Jul 21, 2011

DAY 50

Hurricane Dora is about as pretty as a storm gets. She is now a Category 4 major Hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 135 mph and a pressure of 948 mb. The good news is that the forecast track for now is away from the Baja Peninsula.

                                                 (Dora Loop)

                                              (Dora Visible)

Tropical Storm Bret is down to maximum sustained winds of 40 mph and a pressure of 1007 mb. He is still being heavily sheared from the north. The only convection is to the south of the center of circulation. Bret is forecast to continue moving out north-northeast and drop down to depression status tomorrow night.

                                                   (Bret Visible)

The Invest out in front of Bret has been named Cindy today. You could say that the Hurricane Center just wasted the name on a storm that will only live a few days and will have no impact on any land. You could say that in years with a high number of pre-season storms that are forecast, NHC will name borderline storms to help insure aggressive predictions. But most likely it was just a case of sticking to the 'letter of the law' and naming any tropical or sub-tropical storm that meets the criteria laid out by the NHC no matter how long or impacting the storm appears to be.

                                                 (Cindy Rainbow Infrared)

In this case Cindy deserves to be Cindy. She began her life along the same frontal boundary that Bret did. Once she broke free from that front, she was able to start using the ocean as the source of her energy and made the transition into a tropical storm. And Cindy is truly tropical. No one would fault you if you called her a sub-tropical storm though. After all she did form from a frontal system, and she did form in the sub-tropics and will never venture into the tropical latitudes. But in this case it's the center of circulation that makes the difference. You can see heavy convection right over the center of circulation indicating that the core of the storm is warm from top to bottom. A sub-tropical storm still has a cold level to it or would be completely cold-core and the center would be void of convection. The convection would be far removed from the center.

                                                (Cindy Visible)

But enough about Cindy already. We do still have the African wave that has been on our radar for a few days now. It is now at about 47 west and will be approaching the windward islands in about 3 days. Now all of the long range models have recognized this feature. The CMC, NoGaps, and the UKMet all develop a closed circulation in about six days and the GFS is at least now acknowledging the bend in the isobars throughout its duration. It is still to early to speculate on whether it will be able to stay below the many ridges to the north.

                                             (Atlantic Infrared)

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for keeping us west coast folks informed.


    -Ryan C

    ReplyDelete