Danielle steams towards Bermuda; Earl organizing over eastern Atlantic
Hurricane Danielle continues on its steady northwesterly path towards Bermuda, as a respectable Category 2 hurricane with 105 mph winds. However, the hurricane has had its troubles this morning--Danielle wrapped a significant amount of dry air into its core between 4am - 8am EDT this morning, and Infrared satellite loops show that Danielle's cloud tops warmed late this morning, indicating that this dry air reduced the vigor of Danielle's thunderstorms. Danielle has managed to quickly mix out most of this dry air and reform its broken eyewall early this afternoon, as seen on recent visible satellite imagery (Figure 1.) We'll get a better idea of Danielle's intensity on Friday afternoon, when the first Hurricane Hunter mission is scheduled. The storm is still too far from land to reach with their airplanes today.
Figure 1. Morning satellite image of Danielle. A huge thunderstorm has blown up on the west side of the eyewall, giving the hurricane a rather lopsided appearance.
Intensity forecast for Danielle
Once Danielle recovers from its current troubles with dry air, warm 29°C SSTs combined with low wind shear of 5 - 10 knots should allow the storm to intensify. There is substantial dry air to the west and south of Danielle, though, and it is quite possible that some unexpected increase in shear could inject dry air into the hurricane at any time over the next few days. The latest SHIPS model forecast predicts that this shear will remain low, 5 - 10 knots, over the next three days, but then rapidly rise to a high 20 - 40 knots on Sunday. Danielle will probably reach peak intensity Saturday night or Sunday morning, near the time of its closest approach to Bermuda. NHC is giving Danielle a 41% chance of becoming a major Category 3 hurricane.
Track forecast for Danielle
On Saturday, a trough of low pressure that is expected to move off the East Coast of the U.S. and Canada should begin pulling Danielle due north, with the hurricane passing east of Bermuda Saturday night through Sunday. NHC is giving Bermuda a 25% chance of receiving tropical storm force winds of 39 mph or greater from Danielle, and a 1% chance of getting hurricane force winds. This is a substantial reduction from the odds given in the 5am forecast, which were 37% and 6%, respectively. The Bermuda Weather Service is predicting 15 - 20 foot waves this weekend for Bermuda's offshore waters. The most likely scenario once Danielle passes north of Bermuda is for the storm to recurve out to sea, missing the U.S. and Canadian coasts. All of the computer models currently call for this scenario. The possibility of Danielle stalling north of Bermuda and potentially tracking northwest towards the U.S. and Canadian coasts, as called for by the NOGAPS model in some of its runs yesterday, is looking less likely.
History suggests that a storm in Danielle's current location has only a 5 - 10% chance of making landfall on the U.S. East Coast. If Danielle passes east of Bermuda, as forecast, these percentages drop to less than 5%. However, Danielle will bring high surf conditions to the U.S. East Coast beginning this weekend. The latest wave forecast from NOAA's Wavewatch III model (which uses the GFS model as its prediction for the position and intensity of hurricanes), calls for waves from Danielle to begin hitting the coast of North Carolina on Saturday. These waves will build to 7 - 10 feet in the offshore waters from Northern Florida to North Carolina by Sunday. The latest near shore water forecast for Cape Hatteras calls for 5 - 8 foot waves Saturday, and 7 - 10 feet on Sunday.
Figure 1. Morning satellite image of Danielle, Earl, and a new tropical wave emerging from the coast of Africa (possibly to be designated 97L?)
Tropical Storm Earl
Tropical Storm Earl developed late yesterday afternoon, one week ahead of when climatology suggests the fifth named storm of the year should occur in the Atlantic. Earl is currently very weak and ragged looking, thanks to dry air and wind shear. The wind shear analysis from the University of Wisconsin CIMSS group shows an upper level trough of low pressure to the north of Earl is bringing a high 20 - 30 knots of wind shear to the northern portion of the storm, though the center of Earl is under low wind shear of 5 - 10 knots. The shear has injected dry air into the storm, disrupting the circulation. As a result, Earl has a rather disorganized clumpy appearance on satellite imagery, and the center jumped 30 miles to the south this morning to reposition itself farther from the shear, and closer to the main region of heavy thunderstorms. Water vapor satellite images show a large region of dry air from the Sahara lies to the west of Earl, and this dry air will likely be the primary inhibiting factor for development over the next three days. Sea surface temperatures are warm, around 28°C. Earl is too far from land for the Hurricane Hunters to reach, and the first flight into the storm is not scheduled until Sunday afternoon.
Forecast for Earl
Wind shear is predicted to remain low to moderate, 5 - 15 knots, for the next five days. SSTs will steadily warm--to 28°C on Friday, and 29°C by Sunday. Earl may cross Danielle's cold water wake at some point, which could interrupt development. Dry air will probably be the main inhibiting factor for Earl over the next three days. In combination, these factors should allow for a slow intensification of Earl into a hurricane 4 - 5 days from now.
History suggests that a storm in Earl's current location has a 15 - 20% chance of making landfall on the U.S. East Coast, but the long term fate of Earl remains unclear. The storm is being steered by the same ridge of high pressure steering Danielle, and Earl will initially follow a track similar to Danielle's. As Earl enters the central Atlantic 4 - 5 days from now, the storm will encounter the same mid-Atlantic trough that is steering Danielle to the north. This trough should be able to turn Earl far enough to the northwest so that the storm will miss the Lesser Antilles Islands. It is unclear at this point whether this trough will be strong enough to fully recurve Earl out to sea, east of Bermuda. The long range 6 - 10 day forecasts from the GFS and ECMWF models have consistently been calling for Earl to turn north and follow Danielle, bringing Earl very close to Bermuda next week. This is a reasonable forecast, since Danielle is large enough and strong enough to create a low pressure "path of least resistance" for Earl to follow northwestward towards Bermuda.
Elsewhere in the Tropics
A new tropical wave emerged from the coast of Africa yesterday, and has the potential to develop into a tropical depression early next week. Several of the computer models develop this wave 3 - 6 days from now, and I can't see any reason why this would not occur. Conditions for tropical cyclone development will remain favorable in the Eastern Atlantic for at least the next week, and several of these models successfully predicted the development of both Danielle and Earl well in advance. The new wave will follow a track similar to that of Danielle and Earl, with an unknown potential for eventually affecting any land areas.
In the Eastern Pacific, Hurricane Frank has moved away away from the Mexican coast, and does not appear to be a threat to bring heavy rains to Mexico.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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(5)Just checked.
Danielle was not strong enough nor was not moving slow enough to mess up the SSTs in front of Earl
dry air is why Earl is having issues
That is true too....figured I'd humor him, but it's the behavior you will find on any blog at all in the universe so posting it to look "mature" is rather pointless.
There Ike, you can check completely the 3rd one! XD
LOL
haha, nice! Awesome!
Imagine if the 18z GFS forecast of nothing behind 97L/Fiona verifies (which it won't). They'd come back in full force.
O.o... (coast of va here...lol)
Pretty much. Gets annoying when people here assume all Floridians are some sort of sadistic wishcasters. No worse than the NOLAcasters or whatnot. Heck, didn't we see someone from the PR hope that Earl impacted them directly?
WOW!
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/people/wwang/cfs_fcst/images3/nino34SSTSe a.gif
The forecast of the CFS for the depth of the La Nina is almost impossible to consider, and not for the usual readings ( model cluelessness being one) As much as I am banging the La Nina drum, the energy considerations of a forecast that drops the temp in enso 3.4 this low for this long boggles the mind. That some runs as are as low as -3.5C for a season would indicate that the loss of energy to the earths system... remember that temperature is a measure of energy and the greatest concentration of energy for the earth per square mile is in the tropical pacific ocean, would be like taking the feet out from under the earths temp. The implied drop in temps would easily outduel the warming of the nino, and go far beyond even what I am thinking.
How does this stack up, this forecast, against the major La Ninas and remember, the lag behind the la nina or el nino as far as global temps have implications later than the actual drop... the forecast I have for March being back to the late 90s is based on what is going on now, plus the reality of the temps then.. However the forecast later in terms of 1-2 years would be based on how cold it actually got in the Pacific. Well look at this site:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution -status-fcsts-web.pdf
scroll to page 23 and we can find that the La Nina of the mid 50s and mid 70s had the lowest values at -2.1 and -2 respectively. The mid 50s one occurred with the amo still warm and the mid 70s one was with both cold PDO and cold AMO and of course the years after that had 3 severe winters in a row, the culmination of what happens when both the oceanic cycles are cold in tandem for multiple decades. The earlier one was when we were still coming out of a warm period that I believe if could be measured by OBJECTIVE SATELLITE measurements we have today, would rivale the warmth. The point is that what is coming will answer alot of AGW questions over the coming decade and since if anything forecasts I am making based on a look at the cold hard facts of the past seem to have a way of showing up later in the models, I am hoping for a chance to prove my theory on this matter.. that the big drivers and the main drivers for the global weather patterns and resultant climate.. not trace gasses needed for the sustaining of life on the planet.
ciao for now
*** THURSDAY 3:30 PM
RECORD SINGLE DAY AUGUST ACE POSSIBLE EARLY NEXT WEEK. EARL TO CAUSE WAILING AND GNASHING OF TEETH FOR EAST COAST FORECASTERS FIONA TO BE REVVING UP QUICKLY.
Since alot is being made about how "quiet" it has been I will break the silence and say that by Aug 31, the highest single day August ACE is possible. At that time, 3 hurricanes should be going and 2 of them may be major.
Earl is going to be a major storm and give folks alot of anxious moments. It will be tricky as the storm will be quite a bit further west than Danielle later next week when the pattern breaks down and it starts its recurve. The GFS has simply corrected to what it was missing before and while I dont think it can quite get back to the east coast.. yet, it will be tricky. All it will take is it moving faster through the shadow of the trough that is catching Danielle and that could get it as far back as 75 west when it turns north. Right now I think the best idea is midway between 70 and 75.
The Hatch it job people are too slow on Fiona in my opinion as I expect by objective methods this is a storm within 48 hours
Earl will be very interesting to watch as soon as it breaks the "track" path of Danielle, a rapid deepening period should begin over the weekend.
If these werent around, the big story would be heat, as some records could fall next week in the east
The gulf situation should be more clear tomorrow morning as we see if tstorms focus once the tropical wave comes in. Folks on the Texas coast should be aware that this is a potential problem. The NAM, though most of the time laughable, is doing what it is doing because it sees what CAN happen here.
thanks for reading, ciao for now
by joe b
Yup.
I agree.
How about just grouping us all together and call us Conuscasters?
yea I love how that happens too, you get a handful of people who wish a storm upon them and people assume that everyone from that state feels that way
Let us also not forget the end game with Earl will also be how deep he gets. If Earl eats dry air like it's the last donut on planet earth, you can bet your boots that he will MISS being curved in the same fashion Danielle was.
Beyond THAT POINT... Synoptics are still up in the air. Pun intended...
I DON'T WANT TO BE WEST CASTER!! But I think Earl going to go fartehr west further south than the current track.. :(((
I'm still a down caster for the season..we finally have a burst now almost at the peak but thats to be expected I still think it will be average..
OK Everybody scream at me!!!!
Unsure what spawned that sentiment, but, thank you :)
Hah, I like it. "Models show a storm brushing the outerbanks" "THE MODELS ARE OBVIOUSLY CONUSCASTING!"
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE AUSTIN/SAN ANTONIO TX
334 PM CDT THU AUG 26 2010
THERE ARE DISCREPANCIES BETWEEN THE MODELS ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF
THE TROPICAL DISTURBANCE FORECAST FOR THE WEEKEND AND THE START OF
NEXT WEEK. THE GFS SOLUTION KEEPS THE DISTURBANCE MORE OF AN OPEN
WAVE AND MOVES IT INTO MEXICO SOUTH OF BROWNSVILLE. THE NAM...ON
THE OTHER HAND...IS MORE PROGRESSIVE WITH THE DISTURBANCE MAKING
IT A SURFACE LOW AND BRINGS ONTO LAND CLOSE TO WHERE THE GFS DOES.
AFTER LANDFALL BOTH MODELS MOVE THE DISTURBANCE NORTHWARD WITH THE
NAM TRACKING FURTHER TO THE WEST.
La Nina seasons often end very late, sometimes even in December. Don't drop your guard down. And remember Opal in 1995? It formed during a year much like this one, where a lot of recurvatures were taking place prior to 65W. Opal managed to sneak underneath the troughing and develop over the Yucatan Peninsula. It was a major hurricane for the northern Gulf Coast in October.
I'm in Louisiana too, and trust me, our season isn't over. History does NOT suggest that. Please don't assume we can "breathe easy" yet. I'm not a wishcaster, just a fact stater.
Oh I don't think his intensity will have much to do with his track before 60W. In fact a strong Earl blasting westward at a good pace while strengthening will be more likely to navigate the base of Danielle's weakness quicker without gaining much latitude.
The ones wishing for a storm have never had to go weeks in the southern heat and humidity without ac. They've never had to deal with insurance adjusters for years.
1.And a person who is monitoring this blog that acknowledges what everyone says generally.
2.And a person whose name is associated with a Hurricane.
1.Check!
2.Check!
Hmmm...could it be? Hmmm?
but at what point do those who call out "wish-caster" realize that sometimes the storms actually do go further west and impact the US?
Very true. And when a model shows something in the Sacred Gulf (even if its a twisted isobar) they all get excited and start making comments such as "...lol OMG it shows it right over my house lol..."
nope, it's got literacy on it's side.
LOL.
And with the Front coming in behind the low north of the azores and trough to the SE behind Danielle being almost broken off there will be a lot of dry air to eat. But this will also keep it south.
http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/east/tatl/wv-l.jpg
It certainly isn't. Much bigger of a place than I am used to being in lol.
Another thing to remember is that no amount of "casting" is going to change anything.
In the words of IKE "It's the weather, and there's nothing any of us can do about it."
Exactly.
wow you have 32,000 comemts
And I've never been banned....yet.
Though I wish we could. I'd give myself snow every year. lol
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