LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:
START YOUR ENGINES
Foot's Forecast is officially back on line after the longest hiatus since... well, ever. No I didn't catch the bird flu or head to my bug out station. I just didn't want to expend valuable brainpower on wimpy little storms, and had to finish our new deck in the backyard before the season got going. So in that sense Chris's timing is good, but as Han Solo would say, "I have a bad feeling about this." My kickoff statement on this storm is that Chris will be unpredictable, confound the experts, and full of surprises right to the very end. He already has thrown a monkey wrench into the NHC official forecast twice in the past 24 hours, and I suspect that is only the beginning. My meteorological gut tells me this has Southern Florida and the Western Gulf written all over it, and I'll explain why soon. Based on the intensification trend thus far, we might be looking at a hurricane by Wednesday evening.
The short list on Chris is:
1. Will be a hurricane in 24 hours
2. Will not dissipate as NHC and models originally projected, due to presence of large Bermuda high and other upper-level factors skewing model initialization of the storm.
3. Will probably enter Gulf by hook or crook as borderline major hurricane (or if crossing Florida, baseline Cat 1)
4. A turn up the SE coast unlikely due to overpowering influence of the heat wave death grip high pressure ridge
5. A landfall along the Gulf Coast as a major hurricane looks likely if the storm limits interaction with land and is able to squeeze through the Florida straits just like our friends from last year, Katrina and Rita.
Who's at most risk?
Based on the analysis above, I would put the landfall zone from west of the Mississippi Delta over to Corpus Christi, Texas. Arrival time: sometime next Wednesday or Thursday.
1. Will be a hurricane in 24 hours
2. Will not dissipate as NHC and models originally projected, due to presence of large Bermuda high and other upper-level factors skewing model initialization of the storm.
3. Will probably enter Gulf by hook or crook as borderline major hurricane (or if crossing Florida, baseline Cat 1)
4. A turn up the SE coast unlikely due to overpowering influence of the heat wave death grip high pressure ridge
5. A landfall along the Gulf Coast as a major hurricane looks likely if the storm limits interaction with land and is able to squeeze through the Florida straits just like our friends from last year, Katrina and Rita.
Who's at most risk?
Based on the analysis above, I would put the landfall zone from west of the Mississippi Delta over to Corpus Christi, Texas. Arrival time: sometime next Wednesday or Thursday.
3 comments:
Here we go again!
RAY- Feel that the current long rang intensity forecast is very conservative due to the likelihood that Chris will undergo RAPID intensity changes throughout its life as a result of its small size. The upshot of this is prolly a rapidly intensifying hurricane (high cat 2-low cat 4) in the s Florida/keys area Sundayish, a beast in the gulf, but a last minute saving collapse for the gulf coast next week ie Opal, Lilly. S Florida greatest risk in my mind cause of the timing of the probable life cylical intensity fluctuations (86-90 sst near keys)!
Ray..welcome back. I wouldn't be surprised at all if your intensity forecast turned out just as you said. I think the low shear and high SST's are going to make this storm a humdinger.
Post a Comment