Tropical Storm Josephine: August 13, Update A

I'm going to start today with a full-ice-cream-truck-worth of news! The short sci-fi movie I produced, Hashtag, has had over half-a-million views since it was released about 2.5 months ago (and it wasn't all just me hitting play)! Congratulations to everyone who was involved in making this film. I'm well chuffed (and I may have eaten too much celebratory ice cream). ;-)

And I see that our little Tropical Storm Josephine is currently at 14.8N, 52.2W, heading WNW at a pretty decent 17mph. The track has shifted back to the north - good news for the Caribbean - but maybe not so groovy if you were planning on playing golf on Bermuda next week.  

I don't have enough detailed data so I will go with the NHC on the track forecast. 

She is currently a very weak storm with winds of 45 mph (TS range: 39-73mph), central pressure 1005mb. The NHC forecast is that she'll get stronger - to around 50mph in the next 12 hours and to 60mph in the next 24 hours (by Friday night)- and then she'll start to deteriorate so theoretically she won't even be a TS by the time she visits Bermuda - there may not be any dark and stormy's for you!  There is some wind shear and she does have a little bit more of that lovely dry dusty SAL to get through...

...but I'm not yet convinced that she is as weak as they think she is at the moment. I would already put her as a mid-level TS with winds somewhere in the 50-60mph range. She has some good vorticity (circulation) in the lowest half of the troposphere - although the wind shear means that the vertical structure isn't as robust as it could be. But I do also see a small hint of vorticity in the upper troposphere, which is a sign that she's trying to get to hurricane status (the SAL/wind shear is stopping her for now). 

Her satellite imagery shows that she has some strong convection: 

And a close up shows us some pretty good cloud structure developing with a center that is a little protected from the dry and dusty air around her (this imagery has a little colour/jumping around issue - it's not you starring at a screen for too many hours in the day - but you get the idea): 

(You should ignore the overlaying grid as well. I'm not sure that's right either - someone needs to check some algorithm or other methinks). 

I do think she's stronger than the NHC think at the moment, but she is about to enter an area of stronger wind shear so we'll see if that's enough to keep her in check moving forward. 

That's it for now. 

Toodle pip,

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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