlantic Blob

And so we return to the hurricane bowling alley with another blobette... 

He currently has a 50% chance of development in the next 48 hours, so I'll have a proper look at him tomorrow as it's wine-o-clock here. :-)

The next name is Isaias. We've never had an Isaias before! Hurricane names are on a 6-year rotation so, for example, the last time we had a Tropical Storm Hanna was in 2014. In 2014, that was actually the last storm of the Atlantic season in late October 2014. However, 6 years before that, in 2008, Hurricane Hanna was in late August/early September, and she was followed by the disastrous Hurricane Ike which caused 195 fatalities and $38 billion in damage (2008 dollars). When a storm is so damaging, they retire the name. So hence needing a new 'I' name. 

Ciao for now,

J. 

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 local 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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