[OFFICIAL] Hurricane Season 2007

I think it is more about channel 2 than Billingsley. During Rita, I would only watch him because I felt like he was the only one providing objective coverage leading up to the storm's landfall. I even emailed him afterward to tell him I appreciated it.

I THOUGHT Dr. Neil would be the most objective, but he turned out to be the guy with some of the worst scare tactics.

 

Some interesting updates this morning. First, Dean is, not surprisingly, our first hurricane of the season. There are no inhibiting factors for growth of the storm and virtually all of the forecast models have him growing into a powerful category 3 or 4 storm by the time it reaches the western Caribbean.

The NHC's latest track forecast is very similar to last night and brings the storm into the Yucatan peninsula by day 5 of the forecast period. All the models are clustered pretty tightly together with landfalls ranging from Belize to north central Yucatan with the exception of the GFDL which moves the storm through the straights and north towards New Orleans.

The GFDL has had the hardest time maintaining a consistent forecast track and still seems to be bouncing around quite a bit, while the NOGAPS has come into full agreement with the other models. The UKMET and GFS have remained remarkably consistent now for a couple days and Dr. Jeff Masters at Wunderground seems to be leaning towards that consensus (as does the NHC). Masters posted this in his blog this morning:

Landfall in the Yucatan are the preferred solutions, followed by an emergence into the Gulf of Mexico, with a second landfall near the Mexico/Texas border. I'd be surprised to see Dean make a turn northwards in the Gulf of Mexico towards Louisiana or points further east, as there are no strong troughs of low pressure coming across the U.S. until late next week.

The key will be forward speed at this point. The quicker it moves toward the west, the more likely the track will stay in place. At the moment, extrapolating the NHC's track, the Houston/Galveston area is the farthest northerly point on the dreaded cone of uncertainty.

There is no question we are still at risk, but if the model runs continue to remain consistent over the next couple days, it's a strong indication the Houston area will be spared from Dean.

 

Note how tightly packed the model tracks are at three and five days. This chart, for whatever reason, doesn't include the GFS but the AVNO is a close approximation on this map. Only a couple models fall outside this range at five days meaning the NHC track is in very good agreement with all the models.

I doubt, even with the GFDL, the NHC will change its track at 11am (EST). By Saturday, we'll have a much clearer picture of what Dean will do after it strikes the Yucatan - for those of us in Houston, that's huge.

 

Technically, it isn't particularly tightly packed. The center of circulation is west and south of the center. All of the rain is to the east and north wrapping around what's left of Erin. That's a big blob of rain though.

 

Normally, the worst side of any storm is the northeast quadrant, commonly referred to as the wet side of the storm. In all tropical storms, it is the region with the highest winds and most torrential rain.

It is why when a storm makes landfall, it is critical exactly where it lands. Katrina is a good example of this. Though New Orleans was damaged terribly, that damage came mostly from human neglect of the levies that broke in the torrential downpours from the storm. It was actually Mississippi that got the worst of the storm because the eye passed directly over its southern coast. They got the highest winds, the greatest storm surge and, likely, the most rain.

In small storms like Gilbert was and apparently what Dean is becoming, the difference of 100 miles at landfall can be the difference between cat 3-4 winds and tropical storm winds in the most extreme cases.

 

Quick update. Some of the most recent model runs are in. The GFS remains consistent with a track into northern Mexico about 2 days after a landfall on the Yucatan Peninsula. That would put the storm on land in Mexcio late next Tuesday. Most of the models and the NHC think this is too quick (I do too) and show it making landfall on Thursday.

The NOGAPS hasn't run since last night. The UKMET continues its tracking of the storm across the Yucatan, but it has a more sharp northwesterly turn in the Gulf putting southwest of Corpus Christi next Wednesday.

The latest run of the GFDL has nudged southward a bit. At this point, it is the only outlier among the models. All of the other models including the HWRF, which will take the place of the GFDL next year, show landfall on the Yucatan somewhere between the northern tip and Belize.

Given the slight nudge south by the GFDL and the consensus of all the other models, I'd expect to see the NHC nudge their forecast track SLIGHTLY south in their next update.

More significantly, there is a hurricane hunter aircraft flying into Dean this afternoon. The NHC may have that data by the time they make their next update, but if not, the 11pm (EST) update will no doubt contain that information and all the models that run tonight will incorporate that data, which is really important to helping handle forecasting.

By tomorrow morning, I think we'll continue to see consensus among the models on the storm track over the next 5 days. Maybe even the GFDL will come in line by then.