By the way...when was the last time a hurricane hit Houston. Last year doesn't really count and I am not counting tropical storms. Has it been 17+ years?
Jeff, what do you think about what happened to Erin? Apparently it strengthened back into TS strength over Oklahoma! The radar a few hours ago was incredible. You could clearly see an eye and reports of gusts of up to 80mph. There has been catastrophic flooding in Oklahoma. Luckily it continues to move east. This is their TS Allison.
That is not a computer model. That is just climatology. Don't even look at it. Edit: Here is a page that describes many of those computer models that you see folks talking about. http://www.srh.noaa.gov/ssd/nwpmodel/html/nhcmodel.htm#CLIPER
Sorry, was a little slow on the link. Read above. It has no data entered into it for current atmospheric conditions. Basically it'll just take its current movement then bend it right as it gains latitude, like storms usually do. Of course that's not going to happen with that big fat high pressure ridge to the north of Dean...Probably.
I saw that. It is incredibly fascinating. I wonder how that happens. Was there some upper level low that merged with it or something??? It's an incredible freak of nature. Here's a loop of it. You know, I wonder why they include the CLIPS on storm model tracks given that so many people in the general public now read these things.
It looks like the eye of the hurricane just "jugged" a little bit north the last few slides of the Satellite image. It will come very close to the southern Jamaica coast. http://www.weather.com/maps/news/atlstorm4/atl4satellite_large_animated.html
The CLP5 is Neil Frank's personal hurricane computer model that he does at home. Basically, any data that brings it towards the Houston/Galveston area is included in it...
http://www.goes.noaa.gov/HURRLOOPS/gulfwv.html It looks like the ULL has either stalled or maybe moving a tad north? If that stays where it is , we may have a problem. Correct me if I'm wrong.
This thing, AT BEST, has a 5% likelihood of hitting Houston. I'm sorry, but I don't give a crap about this. Even when everyone was freaking out about Rita, I enjoyed myself with a video game, while the rest of my boys enjoyed some empty parking garage antics. And, yes, we were all over the age of 30. To anyone who was here during Alicia, you just don't freak out about hurricanes. If your in Houston proper, you're just about at 100% to do just fine. Or does anyone recall the horrific deaths that occured? hmmmm... nobody? Thought so.
Right now, even with the ULL moving more slowly, the high pressure area is digging westward and pushing Dean along a pretty rapid clip. The ULL will get pushed by this high into Texas or northern Mexico before it has a significant chance to impact Dean and all the models are in good agreement on this. Even if it does exert some degree of influence on Dean, the turn to the right will be LATE in the forecast period, likely after Dean has already been across the Yucatan. At that point, the turn northward would only be a jog and still keep him in Mexico. I pulled the 00z model runs that incorporate the data from the last recon mission run by the NHC and they are still insistent on a southerly track. A couple of them have bent slightly to the north, but no more than 100 miles north of the official forecast, at most, keeping Dean well into the central Mexican coastline. Now, if that ULL had stalled on Friday or Saturday, that would've been a different story.
