Do We Have Irene Yet?

An Air Force Hurricane Hunter aircraft is just finishing up a recon mission through "Invest 97" out in the eastern Caribbean.

I have superimposed the flight path and data observations on the satellite image above.   I sort of "connected the dots", if you will, with respect to the observed wind directions by drawing the red line with the arrows over the data.  As you can see, a counter-clockwise, closed circulation does exist.

The winds are very weak on the Southwest side (only 10-15 mph) near the center, but are very strong further to the Northeast.  The red circled area with text notation indicates where a dropsonde measured a 46 mph wind at the surface in the Northeast quadrant of the system.  Remember, only 39 mph winds are needed for a Tropical Storm.  Since I began typing this post, the detailed report/summary was published, which indicates that a maximum surface wind of 62 mph was measured 82 miles Northeast of the center:

In my opinion, we have Irene at this time... but who knows what the NHC is going to do.  It's been harder to predict what they're going to do at times this season than it has been to predict what the storms will do...

Regardless of what the "official" call is, the good news is that we now have a detailed set of recon data which will be ingested by this evening's computer forecast models, among other things...

The system has been battling the dry Saharan air for the past 24-36 hours, but is starting to move into a region with greater available moisture, as you can see on the water vapor satellite image below:

This should lead to further organization and intensification over the coming days...

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Invest 97 Looking Very Organized - Irene in the Making...

Tropical Invest 97 is looking very organized on satellite imagery this evening (center of image above). I would not be at all surprised if this system were to become Tropical Storm Irene on Saturday. An Air Force Hurricane Hunter is scheduled to investigate the system tomorrow.

Residents of Florida and adjacent portions of the southeast U.S. need to keep a close eye on this system as computer forecast models continue to converge on this region for potential landfall at the end of next week:

I plan to make one or more detailed posts regarding the model forecasts of this system over the weekend, so stay tuned!

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Tropics Continue to Heat-Up; Potential Hurricane for SE U.S. Next Week

As mentioned in a post a couple of days ago, the tropics have been heating up recently, and at least one system developing out in the tropical Atlantic poses a threat to the U.S. next week - potentially a significant one at that.





Lets begin by taking a broad look at the satellite picture over the tropical Atlantic this morning.  The Florida coast is located in the upper left corner of the image, and the coast of Africa is located toward the center right portion of the image:

As you can see, I've highlighted 2 particular tropical waves (or disturbances), dubbed "Invest 97" (the Western most wave) and "Invest 98" (the Eastern most wave coming off of the African coast).  





Invest 97 is the one to keep a close eye on initially, particularly if you live in Florida or adjacent portions of the Southeast U.S.  Computer forecast models (see image below) are currently pointing to this region for potential impact on Thursday or Friday of next week (8/25-8/26).  The system is forecast to reach hurricane strength by that time.

The models have shifted the track a bit Westward in the last 24 hours, but still keep a primary focus on Florida.  It is important to remember that both intensity and track forecasts this far out often display wild fluctuations.  With that having been said, Floridians and others in the Southeast U.S. should pay very close attention to the progress of this system over the coming days.





As you can see in the original tropical Atlantic satellite image, we will also have to keep an eye on Invest 98 as well as other disturbances that are lining up (yellow circled areas on that image) across Africa and moving Westward.





It certainly does appear that the end of August and at least the beginning of September are shaping up to be quite active in the tropics!









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