Now It’s The Hurricane Season

My friend Bob, the meteorology professor, just sent me an email with not much more than this link. Half past midnight on Saturday. He knew I’d be checking the mail.

The Atlantic is open. Hurricane season has begun – even with no Atlantic hurricanes.

Yes, I know the season’s officially underway June 1. That’s minor league stuff. The real hurricane season is squeezed in from the middle of August to the middle of September.

For the past few days the GFS (a physics based, dynamic weather model) has been showing a strong, hurricane like storm, moving off the coast of Africa heading toward the states.

The GFS is not made to predict tropical weather, and it does so poorly. Still, when run-after-run shows the same thing, you look. They have at the Hurricane Center.

A VIGOROUS TROPICAL WAVE IS LOCATED OVER THE FAR EASTERN ATLANTIC OCEAN ABOUT 300 MILES SOUTHEAST OF THE SOUTHERNMOST CAPE VERDE ISLANDS. SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS HAVE CHANGED LITTLE IN ORGANIZATION THIS EVENING. HOWEVER…CONDITIONS APPEAR FAVORABLE FOR GRADUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THIS SYSTEM…AND A TROPICAL DEPRESSION COULD FORM DURING THE NEXT DAY OR TWO AS IT MOVES WESTWARD AT 15 TO 20 MPH.

Bob’s impressive model outputs are of the same storm, what looks to soon be Dean. These maps are different from my normal charts, but the bottom line’s the same.

Though I said the GFS has been forecasting this storm, it hasn’t been consistent with the long range path. A few days ago it took a sharp right, missing Florida and sailing close to shore, but off the East Coast. Another run had the storm moving into the Gulf and making landfall between Galveston and New Orleans. That’s a pretty big difference!

Obviously, we don’t have a clue yet, except this looks like Dean. And, it looks like Dean will be strong.

The next month will be busy.