Tropical Storm Debby has formed in the Gulf of Mexico
Tropical Storm Debby has been named by the National Hurricane Center this afternoon after hurricane hunters investigated Invest 96L and found a solid closed circulation, with maximum winds of 50mph and gusts up to 65mph. All interests along the Gulf of Mexico coast should pay attention to the progress of Debby. Debby is drifting north at 5mph. The storm has brought heavy rains to Western Cuba, South Florida, and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula over the past two days, but the disturbance's heaviest rains are located well offshore over the Eastern Gulf of Mexico, where heavy thunderstorms are generating winds near tropical storm-force. A buoy 243 miles west of Naples, FL measured sustained winds of 31 mph, gusting to 38 mph, with 10-foot waves, at 8 am EDT Saturday morning. Our Wundermap for the surrounding ocean areas shows a large region of the northern and eastern Gulf of Mexico is experiencing winds of 20 - 30 mph.
Visible satellite loops show an unorganized tropical cyclone with an obvious surface circulation, though the thunderstorm activity is well displaced to the east. The heavy thunderstorm activity is slowly expanding and growing more intense. Upper-level winds out of the west continue to create moderate 10 - 20 knots of wind shear over the region, though that is expected to increase over the next few days. Water vapor satellite loops show a region of dry air over the central Gulf of Mexico, which will continue to interfere with Debby's development and make it hard for the west side of the circulation to maintain heavy thunderstorms. Ocean temperatures are about 28.5°C (83°F) in the Central Gulf of Mexico, which is about 1°F above average.
Figure 1. Saturday afternoon satellite image of Tropical Storm Debby in the Gulf of Mexico.
Figure 2. Saturday afternoon forecast track for Tropical Storm Debby.
Forecast for Debby
The National Hurricane Center is forecasting Debby to remain a tropical cyclone over the next 5 days as it drifts north and then west toward Texas. The Hurricane Center is forecasting a very slow progression of the storm, with a potential landfall not occurring until Friday. However, most of the models that predict the turn to the west suggest landfall will happen before or around Wednesday. The models are still generally split on the forecast for Debby; by Monday, the majority of the reliable models, including the ECMWF, NOGAPS, HWRF, and UKMET, agree that a ridge of high pressure will build in over the Southern U.S., forcing Debby west across the Gulf of Mexico and into South Texas by Wednesday. However, the GFS model, which has been our 2nd most reliable track model over the past two years (behind the ECMWF), has consistently been predicting that a trough of low pressure pushing off of the U.S. East Coast will be capable of grabbing the disturbance and accelerating it to the northeast across Florida north of Tampa Bay on Monday. The GFDL model splits the difference between these extremes and takes Debby north to a landfall near the Alabama/Florida border on Tuesday. The predicted track west to Texas is still the most likely outcome, though it remains a low-confidence forecast. In terms of intensity, none of the models is predicting Debby will become a hurricane, nor is the Hurricane Center. Though sea surface temperature is warm (and around 1°F above average), the actual heat content of the Gulf is relatively low. Wind shear is predicted to remain moderately strong through Sunday, but will increase to 30+ knots by Tuesday.
Debby's place in history (by Jeff Masters)
Remarkably, Debby's formation on June 23 comes a full two months ahead of the usual formation date of the season's fourth storm in the Atlantic, August 23. Debby's formation beats by twelve days the previous record for formation of the fourth named storm of the year in the Atlantic, set in 2005, when Hurricane Dennis was named on July 5. An early start to the Atlantic hurricane season has been increasingly common in recent years. In 2008, I blogged about the research of Dr. Jim Kossin of the University of Wisconsin, who published a 2008 paper in Geophysical Research Letters, titled "Is the North Atlantic hurricane season getting longer?" He concluded that yes, there is a "apparent tendency toward more common early- and late-season storms that correlates with warming Sea Surface Temperature but the uncertainty in these relationships is high". Three out of four of this year's early quartet of storms--Alberto, Beryl, and Debby--formed in ocean areas that were more than 1°F above average, which is an unusually high amount of warmth. We should expect to see more early-season Atlantic tropical storms as a consequence of global warming, since cool ocean temperatures are a key impediment to formation of such storms. However, this assumes that factors such as wind shear and atmospheric stability won't grow more hostile for tropical cyclone formation during the early part of hurricane season, and this is uncertain. If we do end up seeing a substantial increase in early-season tropical storms as a consequence of global warming, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Early-season tropical storms are often more boon than bane, bringing much-needed drought-busting rains, like Tropical Storm Beryl did for North Florida last month. With drought frequency and intensity predicted to increase for much of the Gulf Coastal states in coming decades, an increase in rainfall from early-season tropical storms may do more good than the damages inflicted by the high winds and flooding these storms may bring. There is typically a lot of wind shear around in May, June, and July, making it difficult for early season storms to reach major hurricane status. According to Wunderground's list of major early-season hurricanes, since record keeping began in 1851, there has been only one major hurricane in May, two in June, and nine in July. Three of these occurred in the past ten years, so there has not as yet been a large increase in early-season major hurricanes due to global warming.
References
Kossin, J., 2008, "Is the North Atlantic hurricane season getting longer?", Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 35, L23705, doi:10.1029/2008GL036012, 2008.
Angela and Jeff
Reader Comments
Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 — Blog Index
Aderal is your friend :)
So difficult to tell. However, I think it is on the western edge of the convection. The western half of the circulation is partially exposed, while the eastern half is tucked underneath the convection.
What are your thoughts? Think I have a good chance of getting off the ground without any Debby issues?
Link
I think the storm got sheared a bit in the last few frames based on this
Link
Oh man, oh man.
This is correct. She still has an elongated circulation that moves out to the west a little bit, but she will eventually P90X and dump that baggage. Mean time, you are exactly correct.
NOTE: The GFS always saw this evolution...and basically all the other models are doing better, as they now initialize the "pre P90X Debby", where she is focused on the NE side, but has a saggy stretched out behind that lags to the wsw of the true center.
Tommorow, 1PM est, you heard it here first!
The ascat earlier should have revealed that, the strongest winds were in the outer bands, headed for florida!
You are looking good at the moment...All models including the EURO are now east of you...From New Orleans to just north of Tampa. The only exception in the models would be the unreliable HWRF...which goes significantly south of you toward extreme south Texas. Hope this is good news for you. It looks to be so.
...but then again, her face is on chocolate bars and brownies so what can you expect?
I really have no idea what they were thinking when they issued the watchings and warnings. Like I said earlier, with a storm this lopsided to the east, and the storm moving north.... how could they have left out Florida?
Even if their track ends up being the correct one... N Florida is going to be seeing TS conditions this morning and afternoon.... while Louisiana (the area WITH the warnings) may not see TS conditions for a couple days. Really weird how they issued the watches and warnings.
As for the cone, I expected it to be a giant circle around the CoC, giving away the fact that they had no idea. I guess they tried to make the call a bit too early and are gonna sweat it out now!
This is no major hurricane though, so be happy with that.
Seems like someone had a little fun tonight...got on that good stuff.
The gfs sure focuses alright, that guy is stone-cold sober!
Crazy, but sober, like a psychopath or something.
Nothing other than the fact that no models point to Texas anymore...maybe one.
If anything, a few models shifted to the east, live we've been saying.
Current euro forecast is a NOLA landfall in four days.
Staying awake for recon is a bit extreme, I'm staying up till 5am instead.
Ok that's new I'll have to take a look at them. It's strange how none of them can get a handle on this.
Link
If there is a category five threatening the united states anywhere, I'll sure stay up till land fall.
Sure is looking that way. If that's the case there's gonna be a lot of surprised people up there...
No...it was a perfect analogy at the time...I'm looking at the models and seeing how they showed that elongation to the WSW like we see on satellite, then some of them dump it...kinda as a strengthening storm sould be expected to do. Then, the late night P90X commercial just happenned to be on in the background and there was a click. For the record, after sitting on the computer interacting on Wunderground the last few nights...I think I need some P90X to dump some baggage too. It's late/early hours. just trying to have some fun while making a tie in on Debby. :)
Also hearing that most of the models shifted towards FL landfall but I want to see the data for sure tho.. But She is starting to get a lil organized .. If she gets more convection around her center then we got a new ball game.. Most likely more strengthening b4 landfall somewhere a long the gulf-coast.. I never wish any storm on anyone b/c it really does suck riding out a slow moving storm or any strong storm.. I hope everyone be safe if u run into any bad weather conditions..
JG
Look for the 5 AM models..
In theater announcer voice:
Because everything is about to change.
HEADERS, WHATEVER DISCUSSION 3 I GUESS
WTF? LOL, IDK. GOOD LUCK.
FORECAST POSITIONS AND MAX WINDS
INIT WHEVER IT IS NOW
120H SOMEWHERE ELSE
$$
FORCASTER AVILA
Great.. Storms love to follow him where ever he is reporting from .. go figure!
Kinda sounds like my forecasting lol.
Canotore's record includes never being inside the eye of a Hurricane. LOL...Cantore shield is on in P'Cola! ;)
I thought they usually went the other way, like they were afraid of him or something.
getting closer.. yikes!
u know what .. I have met Cantore and He is short.. He is like 5'2" .. I kid u not!
Viewing: 2001 - 2051
Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 — Blog Index