Sep 5, 2011

DAY 96

Lee is now a tropical depression sprawling out over the southeastern US. He spent most of Sunday raining out Labor Day Barbecues and sporting events. The center of circulation is just exiting Louisiana in to Mississippi. Maximum sustained winds are 35 mph and the pressure is 990 mb. Lee is forecast to move through Mississippi and Alabama over the next couple of days, a to continue producing tropical rainfall in the southern states.

(Tropical Storm Lee)

The rainfall totals with Lee have been impressive. Southeast Louisiana saw the most rain. As much as 14 inches fell in some areas. A few canals did breach temporary levees but it seems as though that area is dealing with Lee's tremendous rainfall quite well.



Katia is a Hurricane once again. She was able to strengthen to a category 2 hurricane today. She is now north of the Virgin Islands and moving northwest at 13 mph. She has maximum sustained winds of 105 mph and a pressure of 965 mb. Katia is maintaining a tight and symetrical form now and should be able to become a major hurricane by late Monday night.

(Hurricane Katia)

As Katia's timing now starts to coincide better with the timing of the next US continental trough and also with what Tropical Depression Lee is going to do, meteorologists are able to better predict when Katia might start to make a move away from the US coast. The Hurricane Center's forecast track has Katia making that move in about 3 days.


The computer models are also in some agreement on this turn. This is the best possible solution for land areas, as it would shoot between the Outer Banks and Bermuda. So we can expect Katia to continue to strengthen, continue to move northwest for a few more days, and then start to make that turn.



Elsewhere in the tropics, we can start to look for more areas of invest. There are 2  that we can watch this week along with watching to see what Katia does. One is a tropical wave that is at about 30W right now. This area has gained some attention from global forecast models and could be an Invest in a day or so. The computer models also like a disturbance to emerge from the Bay of Campeche in about 2 to 3 days. This area of invest would likely head for the Gulf Coast if it develops before the end of the week.

(Tropical Wave)

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