Just a heads up. Chris has remained a tropical storm and has even shows some signs of better organization. The models that have continually predicted a more southerly track are finally getting the NHC to nudge its track southward as well. The bad news: Chris still exists and, given it's track and speed, will likely make it into the Gulf as a depression or moderate tropical storm. There is a real chance it could become a hurricane before it reaches land, proabably late Wednesday. The good news: Chris is still VERY disorganized and it appears it will have to cross a fairly signifcant expanse of the mountainous region of Cuba. That land interaction will almost certainly weaken it. In addition, an upper level high across the central US will likely serve to speed the storm up giving it less of a chance to strengthen and keeping it south of both the warm eddy in the north central Gulf and the Houston Galveston area. Right now, we are just barely in the "cone of uncertainty" and the NHC is still predicting it will be a tropical storm on Tuesday when it nears the Texas/Mexico border. They admit that could be a conservative estimate depending upon how it fairs over the next couple days. If I had to make any predictions on this storm, I'd say that it remains a storm until it hits Cuba. The GFDL has been the most accurate model thus far, albeit a tad south of the track the storm has taken. But, the general motion has been very close. I would think it continues on a path somewhere between the GFDL and the official track, which has trended north as a consensus between all the models. That would put it near the southern Texas/northern Mexico region by late Tuesday as either a decent sized tropical storm or a minimal hurricane. It would not surprise me to see the storm gain intensity and even make category 2 status, but I'd say that the odds of that are pretty long at this point. The other good news is that Dr. Jim Gray's group at Colorado State University has released their revised hurricane numbers and moved them downward even going so far as to say that the chances of a monster storm this year like Katrina or Rita seem remote. Just keep watching for now.
I think its impossible to predict anything with this storm at all other than continued movement west. I'm really interested to see what happens if/when it makes its way directly between the the two upper level lows to the west and east of it now. Though the one the east seems to want to follow Chris a bit (diving sw it seems). Maybe somewhere around Cuba that strong northerly shear will let up a bit. Just in time for it to hit land... This storm doesn't seem to catch any breaks. Still, whatcha think is going to happen if it hits that little slot? Rapid intensification? The structure is still there and even with the shear it has been trying to fire up convection near the center. Edit: One last thing. Chris is in no way a tropical storm right now. I don't know why the NHC refuses to downgrade this thing to a depression.
My personal thought is that there is no way this thing gains hurricane strength even in the Gulf unless it suddenly jerks itself northward and goes over the eddy that was spawned from the loop current. This thing is moving too fast and is WAY too disorganized. I think it will make it to the Gulf as a depression, but only a marginal one after hitting Cuba. At that point, it is pretty likely it will gain SOME strength over the 48 hours it is in there or so, but not a ton. IF, and that's a huge "if," it makes it to a hurricane, it will be barely one when it reaches land. I'd give it less than a 5 percent chance of making hurricane status by the time it reaches land. In fact, none of the models forecast that. The forecast tracks seem to be in excellent agreement. The GFDL has been closest to accurate during the whole process if further south than the actual track.
Chris is hanging by a thread. Recon barely found a closed circulation. Thankfully the NHC finally downgraded it to a depression. I think the next 24 hours are key. It's getting closer and closer to lighter shear even with the monster ULL to its east following it now. Its gotten close enough that convection is now firing on the SW side of the storm. If it lives to northern Cuba I'm really interested is seeing if it comes back to life a bit. As far the Gulf is concerned if it makes it there all bets are off and ANYTHING can happen with regards to its intensity. I'm not even going to try with that.
Out of the 12 major models, only half are actually predicting Chris will survive beyond Cuba. Despite the warm water and low shear in the Gulf, it will be a SHOCKER to me if this thing reaches hurricane strength. The "official" track continues to shift southward along with all model guidance, which is now tightly clustered around a landfall south of the Texas/Mexico border. Sorry cohen, doens't look like rain for you. The NHC has it coming ashore Wednesday as a minimal tropical storm. Even the most aggressive forecast models don't have Chris reaching hurricane strength. My personal opinion is that this storm is just too ragged for it to grow larger than a tropical storm IF it survives its bout with Cuba. My guess is that it will regain some strength in the Gulf simply because there is quite a bit of warm water just to the west of Cuba (not like the eddy in the northern Gulf, however) and much lower wind shear. All the forecast models are in such good agreement now, I'd expect a landfall in northern Mexico or as far north as Brownsville is likely and I still don't think it will be more than a minimal tropical storm, but, as Xenon said, it's hard to predict intensity.
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20060804/a_hurricanes04.art.htm Hurricane season defying forecasts By John Ritter USA TODAY So far the 2006 hurricane season has been quiet, but forecasters warn there's still plenty of time for devastating storms to develop heading into the peak months of August, September and October. Last year, the most intense in more than a century of hurricane record-keeping, was an anomaly, says National Weather Service meteorologist Dennis Feltgen. There were 28 named storms, more than double the seasonal average. Three reached the strongest intensity, Category 5, with winds greater than 155 mph. Four hit the U.S. coast, including Katrina, which devastated New Orleans and the Mississippi coast. In the past two years, 13 major hurricanes have struck southern and eastern coastal regions. Three tropical storms this year — most recently the waning Chris — have failed to become hurricanes. The National Hurricane Center in Miami predicted Tropical Storm Chris, with 40-mph winds, would maintain its strength until it reached Cuba, likely by Saturday. Thursday, hurricane researcher William Gray at Colorado State University said the season won't be as bad as he had predicted. Gray and his forecast team reduced the number of expected hurricanes from nine to seven and said a monster storm like Katrina is unlikely. In May, government forecasters predicted 13 to 16 tropical storms, eight to 10 of which could grow into hurricanes, during the six-month Atlantic hurricane season that started June 1. The hurricane center will update its forecast Tuesday. Conditions were favorable for hurricane development much earlier last year than is typical, and they persisted, producing a record number of storms. Those conditions — warmer sea-surface temperatures and the absence of high-altitude, west-to-east wind shear that breaks up storms as they're forming — weren't repeated this June and July. “All of the ingredients that were in place last year simply weren't this year,” Feltgen said. “Now winds are lightening up, sea surfaces are warming, and all the conditions are becoming quite favorable for activity to really take off like it's supposed to this time of year.”
Well Chris kicked the bucket before it made it that lighter shear area I was talking about earlier. It remnants are there now and there has been quite a flare up of convection. I think there is a possibility it could come back as long as it can stay over water. It's skirting the northern Cuban coast right now. We'll see in the next couple of days.
The thing not mentioned in that USA Today article is that Gray's group said the chances of a major hurricane a la Katrina or Rita this year are VERY small. Conditions overall just aren't that favorable. We'll, no doubt, have some hurricanes and the next 6-8 weeks will be busy, no doubt. But, by this time last year, we'd already had 9 named storms and 4 hurricanes, two of them major. We are entering right now the busiest time of the year for hurricanes. Between the second week of August and the last week of September is hurricane season. Now is the time to keep an eye on things. As an aside, am I the only one who thinks we pay WAY more attention now than we ever did before? Obviously, giant storms like Katrina and Rita along with the abnormal season we had last year put everyone on notice, but I have to put some of the blame on the media as well. They know that scaring people stirs up ratings and hurricanes are scary. They may or may not purposefully overhype storms, but there is a definite high testosterone factor when it comes to storms. If you read any of the weather blogs, the regulars who comment on them are so excited when there is a hurricane and complain bitterly when everything is quiet in the tropics. They are almost hurricane fans and the bigger and more destructive, the better. Seems like the media follows their lead, which is just weird and sad.
Yeah, i hear ya. Part of that is Rita and Katrina. But some of it is fair, in the sense that we were all told how we were entering this new cycle of Al Gore Warmed Killer Storms. The forecasts for this year for storms wasn't good. And that makes people a bit nervous.
