UPDATED: 8:45 am EST, November 30, 2009 2009 HURRICANE SEASON ENDS WITH NO U.S. LANDFALLING HURRICANES The experts were mostly in agreement on what to expect this hurricane season: not much. They were right. We finished with nine named storms and three hurricanes. Two of those hurricanes, Bill and Fred, were category three or higher. Ida was the most damaging by far with effects being felt from Central America to the East Coast of the United States. In between were feeble storms such as Danny and Erika which never amounted to much more than sheared, weak systems. For the most part, we all got a pass this season from having to deal with the likes of another major hurricane disaster. The break was much needed too especially with all of the empty homes in our coastal regions. I do not know the exact count, not even close, but recent news reports indicate a fairly high number of foreclosed homes sitting in harm's way- with Florida taking the lead. Imagine a powerful hurricane plowing through a community where there are hunreds of vacant homes left vulnerable to the effects. I am not sure if things will be much better next summer but at least we did not have to deal with it this year. So what about 2010's hurricane season? I will post an in-depth look at what to expect, at least clues to look for, in early January. For now, the main factor that I see as being a major player next year will be the state of the El Nino. If it is gone or just about there, we should see a much more active season than this one. If it hangs around, 2010 will likely be another slow year for Atlantic hurricanes- but you know what they say, "it only takes one". We probably won't really know about the El Nino conditions until late spring but there are some fairly large signs to watch for between now and then. As I said, I will post a full write up on early indications for next year the first week of January. We'll have the initial outlook from Dr. Phil Klotzbach and Dr. Bill Gray by then as well and I will use it as a guide for my piece. As for our plans next year? Much more interaction with Web 2.0 trends using Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Ustream. We learned during our Ida field mission the true power of social media. Our use of Twitter was especially effective in alerting our followers to important updates and information- none more so than when we were streaming live video from the HIRT vehicle in Alabama and along the NC Outer Banks. The results were astounding, even by our standards. I am also impressed by the community growing on our Facebook fan page. It is a nice place for people to gather and share their thoughts in a controlled environment. Different than a typical message board, the utility of Facebook is such that it can bind together announcements, events, photo galleries, fan comments, stories and links to news articles and videos. We made a lot of progress with social media this season and I can only imagine what will happen in a truly active year. And for those of you who are not in to all of that just yet, no worries, the site will continue to serve up its usual content and information just like when we began waaaaay back in 1999. Geez, I was only 29 back then, now I am almost 40- perhaps I should say I am 39. That sounds better. I'll be around working on things for next year and if we get any major storm events in the off-season, look for the live stream below and follow along. Thanks for the continued support- it's been a real privilege to be able to take a passion and turn it in to something appreciated by so many people. I'll post one or two more thoughts between now and the end of the year, until then, put the tracking maps away until next June. UPDATED: 8:30 am EST, November 17, 2009 ANOTHER COASTAL STORM SHOWING UP IN THE MODELS, NOT GOOD FOR BATTERED EAST COAST BEACHES Though not tropical in nature, it looks like another coastal storm is in store for portions of the East Coast over the weekend and early next week. A shot of energy coming in from a powerful Pacific storm will develop a low pressure area at the surface in the northern Gulf of Mexico, bringing more rain to the Deep South and Southeast. It looks like it will then take a similar track the Ida did and move off the Mid-Atlantic coast late this weekend. While not as powerful a storm as the Nor'easter that Ida became, any storm is going to be a problem for the beaches ravaged by numerous coastal non-tropical storms this season. Be aware of the situation and if you have property along the coast from North Carolina to Long Island, you might want to keep an extra close eye on this situation. We are in for a rough winter as the type of pattern we are in will favor the development of these Nor'easter events and when the cold air gets involved, look out, major snow storms are likely. For now, people who just dealt with the Ghost of Ida just might be dealing with yet another significant erosion event with the coming storm. I will post more about it over the coming days as the computer models resolve its track and intensity better. UPDATED: 10:45 am EST, November 16, 2009 2009 A YEAR OF "IT ONLY TOOK ONE" For much of the hurricane season, nothing really caused much alarm except for perhaps hurricane Bill which did impact the U.S. East Coast and the Canadian Maritimes. No hurricanes made landfall in the U.S. this season but it all came down to one storm that made all the difference: Ida. The late season hurricane brought floods and loss of life to portions of Central America before making landfall as a tropical storm along the central Gulf Coast. From there, it transitioned in to a powerful extra-tropical storm that lashed the Mid-Atlantic states for several days. In the end, Ida will be remembered as THE storm of 2009. Do not be surprised if it ends up as a $1 billion event, perhaps more. Miles and miles of beach were eroded away and in some areas, homes and businesses fell in to the sea. In Rodanthe, NC, the highway was all but washed away and will take some time to repair. The power of one storm and its legacy in how we remember the 2009 hurricane season is proof once again that it does not take an over-active season to cause big trouble. At least we are done, there will be no more hurricanes this season which officially ends on the 30th. However, the threat of Nor'easters, which Ida was compared to and perhaps technically was, will remain throughout the upcoming winter season. From Long Island to Cape Hatteras, the shore line remains very vulnerable and any subsequent storms will only add to the problems. As you may recall, I was in the Outer Banks of NC this past Thursday and Friday for a majority of the storm event. I placed a remote camera system, normally used for deadly hurricanes when I should flee to safety, along the dune line in Kill Devil Hills. It recorded for several hours to the laptop's hard drive inside the Storm Case. The resulting video, processed in to time lapse, shows the power of erosion quite vividly. Check out the clip below and note that the camera was attached to a "no parking" sign that should be on high ground but was instead part of the surf zone. I would also like to extend a huge THANKS to all who were so supportive and encouraging of the work that not only I was doing, but also Mike Watkins (who helped me on the Gulf Coast leg of the mission) and Jesse Bass who shot excellent video farther north in Virginia. I placed a link to Jesse's video as well. It was a busy week for us and we accomplished some new and exciting things of which I will talk about more in early December. UPDATED: 8:00 am EST, November 13, 2009 ROUGH DAY FOR GOOD DEAL OF EAST COAST It will be a storm to remember for years to come. The Ghost of Ida storm has caused substantial beach erosion and even property damage along the North Carolina coast and points north. A storm surge generated by the massive low pressure center and its persistent strong winds has inundated many areas right along the coast. Some places obviously are worse off than others but the effects are widespread. Not until the storm pulls away and winds subside will the relentless seas abate. With each high tide cycle, more damage is done to the dune system and to property along the coast. I am in Kill Devil Hills, NC where damage along the immediate ocean front is confined to homes right at the beach front. Some have minor structural damage, others just cosmetic. The loss of the dunes though is severe. The entire storm system will affect the East Coast from NC to NY. Things should improve over the weekend. UPDATED: 1:05 am EST, November 8, 2009 NHC SAYS IDA NOW HAS WINDS OF 90 MPH Quick post to let you know that Ida is now a 90 mph hurricane with a pressure of around 980 millibars. The hurricane is getting better organized by the hour and has another 30 hours or so to intensify before more hostile conditions set in. There is not much more new information to report except that most of the major models now show Ida making landfall along the Florida Panhandle on Tuesday. Whether or not it is purely tropical and/or a hurricane remains to be seen. It would be extremely rare for that to happen- but then again, it has happened before in November- most recently with hurricane Kate in 1985. I'll have continuing updates here throughout the day on Sunday. UPDATED: 10:05 pm EST, November 7, 2009 IDA NOT QUITE A HURRICANE BUT HAS A CHANCE TO BECOME ONE AS IT TARGETS FLORIDA PANHANDLE The latest data from the NHC tells us that Ida is not quitea hurricane yet. A new recon plane will investigate the storm in a few hours for more precise data. None the less, the forecast calls for Ida to become a hurricane with top winds of about 80 mph. It is possible that Ida could get stronger than that- or be much weaker- we need to really keep in mind that intensity forecasts are tough. The water is plenty warm and there is a favorable upper air pattern- whether or not Ida takes advantage of this to the fullest extent remains to be seen. After the system moves in to the Gulf of Mexico, in about another day, it should start to weaken due to cooler waters and stronger winds aloft. However, the NHC made mention that their forecast is not indicating as much weakening as previously thought. They did not allude to why just yet. The track takes Ida right up towards the FL Panhandle on Tuesday as a strong extra-tropical storm. What does this mean? Probably that Ida will be large and spread out with its central core and cloud structure more resembling a big Nor'easter than a hurricane or tropical storm. I think it will make little difference and in fact, if Ida spreads out, it will affect a much larger section of coastline. People from SE Louisiana all the way over to Tampa should be wary of the state of the weather over the next few days. It is going to be quite a rough scene starting Monday through at least the middle of next week. As of now, I am planning to leave North Carolina on Monday morning to travel to the FL Panhandle for on-site observations and reports. I will discuss this in much greater detail tomorrow night. We have something new to try and I want to make sure I am really going before letting the cat out of the bag. For people in the potentially affected area, treat this like a tropical storm and you'll do fine. Large waves, rough seas and heavy rains are in store for a large portion of the Gulf Coast- just don't get caught off guard- especially if Ida defies logic and does not weaken as much as is currently forecast. This will be a very rare event indeed and one we will remember 2009 for- not because of how bad it will be, but simply the fact that this is happening in November- exactly why hurricane season lasts until the end of the month. I'll have more info here very late tonight as I will be up working on some things. If you're up too, check back near 2am ET for a brief post and of couse, be sure to follow along with Twitter as well. I'll have a complete update here by Noon tomorrow. UPDATED: 4:14 pm EST, November 7, 2009 NHC FORECASTING IDA TO BECOME 85 MPH HURRICANE, MISS THE YUCATAN AND HEAD IN TO THE GULF OF MEXICO Just wanted to post a quick update on Ida. The NHC is now showing the storm reaching 85 mph- a cat-1 hurricane - before it encounters cooler waters and stronger upper level winds. The latest track idea spells good news for the Yucatan area as Ida would stay to their east and go through the channel. Once in the Gulf, it will be a matter of how fast Ida is moving and how strong it is. It is my opinion from my experiences that the stronger Ida is and the better defined it is, the more likely it is to make it to the U.S. coast- probably the FL Panhandle. We'll just have to wait and see how this plays out. Also- a non-tropical area of low pressure is developing in the SW Gulf and it too is going to move northward and impact the Gulf Coast by early next week. The two combined will make for a stormy start to the new week along a great deal of the Gulf of Mexico coastline. I will post a more complete update here around 10pm ET tonight. UPDATED: 11:00 am EST, November 7, 2009 IDA TAKING ADVANTAGE OF WARM WATER AND DECENT UPPER LEVEL CONDITIONS, MAY BECOME A HURRICANE AGAIN TS Ida is ramping up today, taking full advantage of water temperatures that can support a strong category five hurricane if other conditions were perfect. That's the good news- the other conditions are not perfect but they are not highly negative either. It appears that Ida has about 36 hours or so left until upper level winds become strong enough to induce weakening. Before that happens, there is a chance that Ida becomes a hurricane again- for that reason, a hurricane watch has been posted for a portion of the Yucatan peninsula. A recon plane is going to investigate Ida later today and will give us precise data on what is going on within the storm. Even though the official forecast does not bring Ida to hurricane intensity, I see no reason to believe it won't continue to organize for the next day or so and people along the northeast Yucatan need to prepare for a possible brush by a hurricane. Once Ida reaches the southern Gulf of Mexico, water temps remain very warm. However, upper level winds should begin to tear apart the storm or hurricane as it moves generally northward. The key for the Florida or even central Gulf Coast, is how fast Ida moves and whether or not it can make landfall before completely losing its tropical characteristics. This one could be close but either way, it looks like quite a storm is heading in to the Gulf next week and it will produce a huge area of strong winds- partially due to Ida, partially due to strong high pressure nosing in from the Southeast U.S. It is not going to be the best week to go boating across the eastern Gulf of Mexico next week- be aware of the conditions. We are taking a look at the possibility of heading to Florida on Monday to study the effects of this rare November event. Even if Ida never makes landfall, it might be interesting to observe and report on the effects along the Gulf Coast. Could be a long time before we get another late season storm like this. If we do go, we have a special treat in store for visitors to the site. More on that when the time comes. I'll have more here around 4pm ET today. UPDATED: 1:00 am EST, November 7, 2009 CRAZY LOOKING TRACK BUT IDA LIKELY NOT GOING TO BE A BIG PROBLEM The latest forecast track from the NHC is one of the most odd I have seen in quite some time. It really is starting to look like Ida will not amount to much more than an interesting feature to track as it regains tropical storm intensity. There will be the usual squally conditions for portions of the Yucatan peninsula as Ida passes fairly close over the next couple of days. Other than that, the models are really catching on that Ida will more than likely be transformed in to a large extra-tropical system over the Gulf of Mexico. If this were just a few weeks ago, I would be more concerned but climatology wins out and I do not see any significant issues with Ida in terms of a hurricane problem or the like. However, as the NHC mentions, a strong pressure gradient, high pressure building in from the north butting up against the low pressure of Ida, will create strong winds and rough seas for a large portion of the Gulf over the next several days. We'll have to monitor how this evolves as it has potential for issues not directly related to the passage or landfall of the storm itself. I'll have more here over the weekend. UPDATED: 7:45 pm EST, November 6, 2009 IDA OVER WATER- NOW WHAT? The next 48-60 hours are critical, I think, to what eventually ends up being the final Ida story. It is now over the very warm waters of the NW Caribbean Sea and very little should inhibit intensification at this point. But this does not mean it has to intensify. Assuming it does, it is likely that Ida will become a tropical storm again fairly soon as it heads just west of due north and generally towards the Yucatan. The forecast track for the next few days depends a lot on how far north Ida gets and how soon. If it waits too long, it will miss the bus, so to speak, and likely get left behind to die a slow death in the cooler waters of the central Gulf of Mexico (warm but cooler than where it is now). However, if Ida moves a little faster than forecast, it could catch a ride on the upper level steering winds and easily make landfall somewhere in Florida. As you can see, there are still some uncertainties in the future of Ida and people from the Yucatan to western Cuba and of course Florida should check up on things every now and then over the weekend. I'll post one more time late tonight- probably after Midnight ET and then of course throughout the weekend. UPDATED: 8:00 am EST, November 6, 2009 WHAT WILL BECOME OF IDA ONCE IT IS BACK OVER WATER? Later today, tropical depression Ida will move back out over the very warm waters of the northwest Caribbean Sea. At that point, the clock starts ticking on its future- and for those that might be impacted by the system. There is no doubt that the land mass of Central America disrupted the circulation of the cyclone but looking at a satellite animation of Ida, it is clear that the depression still has a well defined surface circulation. This should aid in its development once it reaches the water. Two of the intensity models, the GFDL and the newer HWRF, show Ida becoming a hurricane again as it travels on a winding path northward in to the southern Gulf of Mexico. Gone seems to be the idea that the GFDL had of it becoming an intense hurricane. However, the UKMET model in its text output does show a strong and then intense cyclone in the Gulf of Mexico- what that means in the real world is tough to interpret- perhaps a moderately strong hurricane. Either way, all eyes will be on the northwest Caribbean today and throughout the weekend. Folks along the Yucatan peninsula, Cancun and Cozumel should keep close tabs on the situation- the main effect will be squally weather as long as Ida does not rapidly get its act together. Once in the Gulf of Mexico, it is anyone's guess as to where Ida ends up. There is the possibility that it never makes it to land at all again, meandering in the open waters for days as strong upper level winds separate the mid and upper level clouds from the low level circulation. This would not at all surprise me as conditions look to be rather hostile the farther north the system travels in to the Gulf. We'll obviously know more as time progresses. We are also watching an area of clouds and unsettled weather over the SW Gulf for possible sub-tropical development. There is no mention of it yet by the NHC but given time, I think that we might see something come out of that region, possibly worthy of a name. It will mean quite a windy and rainy weekend ahead for portions of the Texas and Louisiana coast lines. It will be a busy few days ahead- an unusual ending to the otherwise fairly tranquil 2009 hurricane season. I'll have more here early this afternoon. As always, you can also follow along via our Twitter updates below or by following @hurricanetrack on Twitter. UPDATED: 7:00 p.m. EDT, November 5, 2009 IDA NOT THE ONLY CONCERN FROM WARM OCEAN WATERS Obviously the big story today was hurricane Ida and its landfall in Nicaragua. A lot of people are wondering where it will go and how strong it will get. Those are tough questions to answer with any degree of certainty this evening. Here's what I do know. It looks like Ida, now a weakening tropical storm, is moving more north than west and at a slightly faster pace. It should remain over the Central American land mass for about another 12 hours or so, maybe less, and then get back over the warm waters of the Caribbean Sea. At that point, the clock starts ticking again in terms of how strong the storm can get. The GFDL model has been insisting on making Ida a very powerful hurricane over the high-octane heat content of the northwest Caribbean and southern Gulf of Mexico. I suppose it is "seeing" some rather favorable conditions for it to develop Ida so robustly. On the other hand, the HWRF model, a newer intensity and track model, shows modest stengthening but does indicate Ida becoming a hurricane once again over the Gulf of Mexico. That model brings Ida to near landfall in the northeast Gulf in about 126 hours. The very latest run of the GFS model is by far one of the most bizarre. It shows Ida coming north between the Yucatan and Cuba, as a fairly strong cyclone in the model field, and then getting pushed BACK SOUTH in to the Caribbean Sea again! So what do we believe? Wish I knew. The global models are supposed to be pretty good at picking these things out but consider the ECMWF model from Europe- it barely shows a cyclone at all in its fields. Go figure. We'll just have to watch as the pattern evolves. The good news is that water temps are considerably cooler in north-central Gulf than they are farther south. Check out our SST tracking map at the link below- you'll see where Ida's track is in relation to current sea surface temps. It would have to be moving fast and/or strike the Florida peninsula south of Tampa to be a major issue- but we learned long ago to never say never. It is prudent that people just keep up to date on this rare November threat from the tropics. Of more immediate concern is a developing area of low pressure in the southwest Gulf of Mexico. This feature is likely to bring nasty weather conditions to portions of the Texas and Louisiana coasts over the next few days- well before Ida is a concern. Not sure if this will get a name or not, could be non-tropical or sub-tropical (details, details) but the bottom line is that I see a lot of rain and wind coming for the northwest Gulf Coast in the coming days. Be ready for it! UPDATED: 7:45 a.m. EDT, November 5, 2009 IDA NOW A HURRICANE- ALMOST ON THE COAST OF NICARAGUA As incredible as it may seem, we have a November hurricane in a year when getting any hurricanes at all has been a real struggle. The NHC upgraded Ida to category one hurricane strength just a little while ago. Ida is fairly small and its core easily consolidated over the past 24 hours to become a hurricane. This again underscores the complexities in forecasting intensity for tropical cyclones. Fortunately, the wind is not too big an issue for Central America but on the flip side, the rain will be. With mountainous terrain in the region, rainfall amounts will be enough to cause potentially devastating floods, mudslides and raging rivers. With Ida being a slow moving hurricane, these effects will be prolonged. Assuming the cyclone does not completely fall apart over Central America, it has a chance to become quite a powerful hurricane once reaching water again. The GFDL model has been absolutely insane with its predictions- showing a category five coming out of this on its last few runs. On the other hand, the newer HWRF model indicates nothing of the sort, not even close. A lot will depend on where the center tracks in relation to the coast- if it gets buried in the mountains of Nicaragua and Honduras, we can probably say goodbye to Ida. What is interesting to me, is that the models that handle the hurricane the best right now, namely the GFS, show Ida surviving its encounter with Central America and then making its way in to the Gulf of Mexico next week. If that happens, no matter how strong Ida becomes, it would have little room before running in to water temps that are cool enough to sap it of its energy. There would also likely be pretty strong upper level winds waiting for it too. This is why November hurricanes hitting the U.S. are so rare. We'll stay on top of it and have updates here several times per day. You may also follow our Twitter feed by clicking here. We are using Twitter to post quick, relevant updates, answer questions and post links to satellite pics between the times of updating the entire homepage here. UPDATED: 4:15 p.m. EDT, November 4, 2009 NHC UPGRADES DEPRESSION TO TS IDA- TOP WINDS ALREADY TO 60 MPH It is late in the season but the saying "it ain't over 'til it's over" holds very true today. We now have TS Ida tucked away in the SW Caribbean Sea. Top winds are near 60 mph with a well defined surface circulation. The forecast calls for additional intensification before making landfall in Nicaragua tonight. Ida will spend a couple of days over land before emerging on the north coast of Honduras. From there, it could be quite close to the Yucatan peinsula before possibly entering the southern Gulf of Mexico. There are no indications as of yet that this will become a hurricane but it will have some opportunity over the very warm waters of the northwest Caribbean to strengthen, depending on how much time it spends over land. The main problem will be excessive rains for portions of Central America. This is always an issue when tropical cyclones affect that region and loss of life is possible due to mudslides and raging torrents of rain swollen rivers. I'll have more here concerning Ida tomorrow morning. UPDATED: 10:10 a.m. EDT, November 4, 2009 TD #11 FORMS IN THE SOUTHWEST CARIBBEAN- FORECAST TO BECOME "IDA" AND REMAIN A SLOW MOVER We have a new tropical depression this morning in the SW Caribbean. The NHC is forecasting it to become a weak tropical storm and mentions that it may be one already as satellite pics indicate it is getting better organized. The official track forecast takes the cyclone over Nicaragua and Honduras and then back out over the northwest Caribbean Sea. Heavy rains will be the major issue for Central America and tropical storm warnings have been issued for portions of that region. It is too soon, as usual, to know how this system might impact the U.S., if at all. The one issue is that it will remain a slow mover and a lot can happen as a result. Also, being that it is November, it is tougher to use climatologoy as a guide due to dynamic weather patterns occurring in the northern latitudes. We'll be on top of it with frequent updates over the coming days. I'll have more here this evening. UPDATED: 7:00 a.m. EDT, November 3, 2009 SLOW BREWING SYSTEM IN THE SOUTHWEST CARIBBEAN We will be monitoring one area over the next several days for possible tropical storm formation and that is the southwest Caribbean Sea. A weak area of low pressure is situated in the vicinity of Panama and Costa Rica. Most of the computer models slowly organize this system as it moves very little over the next five to seven days. None of the models show it getting too strong which would be good news for any land areas affected down the road. However, it will produce heavy rains for portions of Central America which is always a concerin with tropical systems. We'll keep tabs on it, have plenty of time to see what develops - if anything at all. The rest of the tropics are closed for business. UPDATED: 9:05 a.m. EDT, November 2, 2009 WILL NOVEMBER BRING A STORM TO THE GULF? ALSO, A LOOK AT PAST EL NINOS AND THE FOLLOWING HURRICANE SEASONS October was very quiet across the Atlantic Basin. Only two tropical storms formed- Grace and Henri. Now that we are in the last official month of the hurricane season, overall activity really drops off if we look at the climatological norm. However, I am seeing indications from some of the global models that suggest we could see a tropical system develop somewhere in the southern Gulf of Mexico over the coming week. In addition, the NHC has been watching a non-tropical area of low pressure well east of Bermuda for possible development. It seems that its chance to do something may have come and gone over the weekend as deep thunderstorms over the center have diminished. So, the only area to monitor will be the western Caribbean and southern Gulf of Mexico. This morning, we do see a loosely defined area of showers and thunderstorms to the west of the Yucatan peninsula, in the Bay of Campeche. There is also some increasing convection down in the SW Caribbean. The models suggest that this whole mess will slowly organize and could produce a tropical depression in the region towards the end of the week or next weekend. It is tough to say where this might happen as unsettled weather should prevail across the western Caribbean and southern Gulf for the time being. It will be interesting to watch. I would put my money on something developing in the Caribbean over the Gulf but we will see. What ever happens, if anything at all, will be slow going. In El Nino related news, you may have heard recently that the current El Nino has strengthened some. We are now in a moderate event with fairly significant anomalies in the sea surface temps across a great deal of the Equatorial Pacific. I thought it would be interesting to compare this El Nino with some of the recent past- dating back to the 1982-83 event to current. I am looking for what happened during the hurricane seasons following these warm events, possibly finding clues to what might take place next season. Here is what I found: El Nino of 1982-1983: following hurricane season in 1984 had 13 named storms. Most notable was hurricane Diana which became a category four hurricane just off the North Carolina coast before making landfall near Wilmington as a category one. El Nino of 1986-1987: following hurricane season of 1988 had 12 named storms including powerful hurricane Gilbert which struck Jamaica and then the Yucatan before making a final landfall in Mexico, just south of Brownsville, TX. Note too that 1989 featured hurricane Hugo- the category four monster that made landfall near Charleston, SC. El Nino of 1991-1992: following hurricane season in 1993 had eight named storms with the most notable being category three hurricane Emily which came within 20 miles or so of making landfall at Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. El Nino of 1997-1998- strongest on record to date: the following hurricane seasons of 1998 & 1999 (the El Nino dramatically reversed in 1998) had a combined total of 26 named storms. Of note were hurricanes Bonnie and Georges in 1998 and Bret, Dennis and Floyd in 1999. Also, hurricane Irene struck south Florida in October of 1999. El Nino of 2002, fairly weak but still an El Nino year: the following season of 2003 had sixteen named storms including category 5 hurricane Isabel which hit North Carolina as a category two hurricane. Also had hurricane Fabian which struck Bermuda and hurricane Juan which severely impacted Nova Scotia. El Nino of 2006- also a fairly weak event: the following hurricane season of 2007 was marked by mainly low-latitude strong hurricanes which impacted Central America and quick-fuse hurricane Humberto which hit near High Island, Texas. The bottom line is that in all but two of the last six El Nino events, the United States was significantly impacted by hurricanes the following non-El Nino season. Note that post-1995 seasons would all be within ths recent up-tick in hurricane activity for the Atlantic Basin where as the 1980s events were not during a warm Atlantic period. Does this lend any clues as to what we might expect for 2010? Possibly. We know that an El Nino event in the Pacific usually acts to thwart development in the Atlantic and is sure seems to have played that role this season. If we do not have an El Nino present next season, that would at least remove the negative conditions brought on by the warmer Pacific. However, other factors are involved such as African dust outbreaks, the strength and position of the Bermuda/Azores High and sea surface temperatures across the Atlantic Basin. Since wek now that El Nino is usually an inhibiting factor for Atlantic hurricane development, we can at least track its progress during the next seven months and see where we end up by June of 2010. If the Pacific cools to neutral but not a strong La Nina, then I would imagine we will see a much more active season next year. It is unusual for El Nino to stick around for more than a year- but nothing is impossible. I'll post updates about the current El Nino throughout the off-season and we'll address it in detail on future editions of our HurricaneTrack News/Talk program. For now, we can expect the current moderate event to stick around through the winter months at least. For more info on El Nino, click the link below. UPDATED: 10:00 a.m. EDT, October 26, 2009 TROPICS LOOK TO REMAIN QUIET AS WE END OCTOBER I do not see anything significant developing in the long term global models anywhere in the Atlantic Basin. The NHC has no suspect areas labeled in either the Atlantic or the east Pacific. All of the activity is in the western Pacific right now- which is typical of an El Nino year. In fact, there are indications that the current El Nino could strengthen some over the next few weeks before it begins to wane as we get in to early 2010. This should mean that the hurricane season will end on a quiet note in the Atlantic though it is certainly possible that something could develop if conditions allow. However, I really do think that the threat to the U.S. has greatly diminished as water temps are cooling fairly quickly now close to the coast. It would take a large, powerful hurricane to spoil the run of good luck that we have had this year. It's not over yet and the Caribbean Sea is still very much open for development right on through the end of November. We'll see what happens but again, things continue to look very nice. You might notice the video streaming below. It is something we are testing for the future. The live feed will stay up 24/7 and will either be a live shot from my home office in Wilmington, NC or will switch to the live view from the HIRT Chevy Tahoe from time to time. It is just something we are looking in to and will experiment with over the next several months. You never know what you might see- especially as winter sets in down the road. We also have something big planned for next spring as well. More on that when the time comes. UPDATED: 7:15 am EDT, October 23, 2009 AS WE HEAD TOWARDS THE HOME STRETCH, TROPICS LOOKING GOOD The uneventful hurricane season continues and as we near the last month of the 2009 season, things are looking pretty good out there. We do see a couple of areas of interest in the Caribbean and SW Atlantic but both area weak and disorganized. I see nothing in the global models to suggest any real possibility of development over the next three to five days. It has been the slowest hurricane season in over two decades which is incredible considering last year was quite busy especially in terms of the numbers of landfalls along the U.S. coast. This season, the closest a hurricane made it to the U.S. was Bill which brought some rain showers and a little wind to Cape Cod and vicinity. It has been one of those years where we have been very fortunate- hopefully this luck will continue and we can close things out in late November without any problems. You might notice the video streaming below. It is something we are testing for the future. The live feed will stay up 24/7 and will either be a live shot from my home office in Wilmington, NC or will switch to the live view from the HIRT Chevy Tahoe from time to time. It is just something we are looking in to and will experiment with over the next several months. You never know what you might see- especially as winter sets in down the road. We also have something big planned for next spring as well. More on that when the time comes. UPDATED: 9:15 am EDT, October 21, 2009 RICK MAKING LANDFALL SOON IN MEXICO AS WESTERN CARIBBEAN SYSTEM FIZZLES TS Rick, weakening quickly, is about to make landfall along the Mexican coastline. It will die out rapidly over the rugged terrain of the region but its remnant moisture will spread northeast bringing heavy rains across portions of Texas. Rick is a far cry from its category five status that it attained over the weekend but it will have an influence on the weather for a large area. The system in the western Caribbean looks like a no-go despite several global computer models suggesting development over the last few days. It is quite remarkable that models like the ECMWF depicted a large hurricane coming out of the Caribbean (the GFS did too) on a couple of its recent runs and today, nothing at all. It just goes to show that computer models have a ways to go before they can consistently predict cyclogenesis. Amazingly, however, is that the did a fantasctic job in the development of what became hurricane Bill back in August. Why the hits and misses? It is beyond me for that answer. We'll talk about it tonight on HurricaneTrack News/Talk along with other relevant topics. Join us tonight at 9pm ET right here on the homepage. Mike, Jesse and I will discuss the global models and how they fare with predicting tropical cyclone formation and movement as well as Rick's influences on U.S. weather the next few days. UPDATED: 8:15 pm EDT, October 20, 2009 RICK CLOSING IN ON MEXICO AS A TROPICAL STORM WHILE WE AWAIT DEVELOPMENT IN THE CARIBBEAN TS Rick is going to make landfall tomorrow along the Mexican coast and will do so in a much weaker state than it was just a few days ago. None the less, heavy rain, gusty winds and rough surf will accompany the storm on its way inland. After landfall, it appears that the remnant energy will quickly move northeast across Mexico and in to south-central Texas. This looks to be quite the weather maker for the region so be aware of that if you live in the Lone Star State and points downstream from this event. Yet another example of the tropics having an influence on our sensible weather is on the way- be aware. The process of 94L ever becoming a tropical cyclone is probably going to take quite a while. We saw this happen with hurricane Wilma back in 2005 and with Michelle in 2001. There is a lot of heat energy trying to bundle in the western and southern Caribbean- it will not be a quick ramp up. Most of the more reliable global computer models eventually show development from this system with quite a range of possibilities for an eventual track. Instead of speculating this early, let's just keep an eye on it and see what happens. Heavy rains and generally squally weather will continue over the area for the next several days at least. We will talk about Rick and 94L on tomorrow night's brand new edition of HurricaneTrack News/Talk. We'll produce the live audio broadcast at 9pm ET right here on the homepage. Just visit the site and the program will play in your browser. We will have the live chat box up and running as well for full interactivity during the program. Hope you can join us, if not, we will archive the show for downloading at your convenience. I'll post more here tomorrow morning. UPDATED: 8:30 am EDT, October 20, 2009 WE NOW HAVE 94L IN THE WESTERN CARIBBEAN WHILE WE AWAIT RICK'S LANDFALL IN MEXICO The NHC has designated the area of disturbed weather in the western Caribbean as 94L. For those who may not know what that means, it is a numbering system used to allocate more resources for a suspect area of weather in the hurricane breeding grounds of the world. The various agencies use the numbers 90-99 and a letter, in this case "L For Atlantic, and then start over as needed. We will go through a couple dozen of these "invests" each season at least. So- what is the future for 94L? Looks like it will be slow going with development with a northward drift. The first intensity model, the SHIPS, shows it reaching moderate tropical storm strength in about five days. It is very early in the evolution of this system but I think it is likely that we will see additional development from it over the next several days. Interests in the western and northern Caribbean should keep a close eye on the situation. At the very least, unsettled weather will prevail. In the east Pacific, TS Rick is moving east of north now and should make landfall tomorrow in Mexico and quickly die away. Then, we will watch as quite a bit of moisture and left over energy comes northeast in to Texas where already there are flood watches in effect. The influence from Rick will be felt over a large area as heavy rains spread across the southern United States. The landfall in Mexico will be mostly a nuisance especially considering that this was once an extreme hurricane with 180 mph winds. Fortunately, Rick has weakened to a tropical storm and should not pose too many problems other than heavy rains (which should never be taken lightly) and strong winds along the immediate coast. I will post more here later this afternoon or early evening. We will also return tomorrow tonight with a new edition of HurricaneTrack News/Talk. Mike, Jesse and I will break down the very latest on the Caribbean system and the effects of Rick's remnants on U.S. weather. Again, I'll post more here later today. UPDATED: 8:40 pm EDT, October 19, 2009 WESTERN CARIBBEAN BECOMING MORE INTERESTING WHILE RICK CLOSES IN ON MEXICO The NHC has put up the yellow circle indicating a low chance of development within 48 hours. The suspect area is located in the southwest Caribbean Sea and should slowly organize- and I do mean slowly. The European global model, ECMWF, shows the system growing with time and making its way north towards Florida more than a week from now. Other models show a variety of solutions including nothing happening at all to speak of. We'll just have to watch as the pattern evolves over the remainder of the week. The region is certainly favored this time of year and water temps are very warm despite the cold air that made its way south this weekend. It is an interesting feature and one to just sit back and monitor for now. In the east Pacific, hurricane Rick is making its move towards a landfall along the mainland Mexico coast on Wednesday. It looks like the center could stay just south of the southern Baja peninsula and of course the hurricane is considerably weaker than it was on Saturday. The remnants of Rick will bring wet and stormy weather across portions of south Texas and the lower Mississippi Valley later this week. I will go over that issue more tomorrow morning. UPDATED: 8:30 am EDT, October 19, 2009 RICK HAS A DATE SET WITH MEXICO AS WESTERN CARIBBEAN SHOWS SIGNS OF DEVELOPMENT The once extreme hurricane Rick, which had winds of at least 180 mph over the weekend, is destined to crash ashore along the Mexican coast sometime on Wednesday. There is good news in this- Rick has weakened considerably and will continue to do so right up until landfall. However, it will still be a formidable hurricane with plenty of rain spreading across the region and eventually in to Texas and beyond. With the progressive pattern of weather over the U.S. this time of year, look for heavy rain and possibly severe weather to be an issue from south Texas and points east. I'll have more on that as the week evolves. Meanwhile, right on cue with the favorable MJO pulse, deep tropical convection is beginning to bubble in the western Caribbean Sea. We are also seeing more and more models come around to the idea that eventually something will develop there. I have seen it many times before in this region, it takes a few days for conditions to set in that will allow for significant growth and organization. Thus far, the NHC is not "outlooking" the region but I think it will come perhaps later today. This should be the last shot at getting a problem tropical cyclone to spin up this season. The pattern is fairly ripe for one more system to get going and people in Jamaica, the Caymans, the Yucatan and Cuba should keep an eye on what happens over the next few days. At the very least, unsettled weather will prevail across the western Caribbean and it is possible that a tropical depression could form over the next 3-5 days. The rest of the Atlantic is quiet for now. I'll post more here tonight by 9pm ET. UPDATED: 12:00 pm EDT, October 18, 2009 EVEN AS COLD WEATHER INVADES ALL THE WAY TO FLORIDA, THE TROPICS LOOK TO MAKE A COMEBACK Temperatures were in the 40s this morning in portions of south Florida. A strong cold front has pushed deep in to the Gulf of Mexico and past Florida. It will be fairly short-lived however as warm temps will rebound this coming week. We will also likely see a return of tropical interests as well. Let's break it down. First up is hurricane Rick in the east Pacific. Top winds reached 180 mph last night and have since come down ever so slightly. The NHC forecast shows Rick making landfall near the southern tip of the Baja peninsula in about four days. The hurricane will likely race across Mexico and could actually bring quite a bit of rain and wind across Mexico and in to Texas. This will be a big weather maker for a lot of people and fortunately, Rick will also weaken quite a bit before its landfall. The NHC does indicate it will still be a formidable hurricane and so obviously people in its path need to prepare now for what is coming. Our attention is likely to quickly turn to the Caribbean Sea fairly soon. The ECMWF model in particular has been very consistent as of late in developing a tropical cyclone in the western Caribbean and moving it north towards the Gulf of Mexico. Other models are not nearly as bullish on this happening which is odd to me since the Euro is pretty good at sniffing these things out. The GFS shows practially nothing happening at all so we'll see. There is quite a gathering of convection in the area that the Euro model suggests development will take place. Water temps are very warm and the favorable MJO pulse is moving through providing that extra spark for deep tropical convection to grow and sustain. It will be interesting to see if the Euro backs off its development idea or if the other global models jump on board and play catch-up. Either way, we will be keeping tabs on the western Caribbean from here on out. I'll have more here tomorrow morning. UPDATED: 10:15 am EDT, October 17, 2009 RICK A VERY STRONG HURRICANE IN THE EAST PACIFIC, WATCHING FOR CARIBBEAN DEVELOPMENT LATER NEXT WEEK Hurricane Rick has become a very strong category four hurricane is just a short time. The good news is that it is well off the coast of Mexico and will not have any direct influences while it is this strong. The official forecast takes Rick on a curving path that would threaten the Baja peninsula in about five days or so. Cooler sea surface temps and increasing upper level winds should act to weaken the hurricane well before it makes landfall several days from now. None the less, Rick is an impressive hurricane and it is certainly a good thing it is remaining off shore. We will be watching the western Caribbean later next week for possible development as a few more of the global computer models are suggesting that low pressure will take shape in the region over the next week or so. I expect that by Monday, we should begin to see an increase in convection in the area south of Jamaica as a tropical wave and a frontal boundary settle in to the region. This could be the spark needed to set off development which would be in line with climatology and the recent favorable phase of the MJO pulse. I still think that if we are going to get one last significant tropical cyclone with potential impacts to land, that it will come from this area and do so before the end of the month. We'll see, the models are just starting to indicate something and whether or not it pans out, time will tell. I'll post more here tomorrow. UPDATED: 11:15 am EDT, October 16, 2009 EAST PAC VERY MUCH ALIVE WITH HURRICANE RICK WHILE THE ATLANTIC REMAINS IN LOCK DOWN The east Pacific has its 7th hurricane of the season- Rick. The NHC is forecasting Rick to become very strong over the next few days but fortunately, the worst effects will likely remain well off shore of the Mexican coastline. Beyond five days, it is possible that Rick will turn back to the northeast and eventually make landfall but in a much weaker state. However, between now and then, it should grow and become at least a low-end category four hurricane and with it remaining free of land interaction, this will be impressive to watch via satellite pics. Interests in the Baja and mainland Mexico should certainly keep an eye on Rick and its future. Meanwhile, in the Atlantic time is running out for anything to develop that can have any significant impacts on the U.S. coast. Cold air is draining down in to the South and Southeast and water temps will really being to plunge soon. I see only a small window of opportunity over the next week to 10 days for something to develop in the western Caribbean. All of the major comptuer models show a lowering of the pressures in that region but only a few indicate any real chances of seeing a tropical cyclone develop. This has indeed been an extraordinary season for the lack of hurricane activity in the Atlantic and it was more or less foreseen by many in the seasonal hurricane forecasting field. On a more non-tropical note, there is quite the storm brewing off the East Coast today that will bring strong winds, high tides, some coastal flooding and even snow to portions of the Northeast. I bring this up for a couple of reasons- one, for awareness, just want to make sure people know what is going on and two, because that region was really the most affected by this year's limited tropical activity. Several tropical systems dating back to July had a direct influence in the weather along the Northeast coast. In September, the strong no-named storm caused the most damage with severe beach erosion and even tree damage. Now, with a long winter and its associated storms coming up, I expect that we'll see more of the same but with much colder temps for obvious reasons. Point is that we escaped the hurricane season without a hurricane landfall but none the less, the tropics influenced our weather on a consistent basis. This latest storm system has warm water to work with but is a non-tropical feature in nature. Even so, it will have similar effects, especially the coastal flooding issues at the times of high tides. Be wary of this over the next couple of days and buckle in- it looks like an active weather pattern for the months ahead. Nature has to balance things out one way or another- if not by hurricanes, then by strong continental storms. That's weather for you. I'll have more over the weekend. UPDATED: 9:20 pm EDT, October 15, 2009 POWERFUL HURRICANE LIKELY TO DEVELOP AND AFFECT MEXICO ON THE PACIFIC SIDE WHILE ATLANTIC REMAINS REMARKABLY CLEAR The latest MJO pulse is aiding in the development of a new tropical depression in the east Pacific. It is located farther south and east of the last several storms and is poised to become a strong hurricane over the next few days. The current NHC track shows it moving roughly parallel to the Mexican coast and then turning north with time. Longer range models indicate that it will then curve back and strike the Mexican coastline- exactly where is tough to say right now. If you are planning a trip to or live along the Baja and vicinity then you will want to monitor this development closely. In the Atlantic, all is quiet. I really do not see anything in the models to suggest that we will see anything worth worrying about spinning up before cold air invades all the way down to the Caribbean Sea. It's not impossible, of course, but I have to say, this is like your favorite basketball team being down 8 points with 9 seconds left. There is still a chance, but it is slim to none. What we will see, however, is a strong Nor'easter develop over the next couple of days and affect the East Coast in quite a dramatic fashion. High winds, ocean swells, rough surf and heavy rains will plague the region from North Carolina's Outer Banks north to Maine. We are in an active pattern for storms, just not of the tropical variety, at least not in the United States. I'll have more here tomorrow. UPDATED: 6:40 pm EDT, October 14, 2009 MJO OR NOT, LOOKS TO ME LIKE THE EAST PACIFIC IS WHERE ALL OF THE ACTION WILL BE Despite the favorable MJO pulse that is apparently tracking eastward from the Pacific and in to the Atlantic, there is nothing out there to even consider for development. The only area of interest is off the west coast of Central America where another named storm seems in the works for the east Pacific. The GFS model has been on and off with its development of a significant tropical cyclone after about the 10 day time frame but none of the other models lend any support to that notion. Unless we see a marked change in the pattern, I am hopeful, for our coastal residents anyway, that the season is done. We know all too well that it's not over 'til it's over and so we'll keep watching until such time that it is truly over, even if it never really got started. I'll have more here tomorrow- there is a big Nor'easter developing which is worth discussing! UPDATED: 5:30 pm EDT, October 13, 2009 SO FAR, NO SIGN OF TROUBLE FROM THE MJO PULSE Aside from TS Patricia in the eastern Pacific, the current favorable MJO pulse is not amounting to too much in terms of tropical activity. The pulse, which generally enhances tropical convection, is strong and is moving from west to east out of the Pacific, where it helped to spawn super-typhoon Melor, which is now an extra-tropical storm impacting the U.S. West Coast. So far, I see no real evidence that this pulse is likely to produce anything significant in the Atlantic Basin. The GFS model, in the longer time periods, has been hinting at something developing in the western Caribbean but we will see about that. Upper level winds are going to have to relax in order for anything to have a real shot. Things are looking good right now and with more and more cold digging south out of Canada over the coming weeks, this hurricane season is almost over, both on the calendar and in reality. Never the less, we have perhaps 10-15 more days where something could pop up and be a problem for land areas. I'll have more here tomorrow. UPDATED: 12:30 pm EDT, October 12, 2009 CALIFORNIA STORM, TS PATRICIA IN THE EAST-PAC AND THE WESTERN CARIBBEAN A potent storm, the remnants of what was once super-typhoon Melor in the west Pacific, is moving towards an encounter with the Golden State that will likely make some news headlines. From southern Cal all the way up the coast to Seattle, foul weather is on the way. Heavy rains and gusty winds are probable and in fact, several inches of rain could fall in many locations. It is interesting that the origins of this storm system can be traced back to the strongest tropical cyclone in several years- which hit Japan last week. If you live, work or are traveling to California, Oregon or Washington, be prepared for some very unusual weather conditions for this time of year. Meanwhile, farther south off the Baja peninsula, TS Patricia is churning away. The 16th named storm of the E-Pacific season is expected to pass very close, if not over, the southern tip of the Baja bringing more rain and wind to the resort areas there. It looks like Patricia will then turn west and die out over the cooler waters. We will also be watching the western Caribbean for potential development later in the week. The GFS model in particular is suggesting that low pressure will take shape in the SW Caribbean in about five days. It is also showing a significant storm forming on the other side of Central America, in the east Pacific (again) but not as far north as recent systems. It will be interesting to see if these two features A) come to pass at all and B) affect each other with their potentially close proximities to one another. We are entering a very favorable upward motion pulse where by we could see several more named storms in the east Pacific and perhaps one or two more in the Atlantic Basin- probably west of 70 degress longitude. In fact, the forecast models show this MJO pulse lasting throughout the remainder of October. Will anything come of it? We'll just have to wait and see. So far, all of the activity has been confined to the Pacific, at least as of late. I'll have more here all week as needed. UPDATED: 8:10 pm EDT, October 11, 2009 TROPICS INFLUENCING U.S. WEATHER IN UNLIKELY FASHION- ALSO WATCHING TD #19-E AND EVENTUALLY, THE WESTERN CARIBBEAN If you live along the coast of California, especially the northern portion, get ready, a major October storm is coming your way. I caught wind of it, no pun intended, by checking the weather.gov national map yesterday and noticed quite a few special weather statements for the region. The cause? Typhoon Melor- or more precisely, its remnant extra-tropical alter ego. Rain, wind and their resulting effects will be a big problem tomorrow through about Wednesday for areas along the northern CA coast up to Washington. It is rare that an ex-typhoon affects the weather directly like this and we more often see this with Atlantic hurricanes slamming in to Great Britain after crossing the Vig Pond and transitioning in to extra-tropical monsters. This storm has the potential of causing quite a bit of havoc for people not used to such changeable weather this time of year. I highly recommend that folks check out their local NWS site for more localized info. I expect that this will be quite a news maker over the next couple of days. Meanwhile, we have td #19 in the east Pacific in what has been a very active season there. This one is expected to become a minimal tropical storm as it bends to the west with time. Not sure if it will affect the Baja but it could come close. I also think we will see at least one more system develop farther to the southeast- off the coast of Guatemala- later this coming week. The GFS and ECMWF have been hinting at another storm developing for several days now. This is probably in response to a very favorable upward motion pulse or MJO that is moving through the east Pacific. In fact, it is possible, as the GFS model is beginning to sniff out, that we will see development somewhere in the western Caribbean Sea or southern Gulf of Mexico in the longer time frame. Water temps are well above normal in most of that region and a lot of energy is going to be focused there over the next two weeks. It would not be surprising at all to see one more significant storm or even a hurricane develop on the Atlantic Basin side before the end of the month. On the other hand, it is also fair to say that we might see nothing at all- the long range models are just now picking up on what might happen down the road but it is by no means a gurantee that we will in fact see development at all. The next several days to two weeks will be very interesting for U.S. weather as the tropics are playing at least an indirect role. Although the hurricane season is coming towards its end, there is still time for something to come along and make up for lost time. So far, it is only in model fantasy land. Until we see it in the near-term, say five days to a week away, there is little cause for concern, just something to keep an eye on. I'll have more here early Monday afternoon. UPDATED: 10:40 am EDT, October 9, 2009 NOT A LOT HAPPENING THIS WEEKEND IN ATLANTC BUT EAST PACIFIC ACTING UP AGAIN There are a couple of areas to watch in the Atlantic Basin over the weekend and one developing system right off the coast of Mexico in the east Pacific. Otherwise, there are no issues to contend with from the tropics. What was once TS Henri is just an area of low pressure and scattered showers and thunderstorms northeast of Puerto Rico. The NHC does not anticipate redevelopment of this system and neither do the computer models. Besides, strong high pressure built deep in to the atmosphere would keep any development on a course that would more than likely steer it in to Hispaniola and/or Cuba. This strong late season high will bring record high temps to portions of the Southeast today and this weekend making for some bonus time at the beach. The other system is a small puff of clouds very near the northern coast of South America in the extreme southeast Caribbean Sea. This also should have limited chances of development due to its interaction with land and less than favorable overall conditions. We'll also keep an eye on a flare up of convection near Central America to see if it persists for more than a day or two. It will bring heavy rains to portions of Honduras, Nicaragua and Costa Rica and could be of interest if it's still around in about 48 hours. In the east Pacific, we should see a tropical depression form off the coast of Mexico in association with the favorable MJO pulse that is coming through (see yesterday's post in the archive for more info on that). In fact, I think we'll see at least two more tropical storms if not hurricanes in the east Pacific before the month is over. The current system is expected to track northwestward near the Mexican coast as it slowly develops further. I'll post updates throughout the weekend. UPDATED: 1:45 pm EDT, October 8, 2009 WILL MJO PULSE RESULT IN BURST OF NAMED STORMS FOR THE ATLANTIC? WE ARE GOING TO FIND OUT SOON ENOUGH I wanted to write about a phenomenon that few people ever hear about except for those who really follow tropical weather. It is called the MJO for Madden-Julian Ocscillation. What is it? Here is a direct quote from the MJO resource page from the Climate Prediction Center's site: The MJO is an intraseasonal fluctuation or “wave” occurring in the global tropics. The MJO is responsible for the majority of weather variability in these regions and results in variations in several important atmospheric and oceanic parameters which include both lower- and upper-level wind speed and direction, cloudiness, rainfall, sea surface temperature (SST), and ocean surface evaporation. The MJO is a naturally occurring component of our coupled ocean-atmosphere system and the typical length of the MJO cycle or wave is approximately 30-60 days (Madden and Julian, 1971, 1972; Madden and Julian, 1994; Zhang, 2005). Another way to look at the MJO is that when it is favorable for convection we essentially have a period of favorable upward motion in the atmosphere. This then leads to increased convection which in turns favors the genesis of storms- and specifically, tropical cyclones. Computer models predict the progress of the MJO and can be helpful in understanding when a certain region of the tropics is likely to have conditions conducive for development. It is not a cure-all 100% piece of the puzzle but the MJO can be a key indicator that we are entering a period where tropical storm formation is more likely than not. Make sense so far? So, looking at the graphic I have posted, the browns and rust colors indicate sinking air and conditions generally unfavorable for tropical convection. The green areas, especially the darker greens, indicate large scale upward motion in the atmosphere and hence the possibility for ripe conditions aloft. The map shows the next 15 days as predicted by the GFS model. We can see that as we progress through the next two weeks, a strong pulse of upward motion moves in to the southeast Pacific and then in to the western Atlantic Basin- including the Gulf of Mexico. Here is another quote from the CPC site regarding the MJO's influence on tropical cyclone formation: The MJO is known to modulate tropical cyclone activity in the Indian Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, and Atlantic Ocean (Maloney and Hartmann, 2000a; Maloney and Hartmann, 2000b; Higgins and Shi, 2001). For example, although tropical cyclones occur throughout the Northern Hemisphere warm season (typically May-November) in both the Pacific and the Atlantic basins, in any given year there are periods of enhanced / suppressed activity within the season. The MJO modulates this activity (particularly for the strongest storms) by providing a large-scale environment that is favorable (unfavorable) for development. For example, westerly wind anomalies at the surface in and just behind the area of enhanced convection of the MJO may generate cyclonic (anticyclonic) rotation north (south) of the equator respectively (Figure 2). At the same time, in the upper levels, anticyclonic (cyclonic) rotation develops along and just behind the area of convection (Figure 2) resulting in a means to reduce vertical wind shear and increase upper-level divergence – both of which are favorable for tropical cyclone development and intensification. The strongest tropical cyclones tend to develop when the MJO favors enhanced precipitation. As the MJO progresses eastward, the favored region for tropical cyclone activity also shifts eastward from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and eventually to the Atlantic Ocean (Figure 10). While this relationship appears robust, we caution that the MJO is one of many factors that contribute to the development of tropical cyclones. For example, it is well known that SSTs must be sufficiently warm and vertical wind shear must be sufficiently weak for tropical disturbances to form and persist. So what does this all mean for the next two weeks or even longer? It might turn out to mean absolutely nothing- and we don't see any additional development in the tropics. However, it more than likely indicates that we will see an increase in activity in the southeast Pacific first, followed by one or two tropical storms forming in the Atlantic- probably west of 60W longitude. The models are not indicating anything specific as of yet but with this pulse moving through, it may only be a matter of time until we see something significant develop. There is no way to know when where and how strong but this large piece of the tropical cyclone puzzle is interesting to monitor and helps to know when to really start looking. Climatologically speaking, the next two weeks would be a favored time of year anyway as we see a mini-spike in activity during this period over the last 100 years. The bottom line is that we continue to see a nice quiet tropics for the most part but IF something is going to come along and spoil everything, it is my opinion that it will happen within the next two weeks. This makes logical sense but is in no way a prediction on my part. The odds are that we will be just fine but again, I emphasize that IF there is going to be a hurricane problem for ANY land area, I think it will come between now and the end of the month. This sounds a little obvious considering that once we reach November the chances really diminish but this pulse is fairly strong in the models so we'll have to see what happens- if anything at all. I'll have more here tomorrow- if you have any questions, feel free to email me or post them on Twitter! UPDATED: 5:00 pm EDT, October 7, 2009 HENRI GETTING BEAT UP, WHAT ELSE IS NEW? We wouldn't want Henri to break precedence now would we? The trend this season has been for all but two systems that have formed to be weak and sheared. That is the case, and will remain so, with TS Henri. It should be torn apart enough that it will lose any deep convection and gradually die off completely. This is what should happen and hopefully it will. There are no other areas of concern right now though the pattern looks to be quite interesting as we get towards the middle of the month. More on that in detail tomorrow morning. UPDATED: 8:40 am EDT, October 7, 2009 TS HENRI NOT GOING TO BE A PROBLEM Despite its quick development and jump up to 50 mph, TS Henri has only a short time to survive. The NHC indicates that a variety of negative factors will set in to almost certainly kill off the storm and dissipate it completely. It's just that kind of hurricane season plus it is rather late in the year for Atlantic systems to survive, much less thrive. We will certainly keep track of it just in case it pulls that outside chance of being a pain in the neck after all of the hostile conditions pass. In fact, the pattern suggests that we might see other development anwhere from the western Gulf of Mexico to the Caribbean over the next week or so. After that, we should be able to say goodbye to any significant threats from the tropics this year. Cold air will begin sweeping in to the lower 48 and will eventually advect in to the coastal waters, taking sea surface temps down quite dramatically. For now, Henri will be interesting to watch but should not pose any problems for land areas. I'll have more here this evening. UPDATED: 9:20 pm EDT, October 6, 2009 SURPRISE! SURPRISE! HENRI FORMS DESPITE RUMORS OF UNFAVORABLE CONDITIONS So there you have it. I wrote earlier today that conditions were not favorable for much to happen anytime soon and what do I get for that? TS Henri- that's what. I love it that the NHC mentioned how difficult it can be to detect cyclogenesis when conditions are like this. Short-lived, weak systems do not amount to much in the overall scheme of things but once again, they illustrate the challenges of the forecasters at the NHC. In any case, Henri is not expected to be around for too long as hostile conditions should dissipate the storm in about 48 hours- maybe a little longer. We shall see. The rest of the tropics are free and clear of any trouble spots. UPDATED: 1:00 pm EDT, October 6, 2009 THINGS LOOKING GOOD WITH TIME RUNNING OUT I hope I do not jinx those of us who own property along the coast or have other coastal interests but I have to say, things are looking really good out there. We have made it through the meat of the hurricane season with minimal disruption. There were a few close calls and unfortunately, loss of life even with no hurricane landfalls. However, it could have been worse, I think that goes without saying. After last year and the economic state of the U.S. the last thing we needed was a big hurricane problem. For people in Cuba and Haiti, this hurricane season has been a tremendous blessing since those areas were hit the hardest last season. Time is beginning to run out now for anything significant to come along and ruin the party. Yes, we can still have a late October or November block-buster but the odds are against it, even in an active season. I see nothing in the long range models to indicate any real problems arising over the next week to 10 days. We do have a more favorable upper level pattern in place but there does not seem to be a disturbance available to take advantage. We still have some hurricane season left but we have made it this far, perhaps we can go the distance without a single hurricane hit. My biggest concern is really for the Caribbean. We know all too well that late season hurricanes such as Mitch, Wilma, Michelle and last year, Omar and Paloma, can spring up and be deadly. Until such time that I see something like that brewing, I'll be optimistic and say, so far, so good. UPDATED: 10:30 pm EDT, October 5, 2009 GRACE WAS SHORT LIVED BUT INTERESTING- NOW WE WATCH 91L FOR DEVELOPMENT The NHC will issue their last advisory on TS Grace in just a little while. The small but interesting storm will merge with a larger weather system and be absorbed within. It is interesting to think of a time when we had no satellites to spot such small systems. Perhaps over the decades there were indeed more tropical storms and small hurricanes. In any case, Grace has come and gone. We will now watch 91L for possible development in to a tropical depression before it is hammered by strong upper level winds. The latest SHIPS intensity model, which was calling for it to become a hurricane, has backed way off now. The system might make it to TD status tomorrow but its future looks bleak. Time is running out for the Atlantic Basin to produce a storm or hurricane that will have a significant impact on any land areas. We have been very fortunate this season but still have a short period of time left before cold, dry air really puts an end to any serious threats, especially for the United States. For now, we'll see what 91L can muster up although I highly doubt it will be of any consequence over the long term. I'll have another update here in the morning. UPDATED: 10:00 am EDT, October 5, 2009 WEEK STARTS OUT WITH GRACE, WILL IT END WITH HENRI? We are watching a rare tropical storm in the far northeast Atlantic. The NHC began issuing advisories on it last night. Grace formed from a large cyclonic storm that was non-tropical in nature for several days. It gradually shed its non-tropical characteristics and took on a classic eye feature with banding clouds and a warmer center than the surrounding environment. Even though it is traveling over water temps that are well below 80 degrees, it matters little. The process that gives us tropical storms over the tropics is doing the same over sub-tropical waters. I guess Mother Nature cares not about our rules. Grace will not affect any land areas with anything more than increased rain and wind- if it even survives long enough to reach land. More than likely the storm will be absorbed in to a larger storm system and that will be that. Meanwhile, we are also keeping an eye on area 91L in the central Atlantic. The NHC gives it a low chance of development over the next few days and looking at the suite of global comptuer models, it would appear this has little chance ever. For what ever reason, the Atlantic is just not a prolific incubator of tropical cyclones this year and I see no reason for this system to break the mold. It could make its way westward and in to the western Caribbean where we would expect to see development this time of year but apparently, strong upper level winds should reduce this to a mere puff of clouds before it can ramp up. As we say quite often around here, "we shall see". Elsewhere in the world, super-typhoon Melor is heading on a path that should take it over Japan near Tokyo. The powerful typhoon will weaken before hand which is obviously great news for folks on that side of the Pacific. I'll have more here tonight. UPDATED: 1:00 am EDT, October 5, 2009 LOOKS LIKE A BUSY WEEK COMING UP All of a sudden, the Atlantic has come to life. We now have a very rare TS in the northeast Atlantic. The NHC began issuing advisories on TS Grace earlier tonight. The storm is located way out at 41N and 20W! It is tiny and should not amount to much more than an interesting footnote on this otherwise non-event season. Of more interest is newly designated 91L in the central Atlantic. The tropical wave continues to get better organized and is also quite large. The very latest NHC hurricane models indicate that this system could strengthen steadily over the next few days and could become a tropical storm. Water temps are very warm and conditions are looking to improve as the new week wears on. I'll have a full update on all of the action near 9am- time for some sleep now! UPDATED: 8:00 pm EDT, October 4, 2009 POTENTIAL EXISTS FOR DEVELOPMENT IN THE ATLANTIC THIS COMING WEEK WHILE EXTREME TYPHOON RAGES IN THE WEST PACIFIC The NHC mentions a couple of areas tonight on their outlook. One is near the Azores Islands and is non-tropical in nature. It should encouner cooler water before having a chance to ramp up much further. The other system is a fairly vigorous tropical wave well east of the Leeward Islands. This one has some potential for slow development as it travels generally west this coming week. Curiously, most of the computer models develop it in the near term and then lose it after a few days. Not sure why as it looks like conditions are going to be quite favorable with a large area of high pressure in the upper atmosphere building across the western Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. We'll see what happens, the fact that the global models are not bullish on development is a good indication that perhaps nothing will come of this feature. Meanwhile, super-typhoon Melor, in the west Pacific, has winds of at least 160 miles per hour. Take a look at the satellite photo- what an amazing weather phenomenon! It looks a lot like hurricane Katrina did in the open Gulf on August 28, 2005. This typhoon will head towards and likely impact Japan but should weaken considerably before hand. Our friend Jim Edds was in Saipan a day or so ago as Melor passed by to the north. Jim recorded some incredible waves and talked to the locals about their feelings concerning the typhoon. It is interesting to note that this typhoon is the strongest tropical cyclone anywhere in the world since 2007. I'll have more here tomorrow morning. UPDATED: 11:00 am EDT, October 4, 2009 ATLANTIC SHOWING SIGNS OF POTENTIAL DEVELOPMENT Even though things have been very quiet as of late, it is still hurricane season. As such, we are watching a large and fairly well organized system well east of the Lesser Antilles that is showing signs of development. Several of the global computer models do in fact suggest that this could get better organized as it tracks generally WNW over the next several days. Upper level winds are not particularly hostile right now and a more favorable overall upward motion pulse is due to arrive in the Atlantic Basin over the next week or so. All of this equals at least a chance that we could see a tropical depression form out of this feature. The NHC is giving it a low chance of reaching that threshold over the next 48 hours but does indicate that additional development is possible. So, we'll watch it and see what happens. Elsewhere, the remnant moisture from what was TS Olaf in the east Pacific will move across the Deep South bringing heavy rains from Texas to Georgia over the next few days. Check out Weather.gov and you'll notice the flood watches already going up as the moisture plume advances east. For areas hit hard by heavy rains as of late, get ready, more is on the way and will only add to existing flood problems. This will be a major news maker throughout the early part of the upcoming week. I'll post more here tonight on the developing system and the rain threat across the Deep South. UPDATED: 12:30 pm EDT, October 2, 2009 COUPLE OF FEATURES TO WATCH IN THE ATLANTIC AS BAJA SHOULD PREPARE FOR ANOTHER STORM HIT We do have a pair of disturbances to keep an eye on over the weekend but none appear to be a threat to land. The first is an impulse of showers and thunderstorms tha is flaring up near the Bahamas and eastern Cuba. The system is moving eastward but has shown an increase in organization- enough so that it could form a surface low as depicted by the GFS operational model. It won't turn back west but instead should scoot quickly off to the northeast and away from the United States. The other area is associated with a front entering the northern Gulf of Mexico. Sometimes these lead to tropical development but nothing seems imminent and it would take a few days for the boundary to settle in and generate a low pressure area at the surface. None of the computer models indicate that this will happen but we do need to monitor this type of situation especially this time of year. It will mean potentially rough weather for boating interests and the oil industry as the front pushes through the region. The remainder of the Atlantic is fairly quiet with no organized areas of convection that could lead to tropical storm formation. In the east Pacific, TS Olaf is charting a course for a landfall across the Baja peninsula. It should remain fairly weak and not cause too many problems although heavy rain and windy conditions are certainly in order. The moisture plume should also get drawn eastward across the southern United States- something we'll have to keep an eye on early next week. More heavy rains are possible in areas that really cannot afford additional precip anytime soon. In addition, I thought I would also mention the pair of typhoons in the west Pacific that are both heading for land encounters. You will hear more about this on the news I am sure as the two systems lash regions that have already been hit fairly hard by flooding in recent days. There is a great site for tracking west Pacific typhoons- it is the Navy's NRL site linked here. If you have interests in the west Pacific, check the site out which includes spectacular satellite imagery and excellent tracking maps. I'll have more here over the weekend. UPDATED: 2:20 pm EDT, October 1, 2009 TYPHOONS WILL RULE THE HEADLINES AS ATLANTIC REMAINS QUIET With September gone, we are that much closer to escaping the hurricane season without very many issues at all. I am watching to see if we get another favorable MJO pulse to swing through the Atlantic Basin over the next couple of weeks as that will likely be the only mechanism to get something to develop. Of course, we might see a rogue way-out-in-the-Atlantic storm develop but I believe that IF there is going to be a hurricane problem this season, it will come from the western Caribbean or Gulf of Mexico. Chances are slim considering the season we have had but we do have one last window of development coming up and the GFS model is starting to see it, though it is not showing anything significant just yet. The big story will be typhoons. Right now, the Philippines are bracing for another assault as typhoon Parma closes in on the region. Extremely devastating rain fall has plagued the western Pacific area over the last couple of weeks and it is possible that things will get worse before getting better. If you watch any cable news outlet, I am sure you'll hear a lot about the Philippines over the next few days. In the east Pacific, TD #18-E (the "E" is for east Pacific) has formed and is expected to become a tropical storm before conditions limit development. Folks along the Baja should be paying attention to the track of the depression. It could also lead to quite a bit of heavy rain over the Deep South next week as some of the models are showing a decent transport of moisture from what will be the remnants of the tropical system. So even though things are quiet in the Atlantic, there is still plenty to keep an eye on. I will have more here tomorrow morning. UPDATED: 8:30 am EDT, September 30, 2009 TONIGHT ON HURRICANETRACK NEWS/TALK: DR. JACK BEVEN I hope you can join us this evening for our weekly edition of HurricaneTrack News/Talk. Tonight's guest will be NHC Senior Hurricane Specialist, Dr. Jack Beven. We'll discuss the recent update to hurricane Gustav's Tropical Cyclone Report as well as some of the characteristics of this hurricane season. In addition, we will take a look back at some infamous hurricanes that Dr. Beven was involved with in his forecast work at the NHC over the years. The program begins at 9pm ET right here on the homepage. We'll have the live chat running for interactivity during the show. If you can't listen live, we'll have the program archived immediately after broadcast for downloading at your convenience. As for the tropics, nothing stirring in the Atlantic for the next several days at least. The east Pacific is probably about to get another named storm with a system developing off the west coast of Mexico. It could affect the Baja peninsula as we approach the weekend. UPDATED: 10:50 am EDT, September 29, 2009 ATLANTIC BASIN QUIET WHILE EAST PACIFIC BREWS NEXT SYSTEM All is remarkably quiet across the entire Atlantic Basin these last days of September. I still see very little in the long range computer models to convince me that we will see any significant development over the next week or so. However, there appears to be one small window of opportunity once we get past the first few days of October. A favorable MJO pulse of more conducive upper level winds might be able to make its way in to the western Caribbean and Atlantic to spark something in the climatologically favored region. This is probably about 10 days away, if it happens at all. The way this season has gone, I would not bet on it but if we are going to have a hurricane problem in 2009, I believe it will come from the western Caribbean or Gulf of Mexico. This makes sense considering the pattern and the time of year but again, I emphasize that the odds favor nothing happening at all. The only area to watch is a developing low pressure system off the west coast of Mexico. Most of the model guidance suggests that this will become a tropical cyclone and be of concern to the Baja peninsula over the coming days. The east Pacific has been quite active this season but there are signs that the El Nino is losing its grip and will begin to weaken soon- probably not in time to see a couple more named storms in that area. I'll post another update here concerning this system tomorrow morning. Program note- tomorrow night on HurricaneTrack News/Talk, we will welcome back Dr. Jack Beven from the National Hurricane Center as our guest. We'll ask him about the recent data added to the hurricane Gustav report and discuss other topics related to this season and his work at the NHC over the years. The program "airs" tomorrow night at 9pm right here on the homepage. I'll go over more details tomorrow. UPDATED: 10:15 am EDT, September 28, 2009 NO SIGNS OF TROUBLE IN THE ATLANTIC TD 8 left as quickly as it arrived and now the maps are blank once again. None of the computer models indicate that we will see any tropical cyclones develop over the Atlantic Basin anytime soon. Cool, dry air is now funneling down in to the northern Gulf of Mexico and will sweep out in to the western Atlantic. This should aid in keeping things tranquil for the next week or more. October typically has a small increase in activity before about mid-month but this has not been a typical season. The main area to watch, if we are going to see any development, will be the western Caribbean Sea. This region is climatologically favored this time of year and through October. I suppose it is possible that we will see one more hurricane form but as I mentioned, there is no sign of that happening in the model guidance. Even the east Pacific has quieted down for now. I'll have more here tomorrow morning. UPDATED: 4:45 pm EDT, September 25, 2009 TD #8 FORMS IN THE EASTERN ATLANTIC, COULD BECOME TS GRACE BEFORE FADING OUT Just a quick update here- the NHC has upgraded 99L to TD #8 and is forecasting it to become a weak tropical storm before the hostile conditions known as the 2009 hurricane season take over. We are also watching a strong and very large system to the south and east of TD #8 for possible development over the coming days. More on that tomorrow. The rest of the tropics will pose no problems for the weekend ahead! UPDATED: 10:00 am EDT, September 25, 2009 IMPRESSIVE ACTIVITY IN EASTERN ATLANTIC Even though it is late September and the far eastern Atlantic should be winding down, we are still seeing quite an impressive run of strong tropical waves emerge from the coast of Africa. One of them, labeled 99L, might have a chance to become a tropical depression within the next couple of days before the shear machine takes over and kills it. To its east, right along the coast of Africa, is another large system that could also develop some in the coming days. I do not see any of these features posing any issues to land areas, other than the Cape Verde Islands which lie directly in their paths. The rest of the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico looks to be free and clear of any organized deep convection and certainly no threat of tropical storm formation. It has been a remarkably quiet and peaceful season for those of us who live along the coast. With the exception of a couple of non-tropical storms and Claudette, the landfall situation this year is likely to remain very different than what we witnessed last year. For at least the next week to 10 days, I see no reason to believe that anything will change. We have made it this far, perhaps we can go all the way. We will know soon enough. UPDATED: 10:00 am EDT, September 24, 2009 ONE YELLOW CIRCLE TO WATCH There is one area that bears watching over the next several days. It is associated with a strong tropical wave that moved off the African coast a couple of days ago. It was preceded by a powerful SAL outbreak- very dry, dusty air. However, this layer of stable air is dissipating and is thus giving way to more favorable conditions over the warm waters of the east Atlantic. The NHC has circled the area with their yellow "low chance" designation and indicate that slow development is possible as the system tracks to the WNW. Taking a look at the global computer models, the GFS seems to latch on to this system to some extent while other models are not really doing much with it. As we know, conditions have been brutal for the development and sustainment of tropical systems this season resulting in only two hurricanes thus far- well below the long term average of six. We'll see what this feature does. There is some potential here and if it does not develop rapidly and curve out to sea, it could come fairly far to the west over the next week. The rest of the tropics are quiet for the most part. I will be watching the Bay of Campeche in the extreme southern Gulf of Mexico for possible development as the GFS in particular has been suggesting a conglomeration of clouds to gather there and a low to develop. That is a prime breeding ground this time of year and the region is known for spawning quick-fuse, generally weak, systems. I'll post another update tonight around 8pm ET. UPDATED: 7:00 pm EDT, September 23, 2009 TROPICS QUIET SO IT'S TIME FOR OUR FIRST RE-RUN The Atlantic Basin is nice and tame this evening with no areas of organized convection that look to develop in to anything worth worrying about. With that being the case, we are going to have our first re-run of a previous edition of HurricaneTrack News/Talk. We'll call it a "best of" episode and will feature the March 18 program where we talked with Jim Reed and Robin Lorenson about their work in studying storms. I will post the program here as if it were playing in our media player, complete with the live chat box. I'll be on monitoring the chat and will participate in any discussions that our visitors may wish to engage in. We'll return live next week and continue our coverage of any goings on in the tropics. For now, it looks like it will be a quiet end to September. So if you missed the March 18th program, come back tonight at 9pm for the "best of" episode- 9pm ET. UPDATED: 9:30 pm EDT, September 21, 2009 TROPICS LOOKING PRETTY GOOD- DESPITE THE GHOST OF FRED OR WHAT EVER YOU WANT TO CALL IT It looks as though the remnants of hurricane Fred will be hard pressed to make enough of a comeback to cause any problems. After watching this thing since about September 6, yes it has been that long, we will soon be rid of the pesky "F" storm. Convection is minimal and pressures are really high across the western Atlantic. There may be an increase in coastal shower activity tonight, tomorrow and Wednesday as the low pressure trough associated with what was once Fred gets closer to the Carolina coast. Otherwise, all is calm on this 20th anniversary of one of the most devastating hurricanes to ever hit the United States: Hugo. I will speak more about that historic even tomorrow morning. UPDATED: 9:00 am EDT, September 21, 2009 THE RETURN OF FRED OR JUST ANOTHER BLOB OF CLOUDS? It is difficult to come up with a description for what was once hurricane Fred at this point. The system has tracked from Africa all the way over to a position well east of Jacksonville, Florida. Of course, we thought Fred was gone as of yesterday, right? Is it still gone? Yes and no. The remnant surface trough of low pressure was still there, kind of like a smoldering pile of wood, just waiting to either be snuffed out completely or come roaring back to life. Well, this morning, it seems the wood pile has come roaring back. Looking at the satellite photo you can clearly see a ball of convection located off the Southeast coast. This is what was left of Fred with some new thunderstorms. Pressures are very high in the region, above 1015mb, but water temps are plenty warm and the shear is starting to relax. If this burst sustains itself, there is perhaps some slim chance that a new surface circulation would form as the whole mess moves slowly westward. I have no idea of what will become of this system, it has been around far too long considering it was supposed to dissipate many days ago. For today, we will just watch it and see if the convection lasts and/or grows. If it does, then there will be a tomorrow for Fred. If it wanes and vanishes, then we can once again say goodbye to Fred, until the next time it grows some thunderstorms. I'll post an update on conditions here this evening. UPDATED: 12:20 pm EDT, September 20, 2009 NEGATIVE CONDITIONS OF 2009 CONTINUE TO TAKE TOLL ON TROPICS Just when it looked like things would get fairly busy, a stark reminder of the ever-present hostile conditions that have dominated the 2009 hurricane season showed up. Both Fred's remnants and 98L have succumbed to a variety of ailments, including dry air, strong upper level winds and sinking air. This trio of bad medicine equals one thing: no hurricanes anytime soon. It is certainly a welcomed occurrence for coastal residents and those who live in areas such as Haiti, where hurricane Hanna exacted a heavy toll last year. I am not sure when we will see a pattern change, if ever, for the remainder of the season. This is not to say that nothing else will develop but I am not seeing anything definitive in the long range models. The only possible exception is the GFS and its lowering of the pressure fields in the western Caribbean after about 10 days. This would fit perfectly with the time of year we are entering and also the off chance that a more favorable MJO, or upper air pattern, is coming. It is hard to believe that we can go an entire season without so much as a hurricane watch issued for the U.S. coast but it does happen. I am not convinced just yet that we will escape this season without a hurricane landfall but time is starting to favor it not happening, just by a small margin. We have many weeks to go and know how quickly things can change. I was just re-reading the entire life cycle of Katrina last night for some research and was still utterly amazed that the entire calamity took place within five days. We don't have to have long-track hurricanes to cause major issues but as of right now, neither long track hurricanes or even their short-fused counterparts are going to part of our discussions in the coming days. UPDATED: 6:40 pm EDT, September 19, 2009 FRED IS QUITE A FRUSTRATION BUT AT LEAST IT IS NOT FEROCIOUS Not much new on Fred this evening. The remnant low pressure area has most likely degnerated in to a trough of low pressure. This means it is not a closed circulation as it was yesterday and last night. Instead, what we have is a focusing mechanism that is firing off showers and thunderstorms but not concentrated enough to act as a catylst to lower the air pressure and continue the process. It is not impossible but man oh man, is it getting old to keep watching Fred's remnants. I guess this is obviously better than staring down the barrel of an intense hurricane heading for Florida or where ever. We'll watch it, see what happens hour to hour and let it play out. The models continue to show very little additional development with this system and hopefully it will finally die off and that will be that. Until it is absolutely gone from the maps, it is still there- even if it is aggravating. If I stumble across any new info later tonight, I will post one more update, otherwise expect something new by Noon tomorrow. UPDATED: 10:00 am EDT, September 19, 2009 TROPICS GOING TO BE BUSY THIS WEEKEND It is going to be a busy weekend in the tropics with Fred making a possible comeback and 98L likely becoming a tropical depression. Here is what's going on... Just when it looked like Fred was not going to survive much longer, it grew some of the deepest convection we have seen in several days. The northerly shear that is affecting it now is forecast to relax enough that it is possible Fred will become a tropical storm again. In fact, later today, a Hurricane Hunter crew will fly out and investigate Fred for a more detailed look at what is going on. None of the large scale global models develop Fred to any degree but the NHC's SHIPS model, for intensity, shows Fred reaching almost 70 mph as it heads westward towards south Florida. It has about four more days over water that is only getting warmer and so my concern is that we see a system that intensifies really quickly being that it is so small. It would affect a fairly small area but if Fred ramps up, it could be quite an unpleasant surprise. Let me be very clear on one point- none of the models show this becoming a hurricane again and I am not saying it will be. What is important is to remember history and that small tropical cyclones have a tendancy to intensify very quickly but they can also weaken just as fast. If I lived in south Florida, I would be watching Fred very closely. The odds still favor it being a weak system but we do not want to be caught off guard. If Fred becomes a tropical storm again, I am heading to Florida for observations and reporting where ever it makes landfall. The track and history of Fred is so incredible that even a 40 mph tropical storm would be interesting to intercept- afterall, it traveled all the way over from Africa. Meanwhile, the NHC has painted 98L in the "code red" category meaning that it is likely on its way to becoming a tropical depression. The models are not too bullish on this developing much either but it could become a tropical storm- if so, the name will be Grace. The most likely scenario right now is for it to head WNW and then turn north and eventually away from land and out to sea. The rest of the tropics are fairly quiet with only one minor area off the west coast of Africa. It will run out of warm water before it can develop much further. I will have more info on Fred this evening by 7pm ET. UPDATED: 8:30 pm EDT, September 18, 2009 TIME IS RUNNING OUT FOR FRED If you look at a satellite photo of the Atlantic Basin and tried to find where the small circulation that is Fred was located, could you? It is still out there, around 26N and approaching 70W. Convection is extremely limited but is still there, if you look close enough. The only computer model that I can find that shows any potential with Fred is the NHC's SHIPS model and it brings Fred up to 60 knots, if it were to stay over water (at the time it shows 60 knots, it could be over land in some of the track models). None of the global models develop the system but you can see clues that might suggest it has a chance- however small. One such clue is the upper level wind pattern. The GFS suggests, as does the ECMWF, that shear will lessen beginning fairly soon along Fred's path. If this takes place before the fragile circulation totally dissipates, then we might see Fred come back enough to make things interesting for Florida next week. How will we know what the final outcome will be? Wish I could tell you. Water temps are plenty warm, shear is forecast to relax and the air gets quite moist the farther west Fred travels. But just because conditions may turn to more favorable does not mean we will see this long-lived swirl, that was once a strong hurricane, make any dramatic comeback. I think tomorrow will be the key. If we see deeper thunderstorms fire up and stay sustained, then we know that Fred is in fact taking advantage of the better environment. If it still looks like a swirl of clouds, with only pop-corn storms around it, then it is very unlikely to amount to much as it approaches Florida. Elsewhere, we will be watching 98L in the central Atlantic. This has some potential to continue to develop although it will certainly have to battle the same hostile conditions that have been prevalent for most of the peak of the hurricane season. It is located between Africa and the Lesser Antilles so even if it goes full tilit, it won't bother any land areas for several days, if ever. I'll post another update here by Noon tomorrow. UPDATED: 8:30 am EDT, September 18, 2009 THE INCREDIBLE LEGACY OF FRED AND NOW, 98L Well, the lull did not last long. By lull, I mean the blank tropical outlook map from yesterday. Since about mid-August, we have had either a named storm or some kind of area of interest in the Atlantic every single day. We went one day, yesterday, with nothing. Today, we have two areas to watch. One of them is ex-Fred. The small but quite well defined circulation associated in part with the remnants of what was once a strong hurricane are now at about 25 north and roughly 65 west and moving west. There is some thunderstorm activity associated with the system although northerly winds are pushing those storms off. Dry air in the atmosphere is also hindering significant development. None of the computer models, none of them, show Fred making any kind of comeback to warrant much concern. It will continue west for at least the next couple of days and get in to an area where conditions might be more favorable. My only worry is that it is such a small system that perhaps the global models don't "see it" as it slips in under the radar, so to speak. I will say this, if it is going to amount to anything, it will have to do so within about 48-60 hours, then it will likely run in to land soon after. I'll be watching closely as will the NHC, obviously. Interesting couple of days ahead. We also have 98L which came up out of no where seemingly. It is associated with a strong tropical wave in the central tropical Atlantic. The NHC gives it a decent chance of continued development but once again, dry air and strong upper level winds are quite prevalent and so this too will have a tough journey ahead. It is pushing up strong convection in the face of thse hostile conditions, so like Fred, it may fight for a while as it travels generally WNW over the next few days. I'll post another update here early this evening and focus more on ex-Fred with some satellite photos as the day progresses. UPDATED: 7:50 am EDT, September 17, 2009 ALL IS QUIET NOW IN THE ATLANTIC, EAST PACIFIC NOT LOOKING TOO BAD EITHER After a flurry of activity beginning in about mid-August, which included major hurricanes Bill and Fred, the Atlantic Basin is now quiet. There are no suspect areas, no yellow, orange or red circles, to denote an area of interest anywhere in the Basin. The reason? Very hostile conditions just about everywhere you look. Whether it be strong upper level winds or sinking, dry air or a combination of those conditions, the lid has been closed tightly on tropical cyclone development. None of the global computer models indicate any significant changes over the next five days. About the only time period that I can see where we might see a window of opportunity is towards the end of the month and in to early October. There is a chance that a more favorable MJO pattern, which creates divergence aloft, the opposite of what we are seeing now, could migrate eastward across the Atlantic Basin. It makes sense as we are seeing a hefty typhoon in the western Pacific right now and some activity in the east Pacific with TS Marty. This wave of increased convection associated with the MJO pulse would arrive in about a week, maybe less. The region that I will be watching will shift from the east and central Atlantic to the western Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico. If we are going to have any issues this season, I suspect that's where we will see them originate. For now, we have a nice, pretty blank map. I'll have more here tomorrow. UPDATED: 10:15 pm EDT, September 15, 2009 FRED LOOKING LIKE IT WANTS TO HANG AROUND FOR A BIT LONGER The NHC began running their hurricane models, the ones that predict intensity and track, for what was once powerful hurricane Fred. As you may recall, the hurricane was attacked by strong upper level winds and almost completely dissipated. However, the low level circulation has remained well defined and is now supporting some fairly deep convection. Although it is waning now, the thunderstorm activity was quite impressive earlier this evening. For what's it worth, the latest SHIPS intensity model for Fred brings it to a 72 knot hurricane in five days. If this comes to pass, Fred will have made one remarkable comeback, one that I cannot recall ever seeing in all of my years tracking hurricanes. So we'll watch with greater interest now as it looks like Fred could come fairly far to the west as strong high pressure builds across the western Atlantic towards the weekend. I'll have much more on this and the possibility of something developing near the Bahamas and well off of Africa in tomorrow morning's update. UPDATED: 9:30 am EDT, September 15, 2009 FRED GETS A STAY OF EXECUTION- FOR NOW Just when it looked like Fred was gone and could never come back, surpise, it has been given a chance, however small, by the NHC. The latest satellite animation of the Atlantic Basin shows Fred hanging on south of 20 north and between 40 and 50 west. Spurts of convection can be seen firing up in association with the still very well defined low level center of circulation. So what lies ahead for Fred? Apparently, slightly better conditions. Looking at the computer models, it seems that the relentless shear could relax some over the next day or two and allow the tenacious system to regenerate more deep convection. If this happens, it is possible that the NHC would initiate advisories again. I am reluctant to give Fred too much of a chance due to another overwhelming factor- dry air. The sinking and converging nature to the atmosphere out over the open Atlantic is such that even with low wind shear, it will be tough to push up deep thunderstorms. This has been a trademark to this hurricane season, the dry air. Tropical cyclones need very moist and unstable air in order to thrive. If Fred can manage to stay intact until it passes 60 degrees west, then it may in fact have a decent chance at a second life. Until then, it is just something to watch and poses absolutely no threat to any land areas. Elsewhere, an area of low pressure seems to be taking shape to the east of the Bahamas. Most computer models develop this as it scoots out to the northeast and away from land. I think it is possible that this will grow enough to get a name later in the week but should take off and not bother the Southeast coast. We'll have to see if Bermuda gets brushed by the system as it passes by. Name or not, it could bring a period of unsettled weather to the island. We will be watching the area off the coast of Africa over the coming days as well. It is still prime development season in that part of the Atlantic but time is running out and the focus will soon shift back to the west. The GFS model has been indicating a significant tropical cyclone developing over the course of the next five days. None of the other global models seem to support this idea too much so we will have to wait and see. I'll have another update here tonight. UPDATED: 9:50 pm EDT, September 14, 2009 FRED'S BONES TRYING TO GROW SOME MEAT Figured I would post a quick note about Fred- or what's left of the ole hurricane. It appears that some decent but sparse convection is trying to fire up again around the circulation. Remember, the key to tropical cyclone formation and their survival is convection. Deep tropical thunderstorms and heavy rain showers release heat in to the atmosphere and help to sustain the low pressure center. The more the convection can persist, the lower the air pressure can drop. There is still considerable shear out in the Atlantic and so Fred will have a tough time of it over the next few days. There might be a window of opportunity for Fred to stage more of a comeback but I am not clear on whether this is real or the models just not picking up on the reality of the hostile conditions in the Atlantic. So far, the well defined circulation center has remained just that- well defined. As long as spurts of convection can fire up, it has a chance as it moves generally westward. Elsewhere, the tropics are mostly quiet but we'll be watching the region around the Bahamas and off the coast of Africa as the week wears on. I'll have much more here tomorrow morning. UPDATED: 10:30 am EDT, September 14, 2009 A NEW WEEK BUT WILL WE SEE A NEW NAMED STORM? Ever since about mid-August, we have seen a new named storm develop in the Atlantic Basin almost every week. Two of them became fairly strong hurricanes and the rest were quite weak tropical storms. We have also seen a fair amount of non-tropical activity plague the East Coast and most recently, the western and central Gulf Coasts. With the start of a new week, and our pushing deeper in to September, will we see a new named storm to keep the streak alive? Maybe. Let's examine the possibilities. First, let's look at Fred. The low level remains of the once category three hurricane are still out in the east-central Atlantic. A strong flare up of deep thunderstorms occurred yesterday and it looked as if Fred had a shot at making quite the comeback. Instead, strong winds from the south came in and blasted the thunderstorms away from the well defined center. Now, we see only limited convection with Fred today but it is still holding together despite the hostile conditions. Chances are that this will come way west this week and end up somewhere near the Bahamas by Friday. If conditions allow, it is possible that Fred will strengthen again. If it does, it will remain Fred and not get a new name. We'll see, I have my doubts that it will amount to much but you never know. The other area to watch is along a stalled frontal boundary draped across the southwest Atlantic. This region, especially near the northern Bahamas, is a prime candidate for devlopment of a low pressure area. None of the global models show it becoming too significant so I would not put too much concern in the area. None the less, it is a typical location for the development of tropical cyclones and so, of course, it will have to be watched. The pattern is such this week that any development would not have a clear path to scoot northeast and out to sea. With strong, later summer high pressure bulding in, including a resurgence of the Bermuda High, anything that gets going would be steered westward for a few days at least. The Gulf of Mexico is not quite as active as it was over the weekend with only a small area of showers and thunderstorms moving across from west to east. Heavy rains will continue in portions of Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. I do not see this having a chance of tropical storm formation. I will post more here tonight with an update on Fred and the potential for development near the Bahamas. UPDATED: 7:45 am EDT, September 11, 2009 SIGNIFICANT NON-TROPICAL STORM AFFECTING NORTHEAST. ALSO, IS A PATTERN CHANGE COMING? It is considered a non-tropical storm but its effects are almost as dramatic as a moderate named storm would be. The low pressure area that brought 10+ inches of rain to portions of North Carolina is now moving inland over the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. Wind, rain and even severe weather is affecting literally millions of people from Washington, D.C. to Philadelphia. Take a look at this radar from Dover Air Force Base and you can plainly see the amount of heavy rain impacting the region. All of this came from a tropical wave that originated from Africa many days ago. It became entangled with other upper level energy coming from North American and has blended together to create this hybrid non-tropical storm. Obviously, the morning commute in the area affected will be a nightmare. Locally, I am sure this is a major news story and it could even pop up in the national spotlight later today. The whole mess will move out slowly over the next day or two. Be careful out there, it is quite an unsettled weather day for a lot of people. Meanwhile, hurricane Fred continues to move slowly in the eastern Atlantic as it also weakens due to fairly hostile conditions. The interesting the thing about Fred is that the GFS model in particular, which goes out to 384 hours on each run, shows Fred's remnant low pressure area coming all the way back to Florida in about 10-11 days. It shows up as a tropical wave really with not much energy but it is there. It would be quite remarkable if it were to hold together enough to be of concern. One reason I am interested in this a little more than usual is due to a pattern change that appears to be coming. Right now, most of the Atlantic is quite unfavorable for tropical storm formation. This is due to strong winds in the upper layers of the atmosphere as well as sinking, converging air. To get tropical storms and hurricanes, you need to see air in the upper levels that is diverging or spreading out as we would see with a large upper anticylone. The latest GFS MJO forecast, which goes out to 15 days, indicates that the current negative pattern will cease and switch to one that is quite a bit more favorable- right at the end of the month and in to early October. This has to be watched closely as it is my belief, based on looking at longer range models, that the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico could get more active in the coming weeks. It makes sense too climatologically as we begin to shift away from the eastern Atlantic and focus more on the western Basin towards the end of September. Let me be clear- there are no indications that a hurricane is in the works for any location. As I talk about often, these are just pieces of a large puzzle that we try to put together to figure out the picture of what may lie ahead in the tropics. What I see is the chance of a more favorable development pattern evolving. Whether or not anything actually happens during that pattern remains to be seen. I'll have more about all of this over the weekend. UPDATED: 4:50 pm EDT, September 9, 2009 NO IKE THIS YEAR, NOT YET AND NOT TOO LIKELY This time last year I was on the road to Texas as hurricane Ike was zeroing in on the region. Such will not be the case this year, it seems, as the tropics are not producing anything significant close to land- at least so far. We are tracking hurricane Fred which is weakening in an increasingly hostile environment in the eastern Atlantic. Fred or rather its remnants will likely come west for more than a week and be somewhere near Bermuda as a low level swirl of clouds- hopefully nothing more. Another area of interest is the non-tropical low pressure center off the Mid-Atlantic coast. This will produce rather squally conditions tonight and tomorrow from the Delmarva region up to Long Island. Check out this satellite loop, you can clearly see the low pressure area well to the east of New Jersey. It may be over warm waters but it is not tropical in nature, not like a pure tropical cyclone would be. However, it will dump heavy rains and bring gusty winds to some coastal areas- be sure to check your local NWS web site for more specific info weather.gov. The only other area to watch is a large swath of clouds, showers and thunderstorms over the western Gulf of Mexico. This has a slim chance of developing a weak surface low which would bring much needed rains to coastal Texas. Otherwise, the system does not have the upper support to become a strong tropical storm or a hurricane. It looks like Texas will not have a hurricane issue on September 13 of this year- ending the back to back run of 2007 and 2008. We still have a lot of hurricane season left and plenty of warm water close to land. While I do not see anything threatening in the long range models, it is still obviously hurricane season and we'll need to keep an eye on things until the cold air arrives and begins to really cool off the Basin. So far, we're looking pretty good. Now let's see if it will last until late November. UPDATED: 10:30 am EDT, September 9, 2009 EXCEPT FOR HURRICANE FRED, TROPICS ARE NOT LOOKING TOO BAD FOR THE PEAK OF THE SEASON This time last year I was packing up the Chevy Tahoe and the cargo trailer for a trip to Texas and an incredible encounter with hurricane Ike. The U.S. and surrounding island nations of the northern Caribbean had endured quite a bombardment of hurricanes and tropical storms- on top of what was rapidly becoming a crumbling economy. Such is not the case this year. There is no hurricane heading for Texas and none that have even really threatened the U.S. Bill came close but that is really about it. We do have hurricane Fred out there in the far eastern Atlantic and that is where Fred will remain. It has become a major hurricane with top winds near 120 mph, the second major hurricane of the season. It will not matter much in terms of impact to land areas as Fred is expected to never reach 40 degrees west longitude. The pattern is such that anything forming in the eastern Atlantic right now will be turned north by a large opening in the Azores High. We will talk about this and other related topics tonight on HurricaneTrack News/Talk at 9pm ET right here on the homepage. With it being the peak of the hurricane season, Mike, Jesse and I will go over a quick re-cap of what we have had already and how it compares to what was predicted. We'll also take a look at the next few weeks and our best guess at what may lie ahead. Join us LIVE at 9pm ET- just visit the homepage here and the program will play like a radio show. If you can't catch it live, we'll archive it immediately upon completion. UPDATED: 11:30 am EDT, September 8, 2009 NO-NAME STORM CAUSING QUITE A RUCKUS AS FRED AIMS TO BECOME A HURRICANE The top story today, for us anyway, is the non-tropical storm off the North Carolina coast. It is causing as many problems as a storm with a name would over portions of eastern North Carolina and southeast Virginia. Looking at the latest satellite loop of the East Coast, it is easy to see the low pressure area centered near Cape Hatteras. A quick check of conditions at Mitchell Field on Hatteras shows winds gusting to 22mph with a pressure of 1008mb. This is about a 10mb drop in the last couple of days! Seas are rough and rip currents are a high risk right now. All in all, this is not a good day to be at the beach along the Outer Banks. The low is forecast to move out over the Gulf Stream and could strengthen before it turns west again and makes "landfall" along the Mid-Atlantic later this week. We'll have to watch this closely as it could gradually acquire more tropical characteristics and ramp up a little more. But the important aspect to note here is the amount of rain that has fallen and that will fall. Some areas have picked up over eight inches. Jesse Bass reports to me from SE VA that nearly four inches have fallen since early this morning. As the low pulls away, the rain will subside but we will then have to see what happens as this system sits out over the warm Atlantic waters. Meanwhile, Fred is picking up steam over the open Atlantic with top winds now 65 mph. It is expected to become a hurricane- only the 2nd one of the season, if you can believe that! It should eventually turn to the north as a huge hole opens in the large subtropical ridge of high pressure over the eastern Atlantic. There have been some indications that perhaps it would not make the connection, so to speak and could come farther west but the vast majority of the computer guidance suggests that Fred will not affect land. However, it could be on the maps for several days, boosting the overall ACE index for the season. What is that? Tune in to our weekly HurricaneTrack News/Talk program tomorrow night to find out. We will discuss Fred, Mr. No-name Storm and the prospects of something forming in the western Gulf of Mexico over the weekend. That's tomorrow night, 9pm ET here on the homepage. I'll discuss it in more detail tomorrow and will have another brief post here this evening. UPDATED: 10:40 pm EDT, September 7, 2009 ALL SORTS OF THINGS GOING ON BUT NOTHING WE CAN'T HANDLE The tropics are alive and kicking tonight with several areas to discuss. The good news is that there is nothing out there that poses any significant risk to land areas- and certainly nothing we cannot handle. So here is the rundown: TD7 formed earlier today and should be TS Fred anytime now. It is forecast to move no farther west than about 40 degrees of longitude. This system could be on the maps for a few days as it will be a fairly slow mover as it slowly strengthens. I do not see that it will pose a problem to land areas as the pattern simply does not favor a track to the west- not right now. So this system should not be too much of a concern but a nice feature to track. Meanwhile, a non-tropical area of low pressure has been developing off of the coast of North Carolina and is bringing copious amounts of rain to portions of the Tarheel State. Check out this radar link out of eastern North Carolina. Very heavy rains and some breezy conditions are the rule tonight for much of the Crystal Coast and Outer Banks. Minor to moderate flooding will be a concern with this much rain in such a short order. The bad news, the system is not expected to move much over the remainder of the week and this moisture is going to push northward in to the southeast Virginia area. Be mindful of this and allow extra time when traveling. I was out in Surf City, NC this evening and took this video of the conditions there. Nothing dramatic but a stormy look to the evening none the less. Temps were warm with a stiff easterly breeze off a rough ocean. We'll see if this can hang around long enough to possibly acquire enough tropical characteristics to be worthy of a name. Water temps are warm enough but the upper level conditions are the limiting factor. Beyond that, I will be watching the Gulf of Mexico, mainly the southwest portion, over the next few days as the GFS model has indicated the possibility of some development. Water temps are very warm and we do have a pre-existing disturbance in the area worth watching. I'll post more here on Tuesday morning and we will, of course, have a full plate of things to talk about on Wednesday night's edition of HurricaneTrack News/Talk. More about that tomorrow and Weds.... UPDATED: 12:45 pm EDT, September 7, 2009 TROPICS STILL BUSY EVEN WITHOUT A HURRICANE ON LABOR DAY It has been a while since we have observed Labor Day and not had a hurricane somewhere in the Atlantic. Even though that is the case, the tropics certainly are active and I see more activity on the way. We are currently monitoring 96L, a strong tropical wave off the coast of Africa. This looks like it will develop and become our next tropical storm- maybe. I say that because we are also watching a non-tropical area of low pressure off the North Carolina coast that has some potential for additional development as it sits and festers over the Gulf Stream. Make no mistake about this system, it will bring copious amounts of rainfall to portions of the Mid-Atlantic states over the week as strong high pressure moves out over the northwest Atlantic and blocks the system. This could give it time to warm its center and become a named storm. What it will do for sure is bring breezy conditions and periods of rain to the Carolinas and Virginia as well as areas north of there throughout the week. It will be interesting to see what the NHC has to say about the feature over the next few days- right now they indicate a low chance of tropical cyclone formation but we'll see. The Gulf Stream is an interesting region of the ocean and it stores a lot of heat energy. Meanwhile, I noticed a blow up of convection in the southern Bay of Campeche that could stick around long enough to develop a little more and head towards south Texas. The 12Z run of the GFS shows a closed low with this in about five days. Let's see what the NHC says later in the day or tomorrow. Could be a quick fuse system that would at least bring some needed rain to Texas. The rest of the tropics are filled with negative conditions aloft that will not allow for deep thunderstorms to get going right now. This should change later in the month but for now, it will be closer-to-home systems that we'll need to watch instead of long tracked big-time hurricanes. I'll post another update here this evening. UPDATED: 10:00 am EDT, September 4, 2009 ERIKA VICTIM OF THE OVERALL SEASON The experts said that the hurricane season would likely be a weak one. So far, they have been spot on. Only hurricane Bill, which did become a category four, was much of a threat to anyone. Everything else has been about as poor as you could ever see from the tropics. But why has it been like this? One year ago we were tracking hurricane Ike which would go on to become a top-5 hurricane in United States' history. It came on the heels of hurricane Gustav which itself set records for wind speeds in Cuba. How can things be so dramatically different the very next year? Some blame it purely on El Nino but that is too simple. There are other larger forces at work here including cooler than normal sea surface temps in portions of the Atlantic where they need to be warmer in order to promote an unstable environment in which thunderstorms can develop and sustain. There is also a lot of sinking, dry air evident in the deep tropics, this too adds to the hostile conditions and goes strongly against development of tropical cyclones. Add to that what appears to be a weaker than normal Bermuda High, which allows strong upper level energy to dig off and near the East Coast, and you have the makings of a paltry hurricane season. Erika is a classic example of this even though some of the computer models insisted it would become a powerful hurricane. Those computer models are wrong, Erika is no longer a concern except for some rain associated with the low pressure trough that created it in the first place. So what lies ahead for the rest of the season? It is only September 4 and yes, a lot can happen in the next six weeks or so that remains in the traditional meat of the season. We do see a few tropical waves across the eastern Atlantic that are moving westward in stealth mode- meaning they are essentially naked of any deep convection. They too will probably reach 50W longitude and begin to flare up, only to be snuffed out by hostile conditions. Of course, we know better than to completely dismiss the rest of the season as there is time for one to get through and ruin everything. In my opinion, the odds are against that happening but since we do not know for sure what lies ahead, we'll keep an eye out just in case. As of today, the tracking maps are blank once again and it may be a little while before we add "Fred" to those maps. How about that for telling it like it is? I'll have more here tomorrow. UPDATED: 10:20 pm EDT, September 3, 2009 ERIKA HAS ONE LAST PLAY Ok, to put it in to one last sports analogy, here is the situation. Imagine Erika being your favorite football team, college or pro, it doesn't matter. Your team is down 3 with 9 seconds left on the clock after the opposing team kicked a field goal to take the lead. Your team's only option is to return the ensuing kickoff 96 yards for a touchdown. There are no other options. It is mathematically possible to do that and win the game but extremely unlikely and I do mean extreme! Those are the kinds of odds Erika is now facing. It comes down to one last play and then the depression is gone, written off, rolled up. This certainly spells good news for any land areas that could have received quite the lashing had Erika lived up to the HWRF or GFDL potential. Kind of odd though, the GFDL still maintains this will reach hurricane strength after making it in to the western Atlantic but on a course well off the Southeast coast. If this happens, it won't be the Erika we have now, sure it would keep that name since it would come from the same source energy/tropical wave, but what we see out there tonight to the southeast of Puerto Rico is a small thunderstorm complex that will probably collapse and thus the game will be over. Now before you write me and say "you think this is a game?", it's just an analogy, that's all. Believe me, we know more than most how bad these things can get. We don't wish them on anyone but when they come, we do our best to cover them. We take it all and put out the facts with as little hype as possible and believe you me, there is no hype when talking about Erika, unless it makes 96 yards as time expires. We'll know when the sun comes up, if not before then. I'll post more here tomorrow morning. UPDATED: 2:30 pm EDT, September 3, 2009 IS IT LIGHTS OUT FOR ERIKA OR THE BEGINNING OF A NEW SHOW? The drama with our tropical storm continues. Latest computer model guidance suggests that Erika will survive the hostile conditions and become a formidable hurricane off the East Coast in about a week. Conventional wisdom and a look at the real world strongly argues against that. Why? The low level center being tracked by the NHC is clearly evident on satellite pics and is moving quickly westward to die away and that's that- right? Maybe not. Looking at the latest visible satellite loop of Erika you can also see a distinct turning of the clouds to the east of the low level swirl. This is likely in the mid-levels and unless it works down to the surface, it truly is game over for Erika and fairly soon. The big key, to me anyway, is the next 12-24 hours. If that possible new center does in fact take over, it would fit in with the models that are strengthening this and off she goes. So stay tuned, I have no idea of which way to lean and have a lot of faith in the NHC and their forecast. But things can change and we might, just might, be seeing a re-born Erika that could have an entirely new set of circumstances to deal with down the road. First, let's see what happens over the next 12 hours or so. I'll post another update tonight. UPDATED: 9:15 am EDT, September 3, 2009 HOW LONG DOES ERIKA HAVE? DEPENDS ON WHETHER TO BELIEVE MACHINES OR MAN I cannot recall a more interesting situation as far as the future of a tropical storm like we are seeing with Erika right now. The NHC is continuing advisories on the poorly organized storm but looking at satellite pictures alone, you would think it was a well developed hurricane. The issue is, according to the latest discussions from the NHC, dry air and strong winds at just the right layers of the atmosphere. These negative parameters are just enough to keep Erika firmly in check and may weaken it enough to be downgraded to a well defined tropical wave again. However, it is worth noting that the GFDL and HWRF models insist that Erika will become a major hurricane over the next five days as it travels just north of the Greater Antilles and towards the Bahamas. What I do not understand is how these modern and seemingly reliable models can depict such a contrasting solution to what the NHC is forecasting: dissipation. Their reasoning has more to do with increasing strong winds aloft than anything- enough so that the official forecast calls for Erika to basically fade away as it travels west-northwest. Yet, the GFDL and HWRF show robust intensification in to a strong hurricane along almost the same path that the NHC plots. So who will be right? The models or the humans? Computers are machines designed by people and so they are certainly prone to making mistakes- as we humans are. So it is likely that the human interpretation of the real world will win out and Eika will in fact die off and be of little concern to anyone. That is what seems most likely but it is not a guarantee. The old "what if?" keeps creeping in to my mind and believe me, Mike, Jesse and I have all talked about it at great length between yesterday and right now. Heck, even the Navy's NOGAPS model shows Erika making a comeback over a week from now with a strong storm or hurricane parked off the North Carolina coast. So you see the dilemma that is inherent to this situation. I do not want to create something out of nothing when the people in charge of the forecasts present compelling evidence as to why this thing will die off. But so far, it is still there and looking fairly healthy considering the hostile environment. One thing is certain- unsettled weather will rule the picture over the Lesser Antilles and spread towards Puerto Rico today and tomorrow. Without this even having a name would not limit the heavy rains and gusty winds that are in store for much of the northeast Caribbean. I'll post another update on Erika later this afternoon. UPDATED: 5:50 pm EDT, September 2, 2009 I MUST HAVE JINXED ERIKA IN THE EARLIER UPDATE- IT IS ON BORROWED TIME Funny how quickly things can change. Fortunately it is for the better. It seems that Erika will not ever amount to much more than a mere blip in this season's history books. Hostile conditions that were apparently not picked up on in some of the intensity models will do the storm in- and fairly soon - or so it appears. The NHC has done a good job in interpretating the real life world over the fiction created by some of the more robust intensity forecasts and shows Erika dead and gone within five days. Is there a chance it makes a major comeback like a basketball team down by 2 with only 2.8 seconds left and only a miracle shot left to give them the victory? I suppose, but it is not likely. For now, the storm will bring showers and some gusty winds to portions of the northern Leeward Islands and then Puerto Rico and the remainder of the Greater Antilles islands. Soon there after, we should be saying goodbye to the "E" storm for this season unless it can pull a Grant Hill pass to Christian Laettner and live to see another day. Sorry about the basketball analogies but it really does help to think of it in those terms- especially when your blood runs Duke Blue (time to shut off the email inbox). We'll talk about it all tonight on HurricaneTrack News/Talk at 9pm ET right here on the homepage. Join us LIVE for an in-depth look at what happened and why it looks like lights out for Erika. We'll also update you on Jimena and its effects along the Baja peninsula. Join us if you can, if not, we'll post the file for later download as soon as we conclude the program. UPDATED: 8:50 am EDT, September 2, 2009 ERIKA TO BE AROUND FOR A WHILE- JIMENA WEAKENING AS IT INTERACTS WITH THE BAJA TS Erika is battling some fairly hostile conditions in the Atlantic today but even in the face of these conditions has managed to develop to where it is now. The current winds are near 45 mph but the low level center is not tucked underneath the deep thunderstorms. Until and unless that happens, Erika will not become a hurricane. It is interesting to note that the GFDL and HWRF models both show Erika reaching hurricane strength easily and becoming quite a strong one at that. There is favorable upper level support as evidenced by the fanning out of the cloud pattern but looking at water vapor imagery, it appears that a fairly dry mid-level environment exists over a great deal of the Atlantic right now. Tropical cyclones derive their energy from a moist, unstable air mass. This heat energy drives convection and thus lowers the pressures. The bursting pattern of thunderstorms with Erika is an indication that it is fighting to push up the convection. I think the intensity models are missing this parameter, the dry air, and assume it has a perfect set up otherwise and thus shows a healthy hurricane down the road. Maybe this will eventually happen but for now, Erika is disorganized and moving almost due west. This will bring possible tropical storm conditions to the northern Leewards today and Puerto Rico tomorrow. In the longer term, there are indications that Erika will A) be around for another week and B) get quite close to the Bahamas and eventually the Southeast United States. How far west and how strong remain quite uncertain right now. This will be one to watch however as it will be moving towards populated land areas whether they be islands or the mainland U.S. coast. Hurricane Jimena is now very close to the coast of southern Baja in the east Pacific. The hurricane has weakened quite a bit which is great news. The forecast track has changed fairly significantly too in that the remanant low is no longer progged to go northward and approach Arizona. It could drift around the Baja for the next several days bringing very heavy rains and unsettled weather to the region. We will talk about this and TS Erika tonight on HurricaneTrack News/Talk. The weekely program begins at 9pm on the homepage here. We'll have the very latest info and discuss the long term possibilities for Erika. Join us LIVE, tonight at 9pm ET. I'll post another update here early this evening. UPDATED: 11:00 pm EDT, September 1, 2009 ERIKA GETS A LITTLE STRONGER WHILE THE BAJA PREPARES FOR JIMENA TS Erika gained some intensity tonight with a considerable expansion of the cloud mass. In fact, the storm has increased in size quite dramatically- apparently in response to a relaxing of the hostile conditions that have held it in check for so many days. Top winds are 60 mph but are not forecast to go much higher. This is in stark contrast to the latest GFDL/HWRF runs which both show Erika becoming a considerable hurricane over its future. The NHC is playing it conservative and keeps the intensity below hurricane strength. Later in the period, strong winds aloft could actually tear away at the tropical storm and weaken it steadily. We'll see- that much is certain. As for the forecast track, not much has changed, the NHC plots a position north of the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico but close enough to warrant tropical storm watches for some locations. The outer rain bands could affect some of the islands of the northeast Caribbean but otherwise conditions are not expected to be too bad. Still too soon to know how far west this will get. No reason to speculate right now although it does appear that Erika will be on the maps for several more days- maybe even a week. In the eastern Pacific, hurricane Jimena has weakened substantially from its 155 mph top speed seen earlier. Hopefully it will continue that trend and give the Baja a break from major damage. As it looks now, the hurricane should cross over the peninsula at about its half-way point and then move over the Gulf of California with a final landfall in mainland Mexico. Remnant moisture could get entrained in to the Southwest U.S. providing some needed rain- something to keep in mind since it would be tropical in origin and possibly heavy. The rest of the tropics are generally quiet with no major issues to contend with. Tomorrow night on our weekly edition of HurricaneTrack News/Talk, Mike, Jesse and I will discuss Erika and Jimena during our hour-long radio-style program. We hope you can join in LIVE on the homepage here at 9pm ET for the very latest info and thinking on the future of these two features. I'll have an update here tomorrow morning. UPDATED: 5:00 pm EDT, September 1, 2009 TROPICAL STORM ERIKA FORMS EAST OF THE LEEWARD ISLANDS- STRONG SHEAR SHOULD KEEP IT FAIRLY WEAK This will be an interesting system to track. The NHC has upgraded 94L, the strong tropical wave we have been tracking for several days, directly to TS Erika with top winds of 50 mph. Don't let this fool you. It appears that the storm's days of strengthening should be numbered as quite unfavorable conditions await the storm farther west. For now, the official forecast shows Erika reaching peak intensity of just below hurricane strength well north of Puerto Rico. It is close enough to the Leewards to prompt a tropical storm watch for portions of that region. For specific info on where, click here. Beyond five days, a lot can happen. There are seemingly two groups of models that show two distinct track scenarios for Erika. One group, the GFS, EURO and GFDL/HWRF show the storm turn more notherly with time and keep it well east of the Bahamas and U.S. Southeast. Another group, made up of the Canadian CMC model, the British UKMET and the Navy NOGAPS shows Erika moving much close to the Bahamas and the Southeast. A lot will depend on how strong and deep in to the atmosphere Erika becomes and thus what influence larger weather systems passing by will have. A weaker storm should track farther west- as the NHC notes. The bottom line is that this poses little threat to any land areas right now and we have plenty of time to monitor the evolution of the overall pattern across the western Atlantic. I will post more on Erika and hurricane Jimena late tonight. UPDATED: 2:35 pm EDT, August 31, 2009 NHC SAYS JIMENA IN EAST PACIFIC NOW A 150 MPH HURRICANE WHILE 94L STRUGGLES WITH ITSELF Welcome to a typical El Nino year. Lots of hurricanes in the east Pacific, very few in the Atlantic. That is holding true today to be sure. The NHC reports that hurricane Jimena now has winds of 150 mph with much higher gusts. As such, and considering the close proximity of the hurricane to the coast, a hurricane warning has been posted for the southern Baja peninsula. This will be a major news story in the coming days and people in the region should be getting ready for quite the disaster. The only good news is that the hurricane force winds are confined to a fairly small area- only about 30 miles or so from the center. However, a good deal of the Baja will be within the right-front quadrant of Jimena as it passes by before making landfall. We will track this story closely in the coming days as it looks to be a significant event for the region. Perhaps there will be the added benefit of moisture making its way in to the southwest U.S. we'll just have to wait and see about that. Meanwhile, 94L continues to struggle today even though it looked like it was well on its way to becoming a depression this morning. That is still quite possible but the combination of an elongated area of overall low pressure and some shear in the upper levels is keeping this system in check. Right now, it appears to be moving WNW and could bring some inclement weather to the Lesser Antilles as early as tomorrow night and in to Wednesday. We will have the advantage of aircraft recon tomorrow afternoon as long as conditions warrant and we will know more about the structure of this developing system. It is tough to make a call on the guidance from computer models as some develop it and some do not- at all. The whole area of disturbed weather should continue to track generally west-northwest at between 10-15 mph over the next few days. The jury is still out as to what will eventually become of 94L so we'll just wait and see. The remainder of the Atlantic Basin is quiet for the most part with no immediate areas of concern. I will have one more update here late tonight. UPDATED: 8:40 am EDT, August 31, 2009 94L LOOKING LIKE IT IS ON THE WAY TO BECOMING A DEPRESSION THIS MORNING AS JIMENA IN THE EAST PACIFIC TAKES AIM ON THE BAJA Another week, another named storm likely as it looks fairly certain now that 94L will become a tropical depression as soon a tropical storm. After sputtering some over the weekend, the strong tropical wave now near 15N and 50W has developed deep thunderstorms near and perhaps over a low level center. I think this could be upgraded later today. Latest computer models show this coming WNW for several days and just skirting the northern Leeward Islands. Intensity forecasts from the NHC's SHIPS model does show this becoming a hurricane so people will want to keep a close eye on how it develops. Right now, it poses no threat to any land areas and it is too soon to say how close to the Lesser Antilles it will track. We should have aircraft recon in the system tomorrow for more precise info on what is going on. Stay tuned, this system will likely raise some eyebrows as the week wears on. Of more immediate concern is powerful hurricane Jimena off the west coast of Mexico. Top winds are 145 mph making it a solid category four capable of significant wind and surge damage. A hurricane watch has been posted for portions of the southern Baja peninsula as the forecast track takes the hurricane right over the region. This could be a major news story and people in the region need to take this very seriously. The hurricane could track right up the peninsula and straddle the Gulf of California, possibly bringing much needed moisture in to southern CA to help with the fire situation there. We'll keep a close watch on Jimena and what impacts it is likely to have along the Baja. Needless to say, if you are planning a trip there or know people who live/vacationing there now, be sure they are aware of this dangerous hurricane. I'll post another update here early this afternoon. UPDATED: 5:40 pm EDT, August 30, 2009 NOT SURE WHAT TO MAKE OF 94L The only system worth watching in the Atlantic right now continues to be 94L- a strong and well developed tropical wave approaching 50W south of 15N. I am not really sure what will happen with this feature and here's why. First- the global computer models are definitely not bullish on development. I can't find any that reliably show this getting very strong. Second- it is not exhibiting the look of wanting to get better ogranized, at least not right now. However, the NHC' intensity model, the SHIPS, does bring this to a 90knot hurricane in 120 hours. Its reason? Warm SSTs, light shear and a favorable overall thermodynamic environment in which to grow. So what will happen? Wish I knew. For now, 94L continues to track WNW now and should be between 50-55W tomorrow and could pose a threat to the Leeward Islands in some fashion this coming week. It will be within easy range of the Hurricane Hunters before too long as well and we can look forward to on-site data as early as Tuesday, I believe. For now, we'll just see how things play out. In the east Pacific, powerful hurricane Jimena is causing some concern for the Baja peninsula and mainland Mexico. The NHC shows 140 mph winds with the hurricane and it could get even stronger. This is somewhat of a rare thing for this part of the Pacific as hurricanes this strong are usually few and far between. There is a chance it will fade west just enough to keep the worst of the conditions off of the Baja. If you are planning a trip there or know people in the region, you might want to keep a close watch on what Jimena is doing. I'll post info here over the next few days but remember you can always visit hurricanes.gov for the very latest official info! I'll have more here on the tropics tomorrow morning. UPDATED: 11:30 am EDT, August 30, 2009 94L LIKELY TO DEVELOP IN TO TROPICAL DEPRESSION AS IT MOVES JUST NORTH OF DUE WEST The next area to watch, as we have been doing for the last few days, is 94L. The system is located roughly between 45 and 50 west and south of 15 north. It is moving just a hair north of due west and a steady clip and should cross 50W later today. There are some models that show this developing some and then moving on northwest and out in to the open Atlantic. They seem to split the energy, spread it out and create a surface low way too far north than we are seeing right now. The more simple numeric models from the NHC, also called the BAM models, show this moving WNW and in to the NE Caribbean Sea. Latest SHIPS intensity model indicates that this could become a hurricane over the next few days. So far, the NHC has this labeled with a "high chance" of development and in fact, a recon mission in to the system is possible early next week. It will be something to monitor for sure as it could come in south of where Bill did and affect the Leeward Islands. Whether or not this comes to pass remains to be seen. It does have a healthy and growing circulation and warming sea surface temps along its path with fairly favorable upper level winds. By the way, if it does get named, it would be Erika. Elsewhere, there is a considerable flare up of deep thunderstorms over the SW Caribbean Sea. I do not see any indications of development in this region but we'll watch it. The rest of the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico are nice and quiet for now. I'll post another update on 94L here early this evening. UPDATED: 1:15 pm EDT, August 29, 2009 ENERGY FROM DANNY NOW PART OF COMPLEX WEATHER SYSTEM OFF NORTHEAST COAST Even though tropical storm Danny is no longer being tracked as a true, separate tropical cyclone, its heat, moisture and energy have been phased, so to speak, with a larger weather system that is now impacting parts of the Northeast. Check out this radar loop out of Boston, MA. It shows a solid area of heavy rains spreading northeast off the Atlantic. If you look closely, you can see the rotation of the low pressure area just to the southeast of Long Island. All of this mess will move on through over the next several hours and Sunday should be a better day for the region. It is a good thing Danny could not get its act together, a track like this from a hurricane would pose some serious problems but such is not the case- not this time. In the central Atlantic, we are still watching 94L but it has really faded out since yesterday and shows little signs of real organization. It has an excellent cyclonic turning assoicated with it and there is plenty of energy available within the tropical wave itself. Conditions are perhaps just not favorable at the moment and so it is likely to track west for several days before developing- if at all. We will also be watching another potent tropical wave that should emerge from the African coastline early next week. It is that time of year but there are no guarantees that these strong impulses will ever get going- we will simply have to wait and see as each one moves westward across the Atlantic. UPDATED: 9:45 am EDT, August 28, 2009 DANNY WILL BE PART OF LARGER WEATHER ISSUES THIS WEEKEND FOR PORTIONS OF THE EAST COAST Even without TS Danny on the map, the weather this weekend would be unsettled across much of the East Coast. The reason? A large upper-level low pressure area that has been sitting over the lower Mississippi Valley for much of the past week is now moving northeast across Alabama and Georgia. This system, combined with an influx of deep tropical moisture associated to some extent with Danny, will bring heavy rains to portions of the Southeast and East Coast from today through the weekend ahead. As for Danny itself, I do not see how it will ever be much of a problem even if it passes right over land somewhere. The odds are simply too great to overcome and the storm is not likely to gain much intensity as it begins to increase its forward speed today. We may see a brief period of elevated convection later today but not enough to wrap around the low level center and get the storm to strengthen. However, I must caution people who are planning a trip to the beach to be aware of potentially rough surf conditions once again. As we saw last weekend with Bill, rough surf can be lethal so take it as seriously as you would allowing family members to play on a busy street. You simply wouldn't do that- so don't chance it if local surf conditions are too rough for swimming. The next area to watch is 94L out in the east-central Atlantic. This system is way down there still- at around 10N or so and is not gaining much latitude as of yet. The latest early computer model runs indicate it is moving briskly to the west at over 20 mph. We probably won't see much development until it slows down some and allows the deep thunderstorms to consolidate near a growing low level center. Most of the global models indicate that this should go on to develop in to at least a tropical depression and maybe a tropical storm. There is obviously plenty of time to monitor this feature and where it might track over the next week to 10 days. It poses no issues for land areas and won't for almost a week if at all. I'll have another update here later today. UPDATED: 11:45 pm EDT, August 27, 2009 I THINK IT IS PRETTY MUCH ALL OVER FOR DANNY- GREAT NEWS FOR THE EAST COAST A quick update here after looking over some of the very latest data on Danny. I think the NHC is right on track with forecasting what will amount to be a very weak tropical storm moving roughly parallel to the East Coast of the U.S. It will probably induce some pretty good rains as all of the energy from the tropics and the upper level support coming in from the Midwest all combine/interact this weekend. There will be some waves and the threat of rip currents once again so please be careful out there. Otherwise, Danny will most likely go down as a major underachiever- which ends up spelling great news for residents and visitors to the East Coast. It could transition in to quite the summertime Nor'easter and folks in Nova Scotia should be ready for some foul weather this weekend. Our attention will quickly turn to 94L which has all the makings of becoming our next named storm- but it poses absolutely no threat to land areas anytime soon. There will be plenty of time to monitor it as it slowly develops. More here tomorrow morning. UPDATED: 5:30 pm EDT, August 27, 2009 DANNY PROMPTS TROPICAL STORM WATCH FOR PORTION OF THE NC COASTLINE The latest from the NHC suggests that Danny will not become a hurricane. The current situation around the storm is so complex and confused that the storm has little chance to strengthen. None the less, it does seem to have perhaps a small chance and so people along the coast from the NC Outer Banks north to New England need to keep an eye and be ready for some rough weather. It will hopefully resemble a summer-time Nor'easter and that's all with most of the strong winds located on the east side. Now, if the storm becomes more organized and can wrap deep thunderstorms all around its center, then we will have a different story but for now, Danny remains weak. It will be interesting to see the latest computer model runs this evening to see if the storm tracks closer to the East Coast this weekend. Even a 70 mph tropical storm can cause problems on its way north. More on that later tonight. In the east Atlantic, 94L is getting better organized. Extremely early computer models suggest it will find a hole in the subtropical high pressure area and escape out to sea without harm to anyone. That is what it looks like today with very little data available. We'll see how that evolves over time. One thing to note is that the disturbance is still at a fairly low latitude- near 11N or so- but it won't matter much if there is a large enough escape route in the Bermuda-Azores High. The next name, by the way, is Erika and this will probably get that before too long. Plenty of time to watch. I will have another post here later tonight. UPDATED: 9:15 am EDT, August 27, 2009 DANNY CONTINUES TO STRUGGLE FOR STRUCTURE WHILE A NEW SYSTEM TAKES SHAPE IN EAST ATLANTIC It may end up being a down year overall for total named storms but things sure are busy right now- and it is still only late August. We have TS Danny with 60 mph winds and a new disturbance that bears watching out in the far eastern Atlantic. First up, Danny. The storm remains disorganized this morning with the low level center clearly out in front of all of the deep thunderstorms. Looking at the latest satellite pics, I estimate the center to be near 27.5N and 73.0W which is slightly more west of the 5am advisory position. The forecast from this morning remains pretty close to the previous one showing Danny becoming a hurricane as it passes well off the coast of North Carolina and then turning just east of New England. A landfall is indicated for Nova Scotia by Sunday. Most of the recent model have shown just a hint of westward adjustment as of late but I do not think it is enough yet to mean a direct impact for New England. However, I believe that heavy rains and squally conditions are in order for places like eastern Massachusetts and downeast Maine. Any additional westward track of Danny could mean a greater threat of tropical storm conditions. So far, it looks to me more like a Nor'easter in the late summer than a true hurricane threat. We'll see as time goes on. Just like this time last week for Bill, we are on the fence as to whether or not to make a trip to Cape Cod to observe and report on the effects of this system. If I see that it might track WEST of Cape Cod, even by a little, then I am confident we will make the trip north (Jesse and myself most likely). Meanwhile, a strong tropical wave at roughly 10.5N and 25W is slowly getting better organized. The NHC has labeled it as 94L in their early numbering system for suspect areas of tropical weather. Initial computer model tracks show it moving almost due west for the next five days with the potential for it to become a hurricane over the warm waters of the tropical Atlantic. This is no suprise and is totally expected this time of year so we'll watch it too and see what happens. The main focus will be Danny and I will have more here early this afternoon. UPDATED: 10:55 pm EDT, August 26, 2009 FORECAST FOR DANNY KEEPS IT JUST OFF THE EAST COAST BUT IMPLIES THREAT TO NOVA SCOTIA TS Danny is struggling against some rather hostile conditions tonight. This has been the case for the last few days actually and until, and unless, these conditions improve, the storm will not intensify much. None the less, the forecast calls for enough strengthening to make Danny a category one hurricane by the time it is southeast of the North Carolina coast in about 48 hours. From there, it could maintain hurricane status until becoming more of an extra-tropical storm, meaning it is more spread out and resembles a Nor'easter more than a hurricane. When this transition takes place is important in terms of who receives the most impact. Obviously related to this is the track forecast. So far, it has trended ever so slightly to the east, just enough to keep the would-be hurricane just off the New England coast. The NHC is fairly confident about this at the moment but cautions that any deviation in the track, and especially west, could have huge implications in terms of effects for New England. The good news is that Danny is not forecast by any of the computer models that I have seen to become very strong. Still, it needs to be taken seriously- a hurricane is a hurricane and for places that have not seen one in quite some time, this could be quite significant for them. We'll have to watch it closely over the next few days and as we get to Friday, to see if it really does begin to get its act together. I'll have continuing updates here tomorrow morning. UPDATED: 10:50 am EDT, August 26, 2009 NHC UPGRADES 92L TO TS DANNY- FORECAST TO BECOME HURRICANE AS IT HUGS EAST COAST We now have TS Danny on the tracking maps. The NHC upgraded the system to the east of the Bahamas just a short time ago. Current forecast is to take the storm just off the North Carolina coast and then roughly parallel to the East Coast on its way north-northeast. The intensity forecast calls for Danny to become a hurricane over time and thus I expect watches and warnings to be issued accordingly. People all along the Southeast U.S. and New England will need to be ready for a possible hurricane over the weekend. I know the Ted Kennedy story will be big, but this weather situation will also become rather big news so please pay close attention if you have interests along the East Coast- especially extreme eastern North Carolina and New England. I will have another update later this afteroon and we will of course discuss Danny in great detail on tonight's edition of HurricaneTrack News/Talk at 9pm ET. More on that this afternoon. UPDATED: 9:05 am EDT, August 26, 2009 92L CLOSE TO BECOMING A DEPRESSION AND MOST LIKELY A TROPICAL STORM The first good visible satellite photos of 92L show that it has developed a low level circulation but lacks deep thunderstorms all the way around that center. Strong winds are blowing the convection off to the west but this is likely to let up just enough to allow this to become our next named storm: Danny. The Hurricane Hunters are out there now investigating and we may have a new storm to track within the next couple of hours. The forecast from the various computer models is interesting to say the least. It is possible that this system will have a direct impact on the North Carolina coast and then farther north this weekend. The UKMET, ECMWF and Canadian CMC all show this coming far enough west to either clip Cape Hatteras or maybe go just west of there as it heads northward. People from the NC coast all the way to New England need to be watching this closely- a weekend tropical storm threat in late August is nothing to take lightly. In fact, some of the intensity guidance strongly suggests that this could make it to hurricane strength WHILE MOVING NORTH past the NC Outer Banks. Water temps are very warm all the way up to just off the coast of New York- so it would not suprise me at all to see this become a serious threat to the East Coast. How much so remains tough to call right now. First things first- let's see what the NHC says assuming that an upgrade to either a depression or storm is coming later this morning. I'll post much more at that time and will keep short updates going on our live Twitter feed below. UPDATED: 8:45 pm EDT, August 25, 2009 NHC SAYS 92L COULD BECOME A TROPICAL STORM AT ANY TIME So far, the Hurricane Hunters could not find a closed low level circulation with 92L. This means that it is still a well defined tropical wave and is still organizing. There needs to be winds in all four quadrants to be considered a tropical cyclone- that could happen pretty much at anytime. Looking at recent satellite shots reveals that the disturbance does show signs of slowly organizing and should be upgraded tomorrow, I would think. The most interesting aspect so far is the future track of this feature. The GFS and the models based off of its background wants to take this close to the NC coast and then turn it out away from land. Other models such as the ECMWF, UKMET and CMC (Canada) show this slamming the North Carolina coast (to be fair, the ECMEF looks fairly weak) and then moving north in to New England as a strong storm- maybe even a hurricane. This is what some of the models show- it is not my forecast or gut feeling. On the other side are models such as the usually reliable GFDL and, to some extent, HWRF (this model is fairly new), which show little to no intensity changes. So which do we believe? I have no idea. What I do see are warm waters and at least the GFS model representation of a strengthening system throughout its life. Perhaps we will see more consistency among the groups of global models but until we get a low level center, a true surface low, it is going to be slow-going for 92L. None the less, I think it is fair to say that people in the Bahamas and the Southeast coast should obviously keep up to date on what the future looks like with this system. There will be more aircraft recon in to the area tomorrow with plenty of on-site data. We'll talk about it as well during tomorrow night's HurricaneTrack News/Talk program - 9pm ET on the homepage. More on that tomorrow. I'll post again here in the morning- perhaps we will have a new storm by then- we'll see. UPDATED: 7:00 am EDT, August 25, 2009 92L THE MAIN AREA OF INTEREST RIGHT NOW The tropics remain fairly active with one main feature to monitor over the next few days. That would be 92L which is located to the north and east of Puerto Rico amd the Leeward Islands. Just a quick refresher- the NHC designates suspect areas of weather with a number, 90-99, and then the letter "L" for Atlantic. The numbers repeat as often as needed. There are usually numerous suspect areas each season, many of which never develop. Will 92L develop? Probably a little bit- enough to become a tropical depression at least. Right now it continues to fight off strong upper level winds but that pattern should change over the next three days and we could see this system become better organized as it moves towards the Bahamas. Different computer models show different things- obviously- with some indicating this becoming a hurricane while others barely a tropical storm. We will watch it closely and assuming that the recon plane heads out there today, we'll post their information here as soon as it becomes available. So far, development has been slow to occur, we will see how things go today. The rest of the tropics are doing fine with no areas of concern for the time being. I'll post more here throughout the day on 92L. UPDATED: 9:40 pm EDT, August 24, 2009 MONITORING A COUPLE OF AREAS FOR POSSIBLE DEVELOPMENT A quick note here to update the situation in the tropics. We have two areas to monitor for possible tropical cyclone development- one is running out of room, for now, the other is just getting started. 92L, a large and fairly disorganized area of showers and thunderstorms near and north of the Leeward Islands, is slowly trying develop. Most computer model guidance continues to suggest that this will be the area to watch this week as it moves on off to the WNW at a brisk speed. There is an upper level low still a little too close to allow for rapid development, but once this clears out, I think this has a shot at becoming our next named storm. The most recent intensity model guidance also suggests this as well, even though it is still very early in its evolution. The other area is known now as 93L and is situated down in the SW Caribbean. This system will likely cross Central America and in to the east Pacific where it will probably go on an develop. In the meantime, numerous showers and thunderstorms will affect portions of Central America as the tropical wave moves through. I will post much more here on Tuesday morning- but the bottom line tonight is that the pattern continues to be active with no immediate concerns for land areas other than heavy rains and squalls associated with the two tropical waves. UPDATED: 8:30 am EDT, August 24, 2009 NOW THAT BILL IS GONE, WHAT'S NEXT? The NHC is no longer issuing advisories on Bill as the system has transformed in to a non-tropical type of ocean storm. The one-time category four hurricane certainly left its mark throughout the western Atlantic Basin and will be remembered for a while to come I am sure. So what's next? It is still only late August and we have a lot of hurricane season left to deal with. In fact, there is likely more activity brewing now that could impact the weekend ahead. A large area of clouds, showers and thunderstorms is slowly organizing a few hundred miles east of the Lesser Antilles. This is associated with a tropical wave that flared up several days ago and then died off. Now that Bill has cleared the pattern, the tropics are conducive for development again. A look at the usual global computer models suggests that we will see the development of a tropical depression somewhere near the Bahamas in about 72 hours- maybe less. None of the models show the system getting very strong which is good news. As is always the case, we'll just have to watch and see how things unfold with the upper air pattern and steering currents. I would say it is a safe bet that unsettled weather will be the rule in the SW Atlantic by mid-week. Water temps in the region are very warm and mostly undisturbed so there is potential for tropical cyclone formation in this region. Also of note, the GFS, which handled the genesis of Bill to near perfection, is showing another Cape Verde system getting organized over the next 3-5 days. Other models are not as aggressive as the GFS but its run to run consistency is picking up a little. We would expect to see development just about anywhere in the Atlantic at this point so it is nothing to be alarmed about. We remain in an active pulse period with favorable conditions in many areas. Just keep aware of the latest goings on and we'll keep posting new info as it comes in. I'll have more here with an early evening update. UPDATED: 10:00 pm EDT, August 23, 2009 BILL MOVING OVER NEWFOUNDLAND IN THE NEXT FEW HOURS Hurricane Bill is racing towards Newfoundland tonight and will be in and out in just a few hours. From there, the once powerful hurricane will trek across the Atlantic and merge with a larger weather system and impact the British Isles. So far, the effects from Bill have been light for the most part but these next few hours for Newfoundland could be a little rough as the large hurricane literally blasts through the region. When the sun rises, it should all be over and Bill will be out over the vast open waters of the North Atlantic. I guess the sword boats and other shipping interests will have to contend with it then. We were all really lucky with Bill. It had all the makings of a classic Atlantic hurricane disaster but just a few degrees on longitude made all the difference- it really all came down to that- usually does, huh? I will have more here tomorrow. UPDATED: 8:40 am EDT, August 23, 2009 HURRICANE BILL BRUSHING BY NOVA SCOTIA WHILE EFFECTS ALONG U.S COAST SUBSIDE The center of hurricane Bill is now just south of Nova Scotia and could cross the eastern end of the region later today. It is possible that hurricane conditions will be felt along the coast but this has turned out far better than it looked like it could have been earlier last week. Once past Nova Scotia, Bill should cross Newfoundland and race across the open Atlantic towards the British Isles- even folks over there will have to deal with a storm that had its origins over the tropical regions of Africa more than 10 days ago. As far as the increased ocean swells and associated rip currents along the U.S. coast, these effects should begin to subside as the day wears on. Still be careful out there and watch the kids especially! Waves of 5 to 7 feet can be quite dangerous for those who are not used to them. A much calmer sea state will return this coming week. We are watching the global computer models, as we would this time of year anyway, for the potential of additional development off the Southeast coast late next week. The ECMWF, UKMET, CMC and to some extent, the GFS, all forecast the development of a low pressure area well to the east of Florida. None really depict it as being too strong and the timing and placement of the low are also different from model to model. It will be something to watch as we do see a tropical wave out near 50W that could easily provide the energy to get things started. Right now, a large upper level low pressure center is keeping this area hostile and only limited convection is seen on satellite imagery. It is also worth noting that the favorable conditions we have seen recently should hang around for a while longer than we thought. The MJO forecast for upper level winds indicates a pattern fairly ripe for development from Africa to Texas over the next 10 days or more. It is getting closer to the peak time of the season and we may see one or two additional named storms between now and the end of the month. Just keep aware as I am sure most people with interests along the coast would this time of year. I will have more here with a quick update on Bill tonight. UPDATED: 1:00 PM EDT, August 22, 2009 EAST COAST AND NEW ENGLAND FEELING EFFECTS OF BILL BUT NOTHING TOO SEVERE SO FAR Thus far, Bermuda has seen the worst of the conditions as Bill passed by yesterday. It makes sense as the island was on the east side of the hurricane. It will take about another 12 hours or so and then things should begin to calm down substantially there. Along the East Coast of the U.S., large waves are making the weekend a dangerous one in many areas. We are in the Cape Hatteras region of North Carolina and have seen no one in the water to speak of- great news- as the conditions are just too out of control for pretty much anyone. This too will continue to be the case until probably later tomorrow and then seas will subside. Farther north, along the extreme eastern portion of Massachusetts, it is possible that brief tropical storm conditions will arrive later tonight and tomorrow as Bill passes off to the south and east. With Bill weakening though, I doubt the effects will be very pronounced at all. Even in the Canadian Maritimes, Bill should pass by with little more than a wet and windy Sunday. We really did get lucky with this hurricane as conditions just did not allow it to strenghten once it had reached its peak and it was kept far enough off the East Coast of the U.S. to remain not much more than a nuisance. The rest of the tropics are generally quiet this weekend and should remain that way for the next few days. I will post another update here this evening. UPDATED: 11:00 pm EDT, August 21, 2009 HURRICANE BILL A VERY LARGE CATEGORY TWO SYSTEM WITH EFFECTS BEING FELT ALL ALONG WESTERN ATLANTIC COASTLINES There is nothing in the way of sweeping changes tonight for hurricane Bill. It is holding at solid category two strength and unless conditions improve quickly, it should not strengthen much more. It matters little though as the energy exerted by the hurricane in to the Atlantic Ocean is being translated in to enormous seas all across the western portions of the basin. Bermuda is being the most adversely affected right now with tropical storm conditions and very rough sea conditions. I am in Kill Devil Hills, NC with Mike Watkins where we plan to observe and report on the effects of Bill's incredible waves tomorrow and early Sunday. We arrived here an hour ago and you can hear the thundering sound of the ocean just on the other side of the fragile dune system. A walk down to the beach reveals a phenomenon that I have never witnesses before. The very warm and humid air over land is periodically replaced by dense cool ocean air. The two masses battle it out for a spell, sometimes mixing up with each other over the course of several seconds. Then, the hot air returns until another stunning and refreshing blast of what feels like Vegas air conditioning comes rolling in. Does anyone know if this is typical of the ocean land interface or is this something perhaps unique to the swells coming in- losing energy and cooling the air? It is amazing no matter what the explanation is. I am always fascinated by how weather works and this extreme example, the roaring, pounding surf, is just part of the bigger hurricane picture. As for New England, I do not think that even tropical storm conditions will be felt there and if they are, it will be short-lived. There is no mention of a watch by the NHC tonight except for the Maritimes. Believe me, this is a good case of getting off lucky. Bill had potential there of rivaling Juan had it hit Nova Scotia head on as a cat-3 at the latter part of August here. New England is also very fortunate and I hope people there know it. The huge waves and beach erosion coming up is going to be bad enough and will make news headlines tomorrow and Sunday- but the worst was spared. Mike and I will be around the Outer Banks tomorrow looking for places where the ocean just might overwash at high tide in the morning and then again tomorrow evening. We will shoot video and take photos and of course stream live video on our Premium Services area. We will post reports via Twitter as often as possible too- putting THAT tool to good use. We plan to be here until early Sunday morning. I'll have more tomorrow including our thoughts on a new system trying to slowly organize well out in the deep tropics. UPDATED: 8:30 am EDT, August 21, 2009 EFFECTS FROM BILL HAVING AN IMPACT ALREADY ON LAND AREAS Hurricane Bill has not made landfall anywhere and yet the effects are being felt thousands of miles away from its center. The latest info from the NHC tells us that the hurricane has undergone some weakening. This is likely due to some stronger than forecast winds that have eroded the structure of the hurricane. No matter, large swells have been generated already and are reaching the coastlines of Bermuda, the Greater Anilles and the East Coast of the U.S. It is very simple- if you go in to the ocean this weekend in an area with a high surf advisory or other strongly worded warning, you are risking your life. Rip currents will be common and not just at low tide. If all we see from Bill along the U.S. coast are these waves, it will be plenty to cause numerous problems from Maine to Florida. Surfers will be out in full force, that is for sure, by they too must use extreme caution. As for the fate of Bill, the NHC track continues to be spot on and very tight with a forecast of keeping Bill well off the New England coast. The hard turn to the east of north this weekend MIGHT spare Nova Scotia the worst of it as well. None the less, the Canadian Maritimes continue to be the area of most concern as Bill ventures in to the northern reaches of the Atlantic. It goes without saying that any change west in the track, even by 1 degree of longitude, could put hurricane conditions along the coast of extreme eastern New England- especially Cape Cod. We are currently planning on heading up to the Cape later today but there is some question now as to whether or not we really should. It is still a tough call. Mike Watkins is in SC and can be here in Wilmington where we are based in 2 hours. From there, we would head north. We have about six hours left to decide but with the center of Bill being possibly 200 miles east of the Cape, you can see the reservations that we have about going. On the other hand, if it is 100 miles east, then the story turns out very different. We'll know more early this afternoon and will make the absolute final call then. I'll post more around Noon. UPDATED: 11:10 pm EDT, August 20, 2009 AMAZING FORECAST FOR BILL SO FAR BUT THE EFFECTS WILL BE WIDESPREAD The NHC has done quite an incredible job with the forecast for Bill. It has not pulled any suprises and seems to be following pretty much what was predicted by the folks in Miami. The hope is, obviously, that this will continue and Bill will not have the kind of impact that it is capable of. None the less, the effects from Bill will be felt far and wide and I am not kidding about this. Huge waves will impact Bermuda soon followed by a great deal of the Atlantic side of North America. In some place that typically have erosion problems, ocean overwash is coming. Houses and other structures already too close to the water will be in even more peril. All of this without the hurricane making a direct hit. It is that kind of hurricane that we are dealing with. For folks in Bermuda, Bill will pass well to the west but its huge size will still spread rain and wind with flooding storm surge-like wave action. I have not seen an Atlantic hurricane like this in a long time. Once past the latitude of Bermuda, Bill should start to turn more northward and then east of north. When this happens is so critical to what effects are felt in New England and the Canadian Maritimes. So far, the NHC track has remained well offshore of New England but even there, large waves will do damage to the coastline. It is for this reason and the fact that Cape Cod is likely the closest we can get to Bill, that we are leaving North Carolina tomorrow to head north. Mike Watkins will join me on his first Atlantic hurricane mission (all the rest have been Gulf- with the exception of Katrina Part-1 in Florida). We plan to head out to the Cape region and document the impacts of Bill. Jesse Bass will cover the NC Outer Banks and he knows that area very well. His photos should be stunning- so look for those in the coming days. We will do our best to provide info, data and even video updates along the way. I want to encourage people who may be interested in our Premium Services to sign up. We rely on our member base for a majority of our funding and have a wonderful group of subscribers now- and groing. We will be streaming LIVE video from the moment we pull out of my drive way tomorrow. You can ride along virtually through your computer- as if you were there with us. What do we expect up on the Cape? We assume the conditions will be quite incredible with large waves causing massive beach erosion. We plan to place two of our remote Storm Case cams in areas that would be most impacted by Bill's effects. It might not even rain on us and yet the potential for something like the Perfect Storm in 1991 is a possibility! That is how serious this is. For more info on our Premium content, click the ad over in the right-hand column. And for all of our subscribers, please log in tomorrow for info on the mission and what are plans are. As I said, we will be live during our waking hours and you will not miss a thing (if you can hang with us that long- and some people do!) for the entire duration of the field work. Hopefully we can send back real-time info as well not only over the video, but using Twitter. The NHC will be most interested in the size of the wind field of Bill and we will be well equipped with a brand new RM Young anemometer to provide excellent on site wind data. For folks in the potential path of Bill, especially the Canadian Maritimes, take this hurricane seriously. Just be ready to act to save life and property. There are still some uncertainties out there but we just might get lucky and have worst remain offshore. We'll see, that is the guarantee- we will definitely find out. I'll have more here tomorrow morning just before we leave for Cape Cod. UPDATED: 1:20 pm EDT, August 20, 2009 HUGE DAYS AHEAD FOR BILL AS IT COMES DOWN TO WHEN IT TURNS EASTWARD For the better part of 10 days, we have been tracking what has become the first hurricane and in fact the first major hurricane of the season. Bill has tracked all the from interior Africa as a strong impulse of energy to now what is a significant hurricane in the Atlantic. So, that is what we know. What about the days ahead? They are huge in terms of who gets impacted by Bill and who gets by with a close call and some rough surf. The very latest info from the reliable suite of computer models continues to indicate that Bill will not make landfall in the U.S. However, this does not mean the U.S., specifically New England, is out completely. Bill is a large hurricane and should grow larger as it moves more north with time. Thus, the wind field is likely to expand more and even if the center is 50-100 miles east of Cape Cod, let's say, it could easily put tropical storm conditions in to the region. Any closer and hurricane conditions would be quite possible. But the biggest threat to the U.S. will be the extremely rough surf coming. Large waves being generated by Bill will create dangerous surf conditions all along the East Coast. This is not to be taken lightly. In areas with limited beach protection, it would not be suprising to see damage to structures already too close to water's edge. No matter where Bill makes landfall, assuming it does, the effects will be felt over an enormous amount of coastline. The official forecast track seemingly keeps the center off of Nova Scotia but then again, we are not to focus on the center, are we? The hard eastward turn that is forecast currently would spare a direct hit but let me tell you, this can change- and probably will. The NHC mentions that some excellent data will be input in to tonight's computer models to help smooth things out (hopefully) and build an even more reliable forecast. So in a way, a lot comes down to what we learn late tonight and early tomorrow. All the while, Bill tracks closer to North America with a possible landfall in order late this weekend. I wish I had more to give you on this but it is really tough since the angle of approach and so forth is so important. I'll post more here this evening with an update too on our plans to head to Cape Cod starting tomorrow morning- still on the fence as to whether or not we are a "go". UPDATED: 10:55 pm EDT, August 19, 2009 BILL FORECAST TO MAKE LANDFALL IN NOVA SCOTIA AFTER PASSING FAIRLY CLOSE TO NEW ENGLAND- BUT HOW CLOSE? There is not a lot of new info tonight, nothing unexpected, concerning Bill. The latest forecast brings the hurricane inland over Nova Scotia Sunday and then Newfoundland on Monday. This would likely be a very bad event for them as Bill will pass over very warm water even as it turns north in a couple of days. People in the Canadian Maritimes need to begin thinking about their hurricane preparedness plans now. This has the potential of being a severe event for that region. First Bill must pass Bermuda and should do so to the west- hopefully enough so that the worst effects are kept over the ocean. From there, it all depends on how far north and west Bill tracks before fading east towards the Maritimes. Only a small portion of New England is within the cone of uncertainty now which is good news. I think we have about 48 more hours until we will know whether or not New England will have to deal with hurricane conditions or just a breezy day. One thing is certain, large and dangerous waves are heading for land. Surfers will like this but everyone should be very careful out there. Please be sure to monitor your LOCAL beach conditions- when in doubt, ask a lifeguard or call your local NWS office. I'll have more here tomorrow morning and will decide at that point whether or not we will be taking a trip to Cape Cod for a meeting with Bill this weekend. UPDATED: 2:35 pm EDT, August 19, 2009 NEW MODELS SHOW MORE SHIFTS TO THE WEST IN THEIR TRACKS WITH DANGEROUS HURRICANE BILL The latest run of computer models such as the GFDL and the UKMET show hurricane Bill coming farther west than at any recent time in the evolution of the system. This is extremely important not only for our friends in New England but also for Nova Scotia. Let's consider this- Cape Cod is situated at roughly 41.5N and 70W. Providence, Rhode Island is a little bit west at 71.4. If Bill were to ride up the East Coast any farther west than about 71W BEFORE fading east, then a direct hit in to southern New England is possible. It is not forecast by the NHC or me- I am just pointing out the obvious and I think this needs to be done since people in this area are not used to hurricane threats- not of this magnitude. Why? Take also the fact that water temps are still warming right now. It is not late Fall with a large hurricane racing north and interacting with cold air and cool sea temps. If this hits land, anywhere, it will likely be very bad. Bill is a large hurricane and should grow even larger in aerial coverage. It may also get stronger than it is now. A huge amount of ocean water will be pushed ahead of it as it moves north with large waves and rough surf a guarantee for the East Coast. The most recent run of the reliable GFDL model puts Bill back to 70.6W before fading east. This is simply too close for comfort. The trend west must stop and even reverse for me to feel better about New England and more so, Nova Scotia. This has the makings of a really bad hurricane for someone- I just do not know who. Bottom line, if you live in Bermuda, New England or the Canadian Maritimes, you had better know what the latest is on Bill each day from here on out. And be ready to take action if it in fact turns out to be headed your way. Note too that the center need not cross YOUR location for you to have high winds and quite a storm surge. It will all depend on the track which continues to unfold each hour. The next update by the NHC will be interesting in that will it too shift west and place more of the land areas of the NW Atlantic within the "cone". We'll see. Tonight on HurricaneTrack News/Talk, we will speak with Chris Hoar of All Road Sat- our major sponsor this year. Chris will discuss with us the importance of satellite communications and how it has evolved over the yeas. We'll ask him how his company gets much needed equipment in to disaster areas such as a hurricane landfall. Then, we will go over in great detail what the latest is on hurricane Bill and where it might have the most impact. We'll also discuss the possibility of us leaving tomorrow for New England for a mission to intercept Bill and its effects this weekend. We are planning things now and are just waiting like everyone else to see where it might be tracking. That's tonight at 9pm ET right here on the homepage- it's like listening to the radio, so all you have to do is visit the page and the program will play. UPDATED: 6:30 am EDT, August 19, 2009 BILL NOW UP TO 140 MPH- A CATEGORY FOUR - WITH ROOM TO CONTINUE STRENGTHENING BUT WILL IT HIT LAND? Bill has ramped up its intensity since yesterday and is now a sold category four hurricane. Top winds are near 140 mph and are forecast to reach a little higher. It will not be until Bill interacts with an upper level trough and cooler sea surface temps that it will begin to weaken. For now, it will continue to generate enormous waves and send them out across the Atlantic. We will talk more about this tonight on HurricaneTrack News/Talk- our weekly radio style program. More on that in an afternoon post. Obviously everyone wants to know where Bill is headed. For now, it looks very promising that it will not directly impact the Lesser Antilles as it should move past their latitude later today. Bermuda is seemingly next in line to have to potentially deal with Bill but the latest track models have shifted west even more- taking Bill WEST of Bermuda and closer to the NC Outer Banks. One of the models, the UKMET, puts Bill at 70.7W and 32.8N over the weekend as the hurricane feels the effects of a rather deep low pressure area carved out in the upper atmosphere. This will more than likely turn Bill north and then northeast. The big issue is when this happens and how sharp a turn away from the coast Bill will have. Other models are out near 68W and keep the hurricane far enough off New England to spare them a direct hit. However, Bill will likely grow in size and could still bring strong winds and dangerous seas to the Northeast and the Canadian Maritimes. I would be most concerned about Nova Scotia and Newfoundland right now but Cape Cod and vicinity is within the 5-day cone of uncertainty. It is still possible for Bill to adversely affect New England or even points south. The key will be the next 48 hours and how far west Bill gets before it stops gaining longitude. If it gets back as far as 72 or 73 west at 35 north, then we are in for some major problems along the U.S. coast. As it stands now, the odds still favor a good miss but those odds are dwindling just a little with each passing day. We will discuss Bill extensively tonight on HurricaneTrack News/Talk at 9pm ET right here on the homepage. I'll post more info and a run down of tonight's program in a post later this afternoon. The rest of the tropics are free of any major trouble spots right now which is good news considering what we may have to deal with concerning Bill. UPDATED: 5:10 pm EDT, August 18, 2009 HURRICANE BILL JUST SHY OF REACHING CATEGORY THREE INTENSITY PLUS OTHER AREAS OF INTEREST IN THE TROPICS The Hurricane Hunters have flown in to Bill and found winds of almost category three strength. The forecast calls for a fairly significant up-tick in those winds to near category four intensity as Bill encounters warmer waters ahead. Later down the road, the hurricane should weaken slowly as a less favorable environment awaits it in the northwest Atlantic. There was a distinct shift westward in the computer models again today but not enough to raise too many concerns for the East Coast of the U.S. In fact, Puerto Rico and the nearby islands should be in the clear with the exception of large waves heading out from the strengthening hurricane. The biggest concern will be for Bermuda first and then possibly the Canadian Maritimes. There is still a little opportunity left for Bill to jog west just enough to place portions of New England within the outer reaches of the hurricane as it passes by. One important note- the increasing swell along the East Coast will be a problem for anyone going in to the ocean. Do not take this lightly. Even experienced surfers, and this will be a great treat for you, can be overwhelmed by the rougher than normal seas. Pay close attention to info posted by your local National Weather Service office. We are still a few days away from seeing this impact but I think it is worth noting now- stay safe out there. Meanwhile, we are watching the remnants of TS Ana for a possible third try at becoming a strong tropical cyclone. So far, there is little evidence that this is taking place. Once the low pressure area as a whole reaches the southern Gulf of Mexico, as early as tomorrow, there may be a window of time that we see this try to develop and do so quickly. I do not see it reflected well on any of the models but then again, neither was Claudette. We shall see what happens- pay attention to this as if it is going to pop, I think it will do so in a hurry and give little time to react. And finally, the hurricane season has a long way to go. There is yet another very well organized tropical wave justt of the African coastline. This should develop steadily as it moves westward at around 10-11 degrees latitude. For what it's worth- the ECMWF model, which called Bill's turn to the north very early on, shows this next feature coming much farther west in about a week. It is getting towards prime time for the hurricane season and this recent burst of three named storms is an indication of that. Just keep up to date with the latest and be aware. I'll post more here tomorrow morning. UPDATED: 10:30 am EDT, August 18, 2009 FORECAST FOR BILL LOOKS GOOD FOR THE U.S. BUT NOT SO MUCH PERHAPS FOR BERMUDA- REMNANTS OF ANA KICKING BACK TO LIFE AS WELL Things are looking better and better in regards to hurricnae Bill and its possible impact on the United States. The forecast models are showing a high probability that Bill will turn north and then northeast away from the East Coast later in the week. It should also miss the Lesser Antilles as well but will bring increased surf there. Speaking of surf, this should be a surfer's dream come true for the East Coast as Bill is likely to pass between Bermuda and Cape Hatteras. More on that in a day or two. The real threat appears to be to the island of Bermuda and people there need to obviously keep a close eye on the future progress of Bill. It is forecast to be a major hurricane and a large one at that. Once past Bermuda, we'll have to see how close it cuts to the Canadian Maritimes. But unless something unexpected happens, I see no way for Bill to get over to 70 degrees west or more and affect the U.S. East Coast. We are also watching the remnants of Ana as they pass over and around Cuba and the Bahamas today. There is a considerable flare up of convection and once in to the SE Gulf, this could have a chance to come back. Remember how quickly Claudette ramped up- let that be a guide to what could happen with former Ana if conditions favor. Either way, squally weather is on the way to south Florida and the Keys as this wave passes through en route to the Gulf of Mexico. I'll have more here early this evening. UPDATED: 4:55 pm EDT, August 17, 2009 IT IS ALL DOWN TO BILL NOW- NHC WRITES LAST ADVISORY ON ANA (UNLESS...) A recon mission was flown to find out if Ana still had a surface circulation and it was discovered that it did not. Thus, the NHC has ceased advisories on Ana for the time being. The slim chance does remain for Ana to make yet another comeback if it can survive a trek through the northern Caribbean Sea. I am skeptical that it will regenerate but you just never know. The bigger story is obviously hurricane Bill. Top winds remain near 90 mph but are forecast to go much higher. It still poses virtually no threat to the Lesser Antilles by way of computer models and in fact, the official forecast keeps it north and east of that region. One thing that has happened today is a subtle but noticeable shift in the overall model guidance to the west. Some are quite dramatic, others no so much. The UKMET model which had the hurricane moving much farther south and west of the others is now more in line with Bill turning out to sea. It appears that we will have to sort of hold our breath here for another day or two as we await the evolution of the steering pattern for Bill. It is possible, though not likely right now, that the subtropical ridge of high pressure will hold more firmly in place and send Bill westward for longer. Each degree of longitude that the hurricane gains is important for areas like Bermuda, the East Coast of the U.S. and of course the Canadian Maritimes. What seemed to be working out as a very close sure thing yesterday has eroded some in to casting some doubt that Bill will in fact miss all land areas. We will have to await additional model runs and monitor the trends. Knee jerk reaction is not the way to go- but following the trends helps. One day is not enough either, sure we had a shift to the west but it (the computer model output) could swing back east tomorrow. I would think though that Florida is looking pretty good right now as there are no indications at all of Bill coming back that far west. Can it happen? I suppose it has a tiny chance but none of the reliable, modern computer guidance even remotely suggests a Florida hit by Bill. So stay tuned. This is not done yet and folks in Bermuda should start to pay a little closer attention. I did find it interesting that they mentioned (the NHC) that "THIS IS A GOOD TIME TO EMPHASIZE THE UNCERTAINTY THAT EXISTS IN TRACK FORECASTING IN THE 3 TO 5 DAY PERIOD...WHERE AVERAGE NHC TRACK ERRORS ARE TYPICALLY SEVERAL HUNDRED MILES." I guess we should take notice and heed that advice. I will have more here around 11pm ET. UPDATED: 9:50 am EDT, August 17, 2009 ANA AND BILL- WHICH ONE MIGHT HAVE THE MOST IMPACT TO LAND AREAS? Claudette is now inland over southern Alabama and will be a nice rain maker for the Deep South. Fortunately, the storm was not too bad but it did teach a lesson about how quickly a tropical cyclone can spin up. Now we are down to Ana and Bill and the question is obviously this- will either one of them have any significant impact on land areas? Right now, Ana is really moving fast across the northern Caribbean Sea with somewhat of an increase in deep convection but it may be that the depression is now just an open, but vigorous, tropical wave. What we will have to watch for is for it to slow down once near the southern Gulf of Mexico and then develop. The energy and low pressure with Ana is not gone- it is still there and will need to tracked until it has completely dissipated. There may be some chance for Ana to make a comeback later in the week. As for now, it will pass through the Caribbean, bringing squally weather to Puerto Rico, Hispaniola and Cuba throughout the next couple of days. We will see what happens- this one has been a fighter the entire time it has been on the maps. As for Bill, the models pretty much tell the story except for one. Most of the guidance strongly suggests that Bill will turn out to sea in a few days and never get past about 62 west longitude. The reason is a break in the big subtropical ridge of high pressure over the Atlantic Ocean. Think of it as a crack in a big rock that water can then seep in to and run through until the other side. Bill is the water trying to get through the rock instead of going around it. However, one of the reliable computer models, the UKMET model, still shows Bill moving more west than north and not finding the break in the ridge. In fact, the latest run from last night puts Bill at 26.8n and 73.3w in about six days. In fact, it keeps Bill south of 20n as it passes 60w, a decent bench-mark for tracking hurricanes that might affect the United States. But I have to caution, this is pretty much the only model that shows this that I could find. All of the rest curve Bill away from the U.S. and the Caribbean- as well as Bermuda too for that matter. We might have to worry about a potential threat to the Canadian Maritimes but that is many days away. So it will come down to the UKMET vs the rest of the world. We'll see. If Bill is north of 20n when it gets to 60w (if ever) then I would think that there is no wat the UKMET will verify, and by then, that model would presumably have picked up on this and changed its tune. We'll see. For now, Bill is a growing hurricane in the open Atlantic and poses no threat to anyone. I'll have more here early this evening. UPDATED: 11:00 pm EDT, August 16, 2009 NO MAJOR CHANGES TONIGHT FOR OUR TRIO OF TROPICAL CYCLONES Considering all of the hoopla with our three tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Basin, none have caused significant problems as of yet. Claudette is closing in on making landfall near Destin, FL or near by with little change in strength. Folks in the region can continue to expect periodic gusty winds, heavy rains and rough surf. Fortunately, Claudette did not ramp up too much today and will be a nuisance more than anything- as long as people in its path take it easy and use common sense! Ana is on its way to being a remnant low again. We'll certainly watch it as it cruises through the Caribbean towards the southern Gulf of Mexico. Unsettled weather will prevail across the Caribbean as the energy from Ana passes by. Meanwhile, Bill continues to get stronger and should become quite a hurricane this coming week. All indications are that it will find a weakness in the big Bermuda High and escape harmlessly out to sea. So far, that is the course most of the models show- sure things can change but they usually do not with such large and easy to forecast pieces of the puzzle here. Look for an increased surf along the East Coast and Florida as well as Puerto Rico in the coming days as Bill gets stronger. Until it is actually moving east of north and away from land, we will obviously keep a close eye on it but right now, the news is all good. I'll have more here tomorrow morning. UPDATED: 9:40 pm EDT, August 16, 2009 NO MAJOR CHANGES WITH CLAUDETTE THIS EVENING AS IT GETS CLOSER TO THE FLORIDA COAST Take a look at this radar image out of the Panhandle of Florida. You can see the small center of TS Claudette getting closer to the coast near Panama City. Top winds remain near 50 mph but I seriously doubt that many people will see those kinds of winds unless a strong rain band moves over them near the center. It is typical for the deeper convection and subsequent rain bands to produce the strongest winds. There could be some scattered power outages but this should not be as bad as even TS Barry was in this area back in 2001. Jesse Bass and I were there for that event near Destin and recorded an 84 mph wind gust near the developing eye wall of the almost-hurricane. Claudette will likely fall short of that which is great news for people along the coast. Heavy rains and the threat of severe weather will spead inland over Florida and southern Georgia tonight and tomorrow. Just keep up to date on the latest weather conditions for your area and keep that NOAA Weather Radio handy! I'll have more here after the 11pm NHC update tonight. UPDATED: 5:40 pm EDT, August 16, 2009 CLAUDETTE CLOSES IN ON THE FLORIDA PANHANDLE AS ANA WEAKENS AND BILL GET SET TO BECOME A HURRICANE The good news tonight is that Claudette is not rapidly intensifying like Humberto did two years ago just off the Texas coast. While the tropical storm will cause some problems, it should run out of water before it can really ramp up. Looking at the latest radar out of northwest Florida, you can clearly see the center although it is not as well defined as a hurricane would be- obviously. The system should be inland over the region in just a few more hours bringing the usual heavy rains, strong winds and a coastal storm surge. It will be an interesting evening along the Emerald Coast and points nearby- for people living and visiting the region, just be careful and use common sense out there. We'll see what transpires in the coming hours. I'll post another update on Claudette around 8pm ET. Elswhere, Ana is now back down to a depression after losing the battle once again to dry air and its own fast forward motion. I think we will just have to wait and see what the entire envelope of energy does when it clears the Greater Antilles in a few days. The tropical wav and low pressure area will emerge in to the southern Gulf of Mexico by mid-week. Let's see what it does then. Bill continues to grow in size and strength. It will easily become our first hurricane of the season. It poses no immediate threat to land right now and may nver. A lot will depend on where pieces of energy come and go and how they interact with the subtropical ridge of high pressure that usually dominates the western Atlantic this time of year. The NHC mentions two solutions offered by the powerful computer models that predict the movement and intensity of tropical cyclones. One shows a farther south and west track- the other a more "out to sea" track. Which camp will be right? We will just have to wait and see. I think that people in Bermuda should pay close attention to the future of Bill. If it is going to threaten the U.S., there will be plenty of time to prepare but so far, things are looking fairly decent in terms of it missing the East Coast. Later down the road, the Canadian Maritimes will need to keep a close watch on Bill- but we are talking at least a week out and much can change as we well know. I'll have more here around 8pm ET on Claudette and a complete update near 11pm. UPDATED: 2:00 pm EDT, August 16, 2009 TD 4 QUICKLY BECOMES TROPICAL STORM CLAUDETTE WITH 50 MPH WINDS- 3-5 FEET OF WATER FORECAST FOR PORTIONS OF THE FLORIDA PANHANDLE If ever there was a time when "things can change quickly" this is it. We now have a small but quickly strengthening tropical storm in the northeast Gulf of Mexico. The recon plane found winds of 50 mph with higher gusts and a pressure of 1008 mb. Thus, the NHC has upgraded the depression to TS Claudette. Warnings are in place for portions of the Florida Panhandle but I want to make sure that people understand something very clearly. This will be a small event with very localized effects. However, those effects include the possibility of a water rise of up to 5 feet, maybe more, in some areas of the Panhandle and the Big Bend region of Florida. This can submerge roads and swamp marinas as well as cause structural flooding. Any areas with an onshore flow of wind are at risk of surge from Claudette. Take it seriously if you are in the affected area. The worst is likely to come at night or just near dusk and in to the early hours of Monday. Be careful and be smart. If you know of people in the region who may not be aware of this rapidly developing event, call them, email them, etc. now and make them aware. It is not some big nasty hurricane that we saw coming for days on end, it is one of those dreaded quick-fuse systems that can catch people off guard. I'll have more here around 6pm ET today. UPDATED: 11:35 am EDT, August 16, 2009 RECON PLANE TO CHECK TD4 AND HELP PREPARE RESIDENTS OF FL PANHANDLE FOR ITS ARRIVAL LATER TODAY There is no better data than aircraft recon when a tropical cyclone is over the water. We will know more about TD4 and its intensity and structure soon as the Hurricane Hunters fly out in just a little while. The forecast from the NHC shows the depression becoming a strong tropical storm just before landfall tonight. It is a small system but will pack quite a punch for those that it affects. The best guess for landfall is somewhere near Panama City and vicinity. The question is- how strong can this get before making it to the coast. That is a tough call but with this being a small storm, it can ramp up very quickly similar to Humberto in 2007. I will post another update here as soon as the recon data comes in. For people along the FL Panhandle, get ready, it is going to be a rough afternoon and evening ahead. UPDATED: 9:10 am EDT, August 16, 2009 NEW DEPRESSION FORMS QUICKLY IN THE EASTERN GULF WHILE ANA STRUGGLES AND BILL GETS STRONGER We have a problem brewing in the eastern Gulf of Mexico this morning. It began yesterday from a tropical wave that we have tracked since it left Africa well over a week ago. Now it has entered an area of very favorable upper level winds and is getting better organized by the hour. The NHC upgraded it to TD4 at 5am this morning and I am certain it will be TS Claudette in just a little while. The system is very small, similar to Humberto two years ago. This is the good news in that a small region of the coast will be affected. The bad news is that this could ramp up all the way to landfall. People along the Florida Panhandle need to be ready for what could be an intensifying tropical storm later today and tonight. For this reason, a tropical storm warning has been issued for portions of the area. The NHC is projecting a storm surge of 3 to 5 feet but again, only in a small area near the center of the system. It will be very interesting to see how this turns out. It will probably catch a lot of people off guard- especially those vacationing in the region who have no idea this was even out there. Meanwhile, Ana continues to fight off the dry air and its extremely rapid forward motion. The storm will plow its way through the Caribbean Sea and pop out in to the southern Gulf of Mexico in less than five days. I do not see it being much of an issue until then as it will have to pass over the islands of Hispaniola and Cuba before it has a chance to survive in the Gulf. We'll watch it since apparently that is the area of most favorable conditions right now. Bill continues to strengthen but it looks like we will catch a break from having to deal with it down the road. After a long string of sending this in to the Southeast U.S., the GFS model, following the trend of other major computer models, is showing a significant upper trough developing next week that would erode away the large high pressure area over the Atlantic. This would allow Bill to turn northwest and then eventually away from the Lesser Antilles and the United States. While this is by no means a certainty, it is looking more and more likely. It's a good thing since Bill is forecast to become a category three hurricane in five days. For now, it continues west but should start that turn in a few days. We'll see. I'll have more here later today and a brief update on TD4 near 11am ET. UPDATED: 11:00 pm EDT, August 15, 2009 ANA, BILL AND 91L ALL KEEPING US PLENTY BUSY There is quite a lot going on tonight as the tropics have sprung to life in grand fashion. We have TS Ana, TS Bill and now 91L in the eastern Gulf of Mexico- plus a new tropical wave off of Africa that could develop over the next few days. First, let's discuss the system in the Gulf. It is in association with a tropical wave that we have tracked for the last week or so. It is now trying to flare up in a small area just to the west of Florida. Tampa radar can clearly see a counter-clockwise spin to the feature out over the open Gulf. Hopefully it will move inland later tomorrow or Monday before much more organization can take place. But, let's remember Humberto two years ago off the Texas coast. It was small and was able to ramp up very quickly. Do not be suprised to see this do something similar- perhaps not that dramatic but there is a chance that this becomes a tropical depression or even a tropical storm before reaching the coast along the Florida Panhandle or nearby. We'll watch it closely and people visiting/living in the area need to be ready for a quick change to the weather as this system comes rolling in. It will have squally weather with gusty winds and rough seas. It will be interesting to see what the NHC says about it tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, Ana is struggling to keep its existence going against dry air and a fairly quick forward pace. Odds favor this one falling short of its potential which is great news for areas to its west. This is not say that nothing will happen but the intensity forecast is looking better with each update. Still, people in the northern Leewards through Puerto Rico and Hispaniola should pay close attention to the future progress of Ana. Remember- rain fall can be deadly if too much falls too soon or over terrain that cannot handle it. Bill continues to demonstrate to us that it will become a powerful hurricane over the next few days. It is large and steadily getting better organized over the deep tropical Atlantic. The latest forecast suggests more good news for the islands of the NE Caribbean as Bill should pass by to the north and east. The models are trending towards a more northwesterly course towards the five day time period. How much so and then what happens after that remains to be seen. Obviously, we will keep up with the latest model runs to see what guidance they can provide. Farther east and off the west coast of Africa we are monitoring another tropical wave with potential for development as it too moves west. Things will be quite busy over the next several days with a lot of information coming out of many sources. We'll post as often as possible with periodic updates via Twitter as well. I'll have more here tomorrow morning. UPDATED: 5:40 pm EDT, August 15, 2009 A LOT OF ACTIVITY TO REPORT ON IN THE ATLANTIC AND NOW, THE GULF OF MEXICO Even though it is supposed to be a slow year in terms of overall numbers, that does not appear to matter in terms of possible threats to land areas this hurricane season. Case in point is what we have out there right now. First, we have TS Ana which is holding on strong against fairly dry air which is trying to sap the deep thunderstorms from getting going and wrapping around its center. Until that happens and remains intact, we will not see Ana get stronger. The forecast track shows the storm passing through the northern Leewards and then just north of the Greater Antilles and in to the Florida Straits. Thus, a tropical storm watch has been issued for St. Maarten, Saba and St. Eustatius. It is possible that tropical storm conditions could affect the region over the next 36 hours or so. We will be optimistic and look for a weak Ana to pass by. Beyond that time frame, Puerto Rico and Hispaniola could be impacted but to what extent depends on where Ana tracks and how strong it gets. Again, until we see deep convection fire and the storm get stronger, it should not be much more than a squally rain-maker. This one will be tricky because if it does intensify, it could do so rather quickly. Next up is newly designated TS Bill out in the deep tropics. This one has all the makings of a classic Cape Verde hurricane as it slowly but steadily gathers strength. It reminds me of a western Pacific tyhpoon in its formative stages due to the large nature of the envelope it lies within. Bill is still several days from the Lesser Antilles and is currently forecast to pass just to the north of that region. However, depending upon how large and strong Bill is in about five days, there could still be some rather nasty weather and high surf for the islands of the northeast Caribbean. Speaking of surf, Bill should kick up quite a swell in the coming days so all of you East Coast and Florida surfers get ready but be careful out there! The long term track of Bill is too tough to call right now but we know the drill well- we must wait and see as each day brings us new clues. The Gulf of Mexico has an interesting little feature trying to dvelop just off the Florida Keys. It is a weak and small area of low pressure that should run out of time before it can wrap up and become anything more than a bundle of showers and thunderstorms. The disturbance is forecast to move towards the northwest and come inland over the central Gulf Coast. So be aware of this and take note that it can still produce locally gusty winds and rough seas. Lastly, there is another vigorous tropical wave coming off of Africa now that also has significant computer model support for development over the next few days. In fact, the recent ECMWF which turns Bill out to sea before impacting the U.S. brings this next feature across and in to the Caribbean Sea. The bottom line is that the tropics will be very active until the end of the month at least. I will continue to post updates here often with Twitter posts in between so look for those. Next post should be near 11pm ET. UPDATED: 7:20 am EDT, August 15, 2009 NHC UPGRADES TD2 WHICH IS NOW TS ANA- EXPECTED TO TRACK CLOSE TO LAND AREAS AND INTENSIFY We now have our first named storm- one of the latest occurrences of that in history. None the less, Ana was named earlier this morning by the NHC from what was a tenacious TD2. The history of this storm is interesting as it was all but written off just a couple of days ago. Now that it's back and getting stronger as it moves west, it will be something to pay attention to quite closely. The official forecast calls for Ana to slowly strengthen and reach around 70 mph as water temps increase along its path. The main question will be the upper level winds. Some of the models show quite favorable conditions while others not so much. One thing to note is that the forecaster makes mention of the fact that the intensity forecast is increased conservatively and is below the consensus of the intensity models. This is important for two obvious reasons. Either the storm faces a very difficult time ahead, which only a couple of the models show, or it is possible that it could become a hurricane- as other models also show. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out over time. As for the track forecast- assuming that the storm remains in tact, it is expected to pass very close to the islands of the northeast Caribbean Sea and as a result, the NHC mentions the possibility of a TS watch being issued for that region later today. People in the nothern Leeward Islands and Puerto Rico need to closely monitor what Ana does from here on out. The good news is that it is still a weak system and obviously not a hurricane right now. But as a reminder, it does not take a hurricane to cause serious issues. Heavy rains can be very deadly, especially over mountainous terrain. So pay attention to the track and any local information issued by government and emergency management agencies. Farther down the road, the path of Ana suggests a threat to Florida with a track through the Bahamas first. This is somewhat concerning based on the intensity forecast being a little clouded. As long as Ana remains fairly weak, this could end up being only a nuisance and not a major problem. On the other hand, there is the possibility of this becoming a hurricane and doing so while passing through the Bahamas and approaching Florida. It will be critical to stay on top of how the storm evolves. We will certainly wish for it to remain weak and bring some much needed rain to the area but know all too well that wishing is no substitute for being prepared and aware of the situation. I will have updates here at least twice a day and will post tid-bits of info on our Twitter feed just below. And of course, if the trend of this looking like a Florida issue continues, we will make plans for intercepting Ana early next week and begin on the scene coverage where needed. Next up is the developing tropial depression in the eastern Atlantic- aka 90L. For those who do not know, the NHC issues a number, 90-99, and the letter "L" for Atlantic, to any suspect area of weather worthy of further investigation. Currently, 90L is slowly but surely getting better organized and should be upgraded to a tropical depression later today. There is not much to say about its future just yet since it will be moving over open water for the next five days. The model trends have been more north since yesterday with a long range track possibly missing the islands. Obviously, we won't know for sure for several more days so just keep an eye on the situation. The bigger issue will be Ana and we'll have plenty of time to watch this other system as it progresses westward. I will have more here later this afternoon. UPDATED: 11:05 pm EDT, August 14, 2009 SO FAR, NO UPGRADES FOR EITHER SYSTEM IN THE ATLANTIC It looked as though there was a good chance that the NHC was going to upgrade TD2 back to depression status and begin advisories on 90L as TD3. But alas, it is not so- not yet. Both systems are seemingly on their way to becoming better organized and presumably will be upgraded some time tomorrow. Other than that, there is not a lot of new news to report on the siutation. Neither system is close to land at this time and we will have plenty of time to monitor how things play out. I will post a more complete update tomorrow morning. UPDATED: 8:25 am EDT, August 14, 2009 90L LOOKS TO BE MAJOR ISSUE OVER THE COMING DAYS The large tropical wave over the eastern Atlantic is getting better organized and should become a tropical depression as early as later today. It has been remarkable in that the GFS model especially has "seen" this coming for several days- perhaps even the last week. That model has consistently shown the development of this system run after run. Other computer models are obviously on board with that solution now as well and it is a near certainty that we'll see our first named storm out of this. In fact, the intensity models being run now in anticipation of this developing, make the system a hurricane by the end of the five day period. Conditions across the Atlantic will be quite favorable for this to go on and become what could be the first problem of the season. Several of the computer models bring it very close or right through the Lesser Antilles in about six days- or less. Other models, such as the ECMWF, show this harmlessly turning northward and out to sea at around 60 degrees west longitude. I think it goes without saying that people living in and visiting the Lesser Antilles should pay close attention to this developing system. We are several days away from any potential impacts but this is not 10 days or more out. While computer models lack perfection by any stretch, they are getting better and better and at least give us a clue as to what might happen. So take notice and pay attention. Beyond five to six days is up in the air in terms of making any kind of reasonable guess at where this might end up. I think it will have a lot of folks' attention starting early next week. Elsehwere, the remnants of TD2 are still trying to kick off deep convection and it may make a brief comeback at some point but is of little concern for the time being. We won't ignore it but odds are it stays weak and does not re-develop much if at all. In the east Pacific, things are still very active. The NHC is tracking hurricane Guilllermo well off the coast of the Baja Peninsula. The hurricane is forecast to move on farther out in to the open Pacific and dissipate over cooler waters. No other issues exist in that region for now. I'll post another update here early this evening. UPDATED: 4:55 pm EDT, August 13, 2009 TD 2 NO LONGER CLASSIFIED AS A TROPICAL DEPRESSION The NHC has written the last advisory on what was once TD2. It looks as though hostile conditions won out and the depression has now weakened in to a remnant low pressure area. It still has off an on thunderstorms with it but nothing that supports keeping it a bona fide tropical cyclone. It will obviously be monitored for regeneration but it looks like that is unlikely- we shall see. I always say that the energy is still there, the low pressure region, and so we will want to watch it until it is gone completely. Odds are that it will just fade away over time. Meanwhile, a strong tropical wave is flaring up considerably this afternoon near Hispaniola and the Turks and Caicos. This one has some minor potential for development as it moves WNW towards the Gulf of Mexico this weekend. I am not sure what to make of it since conditions are not all that favorable. Still, it is bringing squally weather to the region that it is passing through and this will spread across the southern Bahamas, Cuba and eventually Florida over the next few days. It is worth watching simply because it is there but development chances appear rather low at this time. The bigger story is the developing tropical system south of the Cape Verde Islands. It has been labeled an "invest" number - 90L - to help kick-start the monitoring process. That was done early this morning. Most computer models develop this in to a hurricane before all is said and done with a motion generally towards the west. It poses no threat to any land areas and will not for almost a week, if ever. So we'll just track it and see how the pattern unfolds. We should all know by now that these things take time to figure out and even then, we never quite get it perfect- not this far out. I'll post more here tomorrow morning. UPDATED: 8:20 am EDT, August 13, 2009 DESPITE RECENT UPTURN IN ACTIVITY, TROPICS STILL NOT MUCH OF A CONCERN JUST YET Even though things have become more active overall in the Atlantic Basin, we still do not have our first named storm. TD2 came very close yesterday and may have briefly reached tropical storm intensity but that will have to be looked at later for the history books. This morning, the depression is almost completely void of any deep thunderstorms at all. This is a result of strong winds aloft and sea surface temps that are just barely warm enough to sustain a tropical cyclone. Plus, there is likely some dry air intruding enough to put a cap on deep convective development. All of this adds up to a weak system with little chance of getting stronger for now. The NHC acknowledges too that it may even degenerate in to an open tropical wave. We'll obviously watch it but so far, this one looks to be a non-issue over the next several days. Another tropical wave that is passing through the Caribbean has a low chance of developing further. I do not see much in the way of organization of it in the computer models but it will still bring showers, gusty winds and overall squally weather to portions of the Greater Antilles, the southern Bahamas and eventually south Florida over the next three to five days. The system that has most people talking in terms of potential for a long track hurricane remains just off the coast of Africa. The tropical wave itself is very large with a huge envelope of moisture and energy. It will take some time for this to bundle and consolidate as it moves westward. Once again, the major global computer models maintain a westward movement for several days with a possible impact to the Lesser Antilles. So far, the system is taking its time to develop but conditions appear favorable for this to have a better shot at becoming "Ana" than the other two features out there. Even with all of this potential, the bottom line is that there are no tropical storms or hurricanes about to affect any one location. We are many days away from seeing a significant threat to land areas- if we see one at all. Remember, computer guidance is just that- and we have to base our concerns on reality, not what a model output suggests. I'll post another update here early this evening. UPDATED: 9:15 am EDT, August 12, 2009 TROPICS GOING TO BE BIG NEWS OVER THE NEXT WEEK TO 10 DAYS It is time to pay closer attention to the Atlantic Basin and its growing areas of concern. I say concern because it is time to take notice of what is going on out there and be prepared for it. I am not talking about just the United States either- remember, we have quite a few land masses out there in the Basin. Here's what we have... TD2 should become a tropical storm later today if it is not one already. It is not of much concern right now and should avoid the Lesser Antilles as it moves west over the next five days. Beyond that time period, we will just have to see if it survives a trip through some stronger upper level winds before worrying where it ends up. There's plenty of time to monitor its progress and thus far, it looks to remain fairly weak. The other developing story will be a new tropical cyclone taking shape right now off the coast of Africa. The GFS computer model in particular has been remarkably consistent with its forecast of a long-track system in the Atlantic. The tropical wave that would be "the one" is now off the coast of western Africa and is already looking better organized as each hour passes. It should become a tropical depression within the next two days and rapidly strengthen beyond that. My first concern is for the Lesser Antilles. From the looks of the steering patterns, an almost due-west track seems likely for this system once it gets going. This would put it in the vicinity of the Windwards and Leewards in about a week- maybe less. I figured people would want as much notice as possible just in case the computer modeling is even close to spot on. Run after run after run of the GFS shows this system plowing through the eastern Caribbean. Perhaps the model will be wrong, but it did a similar job of accurately forecasting the genesis and track of powerful hurricane Dean in 2007. So if you live in or are planning a trip to the Lesser Antilles and surrounding region, pay close attention to the tropics from now on. We have the luxury of seeing the possible future with computer guidance and related technology, there should be no suprises in this day and age. Lastly, a tropical wave crossing the Antilles now should continue generally WNW and in to the Gulf of Mexico early next week. We'll see if it blossoms and develops more. This is where model guidance is tough because some show development, others do not. It is a feature to watch until it interacts with land and dies away. Its passage through the Caribbean will bring sporadic showers and thunderstorms but otherwise not much more than that. UPDATED: 8:55 am EDT, August 11, 2009 TD #2 FORMS IN THE EASTERN ATLANTIC AS PATTERN SHIFT SIGNALS START TO THE MEAT OF THE SEASON The strong tropical wave that emerged from Africa a few days ago is now a tropical depression- the 2nd of the season. As you may recall, the first formed at the very end of May and did not strengthen beyond depression stage. Since then, all has been quiet, until this morning. The NHC issued a special advisory package upgrading the system almost three hours ago. The official forecast indicates that we will have our first named storm, Ana, within about 24 hours. Beyond that, it is just too soon to know how strong this will get. The forecast shows it topping out at 60 mph but that could be subject to change depending upon the track. Speaking of that- it looks as though a fairly steady west to just slightly north of west movement should prevail for the next five days. The depression will be moving across the open Atlantic with no issues of land interaction what so ever. We'll just monitor it each day and see how the steering pattern evolves. We will also be watching a pair of vigorous tropical waves farther to the east of TD #2 that show some signs of organization. One in particular, near 50-51 degrees west longitude, is flaring up steadily today. It might have some additional potential for development as it too tracks generally westward. I think the bigger story though will be a tropical wave that will soon come off of Africa. All of the major global computer models develop this rather quickly and track it west for a while. The bottom line is that the quiet period is over. We will be quite busy over the next week at least- and probably longer. There are no immediate threats to land and shouldn't be for the next several days at the very least. I'll have more here this evening. UPDATED: 8:10 pm EDT, August 10, 2009 TROPICS TO BECOME MORE AND MORE ACTIVE AS THE WEEK WEARS ON I do not have much in the way of new information tonight since nothing dramatic has really taken place since this morning. In the Pacific, Felicia is still winding down and should pass through Hawaii without much fanfare. In fact, the storm is basically just a swirl of low clouds with sparse convection at best. In the Atlantic, we'll be watching 99L way out near the Cape Verde Islands for slow development. It could take a while and of course, there is no guarantee it will ever really get cranking. However, its energy will remain in tact even though it may not become a tropical cylcone right away. We must always watch these kinds of features as the progresses steadily westward. Elsewhere, tropical waves at around 47 west and 62 west also bear close monitoring as they too try and organize slowly. The pattern is becoming more and more favorable for us to see perhaps several named storms over the coming two to three weeks. Nothing out there just yet but it's getting close. I'll have much more in the morning. UPDATED: 9:55 am EDT, August 10, 2009 FELICIA NOT A BIG CONCERN FOR HAWAII WHILE ATTENTION BEGINS TO SHIFT TO THE ATLANTIC TS Felicia is running out of time. The once very strong hurricane is now just a shadow of its former self as it tracks closer towards Hawaii. From the looks of things, the center, or what's left of it, will pass north of the Big Island and maybe even a majority of the state as a whole. Either way, it will not be too big of an issue for folks living and vacationing there. A combination of strong upper level winds and cooler sea surface temps have reduced Felicia to only a weak tropical storm. In 36-48 hours, the storm will be gone and hardly anyone would have noticed its passage. There could be locally heavy rains in the mountains and rougher than normal seas but nothing compared to Iniki back in 1992. In the Atlantic, we are watching 99L, the very well organized tropical wave near the Cape Verde Islands. Although deep thunderstorms have pulsed down in the last several hours, this has the potential of becoming a tropical depression and maybe even our first named storm later this week. Most of the computer model guidance agrees that this will go on to develop but it will take some time. The track looks to take it steadily west with a slight just-north-of-west bearing over the next 3 to 5 days. Other than bringing squally weather to the Cape Verdes, it poses no threat to land areas and I do not see any long term modeling bringing this in to the Windwards or Leewards either. On the other hand, this does not look to be the only feature to watch this week. Almost all of the very reliable and modern global computer models show more development emerging from the coast of Africa over the next several days. The pattern is shifting in to a period when we could see as many as three named storms come and go over the next two weeks. As strong impulses of energy move westward across the Atlantic, tropical cyclone development chances will increase as the pattern settles in to being quite a bit more favorable than in recent weeks. This is important to take note of since many news headlines as of late proclaimed how inactive the hurricane season is forecast to be. I would suggest that anyone living along the coast of any land mass in the western Atlantic Basin pay attention to the tropics these next couple of weeks. You would probably do so anyway since it is August. As I said in my evening post last night, there are no imminent problems with any of these potential systems but that can change in fairly short order. Being aware and on top of the situation is vital to being prepared- especially when money and time are limited. I'll post updates at least twice a day and we'll discuss things in depth on Wednesday night's edition of HurricaneTrack News/Talk. The season has been a no show since June for the Atlantic- now that things are getting more active, it is time to pay attention. I'll have more here tonight. UPDATED: 7:20 pm EDT, August 9, 2009 A VERY ACTIVE PATTERN APPEARS LIKELY AS WE GET DEEPER IN TO AUGUST Even though it has been a very quiet hurricane season for the Atlantic, things are about to change and in a hurry. First up however, is TS Felicia in the Pacific. The good news, and it really is considering how strong Felicia was recently, is that the storm is on its way down in terms of overall impacts to Hawaii. The latest forecast track from the CPHC shows Felicia passing to the north of the Big Island with the storm quickly fading while it does so. Effects should be quite minimal with the exception of increased seas along the north facing beaches. Not sure if they are filming LOST out there now or not (huge fan here), but it could make for some incredible sunsets coming up. Other than that, Hawaii will not sustain any serious negative impacts from Felicia. In the Atlantic, the pattern change to a more favorable environment seems to be well on its way. We have what looks to be a developing depression way out near the Cape Verde Islands and even more energy lining up over Africa. These next two weeks or so could very well be the most active part of the hurricane season if forecasts for a hostile peak in September hold true. The long range computer models are latching on and developing multiple systems over the next several days. This is all very much expected and is by no means a surpise- even in the face of such a slow start to the season. There is absolutely nothing to be alarmed about right now. The season is coming to life and people all along the coastal areas of the U.S. and adjacent land masses should simply pay attention and be ready to act if one of these potential developments poses a problem down the road. It's all about being aware. We are very busy these days and life moves fast. The tropics can change just as fast but still give us plenty of warning. So far, we are looking really good this season- the hope is that it continues. But hope alone will not prepare people for what may lie ahead. Keep up to date with the latest through your favorite sources and as we monitor conditions, we'll post frequent updates- just like we have since we started this venture 10 years ago. I'll have much more here tomorrow morning. And for our Premium Services members- please remember to log in and check out our LIVE video updates at 11am ET Mon-Fri. It is a new feature this year and we include a lot of graphics, charts and maps to help further explain the goings on in the tropics. If you have not signed in lately, be sure to check things out and catch up. UPDATED: 10:30 am EDT, August 9, 2009 TROPICAL DEPRESSION LIKELY TO FORM IN EAST ATLANTIC WHILE FELICIA WEAKENS FURTHER First, a look at Felicia reveals that the once very powerful hurricane has been weakening steadily and is now down to around 75 mph. This positive trend should continue as stronger upper level winds impact the cyclone. None the less, a tropical storm watch has been posted for portions of Hawaii due to the chance that tropical storm conditions arrive in about 36 hours or so. It is likely that Felicia will weaken enough so that its passage near Hawaii will be hardly noticed. In fact, the bulk of the worst weather may pass to the north of the islands and then the circulation center will dissipate over the Pacific. Meanwhile, we have a developing tropical depression in the far eastern Atlantic just off the coast of Africa. The NHC has designated it as 99L- their method for starting up the process of running computer models and allocating resources for additional investigation of a developing system. This tropical wave should go on to develop in to a least a depression and probably our first named storm. It is already at a fairly high latitude- around 12.5 north - so it is not likely to get too far west before being yanked out to sea. What it indicates is that the Atlantic Basin is now open for business and we could see even more development later in the coming week as several of the global models suggest. The window of development opportunity has apparently arrived. How long it lasts and what impacts are felt remains to be seen. The bottom line is that any development is no threat to land at the present time. I'll post another update here this evening. A recent satellite shot of 99L in the far eastern Atlantic UPDATED: 12:30 pm EDT, August 8, 2009 RARE TROPICAL CYCLONE THREAT TO HAWAII WHILE WE WATCH THE FAR EASTERN ATLANTIC The latest discussion from the NHC regarding hurricane Felicia was excellent. The forecaster outlined a very interesting situation as the hurricane moves steadily west- towards Hawaii. What was so interesting you ask? The hurricane is holding its own at about 90mph right now but is over fairly cool water temps. This should gradually weaken the hurricane. On the other hand, water temps increase some the closer to Hawaii the hurricane gets. But the saving grace in all of this will likely be strong upper level winds. It will be a race against time really but it appears that fairly soon the hurricane will become sheared like a sheep- literally being torn apart from the top down. This is what should keep Hawaii from having to deal with much more than just some squalls and rough seas. Also, the Hurricane Hunters will fly in to the eye later today for more precise data. It is rare to have a hurricane or any tropical cyclone approach Hawaii from the east. While it will be a nuisance on the local weather scene, it looks as though Felicia will not make it to the Big Island in one piece. In the Atlantic, there is a very well organized tropical wave and possible low level circulation center just coming off of Africa. It is perhaps the most aggressive looking wave I have seen all season- complete with a low level swirl and deep convection trailing off to the southwest of the center. It is still about a day from fully entering the Atlantic- but SSTs are plenty warm out there, above normal in fact, so it could be that this feature develops gradually over time. Obviously, it is not a threat to land areas even if it does develop. We'll keep our eyes on this one- might be the best chance at a named storm in a long, long time. I'll post more info here tonight on Felicia and the eastern Atlantic tropical wave. UPDATED: 10:45 am EDT, August 7, 2009 PACIFIC HURRICANE FELICIA WEAKENING AND POSES ONLY MINOR THREAT TO HAWAII WHILE ATLANTIC REMAINS VOID OF ANY ACTIVITY It looks as though Felicia continues to weaken as it moves westward over the open waters of the Pacific Ocean. This trend should continue and the once very powerful hurricane will be reduced to a mere swirl of clouds- hopefully before reaching Hawaii. The official forecast calls for it to be a depression by the time it passes near the islands in a few days. An enhancement of rain and wind would likely be in store but only a minor nuisance compared to what it could be. If you're planning a trip to Hawaii, do not change a thing. Felicia will be in and out in no time with very little to be concerned with. As for the Atlantic, there is nothing to be concerned with as we await a possible pattern change that should bring things to life. We have had a remarkable season in that it has been so very quiet- only a few areas of interest all season long. How long this string of good luck will continue is anyone's guess but the long range computer models do not show much happening for the next several days at least. It does appear that more favorable conditions are coming but whether or not that sparks the development of a tropical cyclone remains to be seen. The weekend ahead will be nice and quiet although a hot one for most coastal areas. I'll have more here tomorrow. UPDATED: 10:50 am EDT, August 6, 2009 HURRICANE FELICIA TO THREATEN HAWAII- BUT NOT AS A HURRICANE, ATLANTIC STILL A NO-SHOW Hurricane Felicia in the east Pacific is the strongest in the region in a while. Top winds are 140 mph with an incredible eye feature. It is a good thing the hurricane is well out in the middle of the ocean at this intensity because it is certainly a formidable system. The track is interesting in that it takes Felicia, in a much weakened state, right towards Hawaii. We will need to pay closer attention to this over the next few days as even though the hurricane is forecast to dramatically weaken, it will likely bring rather inclement weather to the String of Pearls. How much of an impact Felicia will have remains to be seen but folks traveling to the area should be mindful that the weather could be affected over the weekend. I'll discuss this much more tomorrow since the forecast picture will be much clearer by then. As for the Atlantic, all remains quiet with only limited areas of convection dotting the ocean. Even though a change in the overall pattern seems to be coming, it will be a slow process and even then, I do not see a track race of multiple storms forming all at once. It has been a very tranquil season- enjoy it, a lot of people need a break from the problems associated with hurricanes. We know that sooner or later, they will return. It won't be in the near term, that much I can promise! I'll have more here in the morning. UPDATED: 9:55 am EDT, August 5, 2009 EAST PACIFIC REMAINS VERY ACTIVE As has been the case for the entire hurricane season to date, the east Pacific has been the most active with six named storms having formed already. The most powerful is out there right now- hurricane Felicia. Top winds are 105 mph and expected to go higher. The forecast track points the system right at Hawaii but probably in a much weaker state than it is now. If you live in or are planning to visit Hawaii, just keep an eye on what is going on with Felicia- it is about six days away if it is going to be a threat at all. In the Atlantic, all remains remarkably quiet. We are still about 10 days away from an apparent pattern change that could potentially set things off. As of today, there are few areas of deep convection to speak of and none that look to develop. There is just too much stable, dry air coupled with strong winds in the upper atmosphere for anything to develop. Some of it can be directly related to the El Nino in the Pacific but other large scale factors are also present that have nothing to do with the El Nino. One of the main negative factors is fairly strong high pressure dominating the Atlantic. Until this lets up some, it will be very tough to see tropical storm formation anytime soon. I'll post more here tomorrow and we'll be talking tropics tonight on HurricaneTrack News/Talk- 9pm ET right here on the home page. Join Mike, Jesse and me as we discuss the latest forecasts from CSU and TSR. There are some conflicting signals between the two and we'll break it down as best we can this evening. Hope you can tune in. UPDATED: 10:10 am EDT, August 4, 2009 DEEP TROPICAL CONVECTION ON THE INCREASE AS PATTERN READIES FOR DEVELOPMENT Things are changing. The east Pacific is getting quite active and the reasons for it are coming east with time. Right now we have TS Enrique and TD 8-E in the waters well off the coast of Mexico- neither system poses an immediate threat to land. What it appears to indicate however, is that a more favorable pattern is migrating west to east and should be in the Atlantic Basin within the next few days. We are already seeing a very impressive tropical wave far out in the east Atlantic that has the NHC calling for a low chance of development. Some of the computer models pop in and out with latching on to this feature as it moves steadily west. Water temps are certainly warm enough but upper level conditions and even the moisture content of the atmosphere may limit development for a while longer. None the less, as we progress through the next week to 10 days, I expect that we will see a gradual increase in the chances of getting a named storm somewhere in the Atlantic Basin. For now, it is just wait and see and the maps are blank- which is obviously great news for coastal residents anywhere. I'll have more here tomorrow. UPDATED: 10:45 am EDT, August 3, 2009 QUIET PATTERN CONTINUES BUT A WINDOW OF DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITY IS COMING So far, we have managed to go through all of June and July without a single named storm in the Atlantic Basin. This is fairly remarkable and somewhat rare. It may indeed mean that the season will see quite a bit less overall activity than in recent years. However, the quiet pattern may be coming to an end as we move through August. The reason? It appears from looking at several of the more reliable global comptuer models that a more favorable upper level wind environment is about to move in to the Atlantic Basin. We can see some evidence of this in the east Pacific. Right now, there are two large areas of deep convection trying to organize in to tropical cylcones. The favorable conditions that is allowing that development will gradually move eastward and in to the western Atlantic and beyond. It is going to take a few more days but the models show two important changes. 1. Looking at the ECMWF model we can see that sea level pressures are likely to lower so that surface winds will not be as brisk across the Caribbean Sea. This allows for more convergence of air at the surface and thus an increase in tropical convection. 2. The latest GFS MJO forecast for upper level conditions indicates a period of favorable upward motion coming in to the Atlantic Basin. This would allow for a lessening of the strong upper level winds that have been the dominate force so far this season. We may also see a decrease in dry, dusty air coming off of Africa too. All of this adds up to suggesting, and I have to emphasize suggesting, a more favorable pattern evolving. For the remainder of this week, all should remain quiet but we do anticipate a continued up-tick in activity in the eastern Pacific but none of the systems pose a threat to land areas. I'll have more here tomorrow morning. UPDATED: 9:45 am EDT, July 29, 2009 KEN BASS JOINS US AGAIN TO TALK ABOUT LANDSTRIKE ON HURRICANETRACK NEWS/TALK Tonight on our weekly program, HurricaneTrack News/Talk, we'll have author Ken Bass on again to discuss his upcoming book signing event in St. Augustine on Saturday. His book, Landstrike, outlines the events leading up to and after a powerful hurricane impacts New York City. As I have written about it before, the book could easily serve as a training manual for officials in large cities, not just New York. While it is fiction, its storyline could be played out in any large coastal population center. New York is not alone in its unique vulnerability to hurricanes and the book does a great job in painting the pictures of a new reality in the wake of a large and powerful hurrican affecting the city. We'll have Ken with us at 9pm ET tonight right here on the homepage. As far as the tropics go- we will end July without any issues what so ever. All is quiet and should remain that way for another week to perhaps 10 days. After the first week of August, I see a pattern change in the upper level wind flow that could allow for organized deep convection to begin flaring up in the Atlantic Basin. The tropical waves over Africa are strong and robust but the atmosphere over the eastern Atlantic has not been favorable to allow them to develop. There are signs in the longer range modeling that suggest this will change for a time beginning close to mid-August. For now, no problems exist in either the Atlantic or the east Pacific- so far so good. UPDATED: 10:30 am EDT, July 27, 2009 ALL IS QUIET AS WE END JULY July looks like it will end without a single named storm for the Atlantic. The pattern has been such that conditions were just not favorable across much of the Basin this month. Water temps are warm enough in just about every region but warm water alone will not produce tropical cyclones. The combination of strong upper level winds and large outbreaks of African dust and dry air has kept a lid on things. That does not look like it will change anytime soon. Once we get in to middle August, there may be a switch in the upper air pattern that would allow for a period of development- we'll just have to wait and see about that. I wanted to mention that this Saturday, August 1, I am going to be in St. Augustine participating in a book signing event with author Ken Bass. He has written Landstrike, a book about a ficticious hurricane slamming in to New York City. It is a very gripping read and could easily serve as a manual on what to expect when that day comes in the future. The book chronicles the track of hurricane Nicole in late September of 2010 as it makes its way across the Atlantic and eventually across New York City. The results are nothing short of a modern day cataclysm for the region and the nation as a whole. Ken's research in to what would happen shows up well within the story line and makes the reader keenly aware of the challenges that would lie ahead after a disaster of this magnitude. To help promote the book, Ken is having a book signing and hurricane preparedness event at Marineland on Saturday from 6 pm until 9 pm. I will be joining him for the evening to help spread the word about the book and to meet people in the area and talk hurricane preparedness. ACE Hardware will also participate with information and a presentation of their own. If you live near St. Augustine, I would like to invite you to come out and join us. I have a Facebook event set up on our fan page and have posted a link to the promo poster below. Any questions, just send me an email. I'll have the Chevy Tahoe, one of our 5-meter wind towers, a remote camera unit and a video screen with me to showcase the work that we do and how we do it. There will be plenty of food, conversation and good times. Hope to see you there! UPDATED: 10:55 am EDT, July 24, 2009 TROPICS GOING TO BE QUIET FOR A WHILE As the departing non-tropical low pressure area brings inclement weather to portions of New England today, the focus will shift back to the tropical Atlantic where it remains very quiet. Even though it is getting towards late July now, we still have a few weeks to go before the expected increased in activity arrives. For the weekend ahead, it will be very tranquil from Africa to Texas. Only scattered blobs of deep thunderstorms will dot the Basin. I see nothing in the long range computer models to suggest any development over the next week to 10 days. Beyond that time, it is anyone's guess. For now, have a great weekend. Next week I will discuss my participation in an exciting book signing event for author Ken Bass in St. Augustine on August 1. More on that in Monday's post. UPDATED: 11:55 pm EDT, July 23, 2009 NON-TROPICAL STORM LASHING NEW ENGLAND TONIGHT Thought I would post a quick update on the non-tropical storm that is affecting a good deal of New England tonight. Checking the latest wind readings- I see wind gusting to 31mph in Montauk with an air pressure reading of 1009 mb. Elsewhere, in Bridgeport, CT, heavy rain is falling with winds steady at 20-25 mph out of the northeast. This is all due to a potent storm that has some of its energy derived from the tropical wave that emerged from Africa many days ago. This wave became quite active in the central Atlantic and looked like it might develop enough to become a tropical cyclone. It did not quite make it but the resulting ocean storm is packing quite a punch for late July! I was in this very region last September tracking hurricane Kyle and believe me, this will be quite a different story than Kyle- or any event of this nature in many years. The storm should pass quickly in to Canada tomorrow but not before dumping very heavy rains and bringing gusty winds and coastal flooding to the remainder of New England. I'll post more here Friday morning. UPDATED: 4:50 pm EDT, July 23, 2009 GALE CENTER TAKES SHAPE- PROMISES TO BRING NORTHEAST AND NEW ENGLAND STORMY CONDITIONS Take a look at this radar shot showing the non-tropical low pressure area off the coast of the Mid-Atlantic states. While it has some tropical moisture and energy entrained in to it, the system itself is not purely tropical. None the less, stormy conditions are in store for portions of the Northeast and New England coasts tonight and tomorrow as the low gets stronger. I encourage those who live in the area or who have interests there to consult your local NWS information for local updates, watches and warnings. Just visit Weather.gov and input your ZIP Code for your area. It is going to be a newsmaking event for the region and people should take it seriously, especially right along the coast where surf conditions, wind and rain will be roughest. The remainder of the tropics are very quiet and should remain that way for the next several days at least. I'll post another update on the Atlantic system late tonight. If you live in the region and are being affected by it, feel free to visit our Facebook page to post your reports, photos, etc. UPDATED: 6:30 am EDT, July 23, 2009 GET READY NEW ENGLAND- LOTS OF WIND AND RAIN ARE ON THEIR WAY It looks as though a fairly rough time of it is in store for portions of coastal New England and the Northeast as low pressure begins to take shape off the North Carolina coast. Several computer models have been advertising this for the last several days and while it may not be purely tropical, there is certainly a tropical connection with the amount of rain that is coming for the region. Just looking at the latest GFS model run, the low should track pretty close to the coast, bringing heavy rains and gusty winds to the coast starting later today and lasting through tomorrow. The worst of the weather is likely to be felt in eastern Massachusetts- especially out on Cape Cod. It is important that people take note of this developing weather situation and take it seriously. While not a hurricane, there is the potential for dangerous weather to develop. I'll keep track of the evolution of this system and post updates here often. The rest of the tropics are nice and quiet as we begin to round out the month of July. I'll post another update here later this afternoon. UPDATED: 6:00 pm EDT, July 21, 2009 EXPECTING LOW PRESSURE AREA TO FORM OFF THE SOUTHEAST COAST OVER NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS From the looks of the computer models and the situation at hand, I am fairly confident that we will see a low pressure area form from the mess of weather now situated near the Bahamas. It is not likely to get too strong as surface pressures are not very low at all and upper level winds are not the best for development. However, waters are warm and we do have energy piling in from the southeast in the form of the tropical wave (97L) that has tracked all the way across the Atlantic. We might get our first named storm out of this system but that remains to be seen. If so, it would be Ana. The Hurricane Hunters are slated to fly out and investigate the region on Thursday if conditions warrant. I'll post more on this developing weather tomorrow morning. UPDATED: 11:00 am EDT, July 21, 2009 TROPICS GETTING A LITTLE MORE ACTIVE BUT STILL NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT We have a couple of areas to monitor fairly closely over the coming days. One is a strong tropical wave, also known as 97L, making its way through the eastern Caribbean Sea. Upper level winds are too strong to allow for significant development. However, its energy may be the key to ingnite development of the other feature farther to the northwest. A large area of showers and thunderstorms, part of a complex weather pattern, persists over the southwest Atlantic near the Bahamas. Some of the global computer models suggest that this will consolidate and become a low pressure area over the next couple of days. The NHC has indeed painted it in their yellow circle of low probability for development. We will have to watch this region as it is a typical breeding ground for tropical storm formation during most of the season. So far, pressures at the surface remain high but the process could begin soon to develop a surface low. One thing is certain, periodic heavy rains and squally weather could plague portions of the Bahamas over the next day or two. I'll keep a close watch on this system for further signs of development. Elswhere, the Atlantic Basin is mostly quiet today. I'll post again with more info this evening. UPDATED: 10:50 am EDT, July 20, 2009 FAIRLY QUIET WEEK AHEAD Even though we are seeing a more active pattern with the emergence of stronger tropical waves in the Atlantic, thee is still no reason to be concerned that any of them will develop. The main reason is hostile upper level winds. While we are seeing a flare up of convection with the tropical wave about to move through the Windward Islands, and this will certainly bring its share of squally weather to the region, upper level winds will not allow for much more organization. This is fairly typical of this time of the year as we are still several weeks away from the start to the rapid ramp up in expected activity. Another area to at least monitor over the coming days is a large and complex weather pattern well off the Southeast coast. It is a combination of mid to upper level energy interacting with a tropical wave and its heat and energy. All of this spells plenty of convection over the southwest Atlantic but nothing seems to be consolidating in to a surface low pressure. If you're heading to the Bahamas, depending on where you are, there is a chance of off and on showers and thunderstorms as this mess of weather persists over the week ahead. It should all lift out by the weekend. The east Pacific is nice and quiet finally after several systems formed and died away over the last couple of weeks. I'll have more here tomorrow morning. UPDATED: 3:00 pm EDT, July 18, 2009 A FEW AREAS TO WATCH BUT NOTHING OF GREAT CONCERN We have a few areas of showers and thunderstorms to monitor over the next few days but the overall pattern is one that is mostly quiet with no major concerns just yet. In the Atlantic, we have two strong and well organized tropical waves moving westward across open waters. The western most wave, nearing the Lesser Antilles, is flaring up considerably today. This is mostly a result of its interaction with an upper level feature that is producing strong winds aloft. We'll have to monitor this system closely next week as it moves in to an area more conducive for development. The system behind it, to its east, is well organized but not producing much convection today. It too will have to be tracked as it moves steadily westward. We are getting closer to the time of the year when we would expect to see an increase in development chances. The third item of note is a large area of showers and thunderstorms that has drifted in to the northern Gulf of Mexico. Sometimes, these become the focusing points for non-tropical development. That is, they are born from sub-tropical feautures and not true tropical waves coming from Africa. The Gulf is plenty warm but the process would presumably take several days- so for now it is just something to watch. I will post another update here tomorrow. UPDATED: 10:15 am EDT, July 17, 2009 TROPICAL WAVES IN ATLANTIC GETTING A LITTLE MORE ACTIVE We are about a month away from the real meat of the hurricane season getting started. Signs of that are starting to appear as we see the tropical waves in the eastern Atlantic beginning to get a little stronger. One such wave is being "outlooked" by the NHC as having a low chance of development. It has by far the most impressive look to it of the season but has a long way to go before it would develop fully. Conditions are still quite hostile across much of the deep tropics and the Caribbean Sea. None the less, we'll obviously monitor it as it tracks steadily westward over the next week to 10 days. It won't go away, the energy will remain even if it does not develop right away. Where that energy ends up is important. The farther west these things make it before blossoming, then the closer they are to land areas. The rest of the tropics are quiet. Even the east Pacific has managed to calm down after a flurry of activity. I'll have more here tomorrow morning. UPDATED: 2:40 pm EDT, July 16, 2009 YEP, STILL QUIET OUT THERE This will be fairly short and to the point. The tropics are very quiet, partly due to the time of year we are in and partly due, perhaps, to the overall pattern assoiciated with the El Nino event. However, it is difficult to know for sure that El Nino is the sole cause of the lack of tropical activity in the Atlantic. Remember 2004? We had our first named storm at the very beginning of August and that year was quite busy to say the least. Don't read more in to that than there is- the point being, the Atlantic Basin is normally not very active during mid-July. I see nothing to change that anytime soon. In the east Pacific, TS Dolores is a non-issue for any land areas as it moves on towards cooler waters. Carlos, once a strong hurricane, is now just a depression and should fade away in to a remnant low as it passes across the open Pacific. I'll have more tomorrow. UPDATED: 9:45 am EDT, July 15, 2009 TROPICS STILL NOT POSING ANY PROBLEMS Even with a very active east Pacific and the fact that we are 45 days in to the hurricane season, there are still no issues from the tropics to be concerned about. Hurricane Carlos in the east-central Pacific continues to move generally westward and should pass well to the south of Hawaii with only an increase in wave action. Farther east, TD5-E has formed but it too is forecast to move away from land (Mexico) and die out over cooler Pacific waters in a few days. The Atlantic Basin is fairly quiet as well with the only area of interest being way out in the east Atlantic. There are a couple of tropical waves that will track to the west over the next several days. The computer models have been off and on with their suggestions of development but as of now, nothing is imminent. Conditions in the deep tropics are generally unfavorable right now as we are still about a month away from the traditional ramp up in overall activity. We have a great HurricaneTrack News/Talk planned for tonight. Author Ken Bass will join us LIVE at 9pm ET to discuss his first novel, Landstrike. The book details the events leading up to a major hurricane striking New York City and surrounding areas in September of 2010. With only minor poetic licensing taken for dramatic effect, the book brings to reality, through fiction, what could happen when the day comes that a large and poweful hurricane hits New York or another large East Coast city. I hope you can join us this evening right here on the homepage. The program plays automatically, all you have to do is listen in. We also have a live chat feature that allows us to communicate during the program. For more information about the book, click on the graphic in the right-hand column. UPDATED: 1:00 pm EDT, July 14, 2009 WILL BE WATCHING HURRICANE CARLOS IN THE PACIFIC AS IT HEADS WEST- ATLANTIC GETTING A LITTLE MORE INTERESTING As hurricane Carlos churns away in the Pacific, moving steadily westward, it will have to be monitored for its proximity to Hawaii. So far, there is no solid indication that the hurricane will affect the state but an increase in wave action seems quite possible. In El Nino years, it is not uncommon to see hurricanes in the central Pacific as Carlos soon will be. We'll also watch a new and growing area of deep convection well off the coast of Mexico. It too should move away from land and farther out in to open waters. In the Atlantic, there is a chance we'll see some development out of the deep tropics. The feature is a bundle of moisture and energy associated with a tropical wave, or two, and the ITCZ or Intertropical Convergence Zone. Several of the global computer models are indicating that an organized area of low pressure will eventually take shape in the region between Africa and the Lesser Antilles. It will probably be slow going since it is not climatologically a favorable area just yet. None the less, conditions are not terrible for development and thus we'll see how things transpire over the coming days. It would be interesting to see development out of the deep tropics if for no other reason than the forecast negative conditions for that region. Should something pop now, it would at least mean that perhaps, just perhaps, the region won't be as hostile as some of the long range models suggest. Still, we're about a month away from really eyeing that area of the Basin so for now, it is just wait and see. On tomorrow night's edition of HurricaneTrack News/Talk, we will welcome guest Ken Bass who has a new book out- his first. It is called Landstrike and I finished it last night. We'll talk to Ken about the book and what it fore tells as far as a major catastrophe should a strong hurricane impact New York or anywhere in the Northeast. The book is riveting and full of eerie detail that starkly reminds me of my dealings with hurricanes such as Katrina and Ike- just to name a few. I hope you will join us, the program begins at 9pm ET right here on the homepage and should be quite interesting. I'll post more here tomorrow morning. UPDATED: 10:40 am EDT, July 10, 2009 EAST PACIFIC REMAINS VERY ACTIVE WITH T.S. CARLOS AND A NEW DEPRESSION FORMING WHILE THE ATLANTIC IS SHUT DOWN FOR NOW The east Pacific continues to be very active as of late. Carlos, once a hurricane over the weekend, is moving generally westward far off the coast of Mexico while a new tropical depression seems to be forming well to the southwest of Manzanillo. It too should move out to the west or possibly north of west over the coming days. Neither system should affect land. In the Atlantic, all is quiet still with no signs of change anytime soon. We will watch the west coast of Africa this week for the emergence of a tropical wave that the GFS model has suggested could develop some. Water temps in that region are marginally favorable to sustain deep tropical convection but the real inhibitor is the dry, dusty air blowing off of Africa. Until this subsides, it will be very tough to see any development in the eastern Atlantic. The Gulf and Caribbean are free and clear of any organized areas of convection right now. I'll post more tomorrow morning and will talk some about our guest for this week's HurricaneTrack News/Talk. UPDATED: 10:40 am EDT, July 10, 2009 TD #4 FORMS IN THE EAST PACIFIC AS ATLANTIC REMAINS VERY QUIET The NHC is now issuing advisories on the 4th tropical depression of the east Pacific hurricane season. The system is located well west of the Mexican coastline and poses no threat at all to land. The NHC's forecast calls for the depression to become a hurricane with time as it moves steadily westward over open water. I expect that this region will remain active for several weeks to come with off and on development. For now, the Mexican coast has been fortunate with no major issues from the Pacific as of yet- hopefully that will continue within this active pattern. In the Atlantic Basin, everything is as quiet as can be expected for this time of year. I see nothing in the long range computer models to suggest development over the next five to ten days. UPDATED: 10:30 am EDT, July 9, 2009 EVIDENCE MOUNTS TO SUGGEST A VERY SLOW HURRICANE SEASON- BUT BE CAUTIOUS IN YOUR CELEBRATIONS The Climate Prediction Center or CPC has officially announced the arrival of El Nino in their update this morning. This, coupled with a report from the UKMET Office in England, adds to the mounting pile of evidence that strongly suggests a very inactive Atlantic hurricane season. In fact, there is a possibility that as few as six named storms will form- according to the report from the UKMET Office yesterday. The reasons are somewhat complex but have to do with unfavorable upper level winds, cooler Atlantic sea surface temperatures and higher than normal sea level pressure in the deep tropics. All of these factors typically mean fewer and weaker Atlantic hurricanes. Typically. At the risk of sounding like I am trying to justify my existence for the remainder of the season, let's make sure we keep all of this good news in perspective. I think that the crowd that reads this site knows enough about hurricanes to remember that it can all come down to just one event. The reigning poster child of "it only takes one" is Andrew in 1992. That was a very "slow" year in the Atlantic Basin. Yet Andrew took its place in the history books and left a nation stunned as we witnessed almost complete devastation to portions of southern Dade county in Florida. While these indicators of an inactive season are indeed a much needed potential break from hurricane threats, we must be cautious not to look away and ignore the tropics. Perhaps this is just what the doctor ordered, so to speak, considering the economy is so bad, etc. We can ill-afford a major hurricane issue this year; probably more so than last. None the less, until we get to November 30, it is still possible that a hurricane will affect the United States and certainly the island nations of the Atlantic Basin. Since no one can say for sure that in fact no hurricanes will impact land areas this season, we'll stand guard and keep watching- even if it is a blank map. In other news, I wanted to do a favor for a friend and colleague of ours. You may have heard of Mike Theiss- maybe not. I guarantee you that you have seen his footage at one time or another on TV. He is an extreme weather and nature photographer and is an example of someone living out his dream doing exactly what he loves to do. Mike is in a quest to win a trip to Antarctica. In fact, here is a quote from his site about the contest: Quark Expeditions is having a contest to give away a free trip for an adventurous person to go to Antarctica. The winner is decided by whom gets the most votes. Mike Theiss has wanted to go to Antarctica his entire life and now is his chance to live his dream. Mike promises to take thousands of photos and his daily blogs will transport the reader to Antarctica, feeling the icy cold, inhaling the clean unpolluted air, hearing the diverse sounds of wildlife, and witnessing the awesome lighting only found in this untouched wonderland. Mike would GREATLY appreciate your vote. The registration process only takes a few minutes and MIKE would be so thankful for you to take the time to vote for him. I would like to invite our visitors to click on this link to visit the page and consider voting for Mike. We would love to see him win the trip of his lifetime. Pass the word (and his site) in your social networking circles and let's send him to the frozen south! UPDATED: 9:40 am EDT, July 8, 2009 BLANCA ALMOST GONE WHILE ATLANTIC SLEEPS It won't get much shorter than this. We have a dying tropical depression in the east Pacific and nothing worth mentioning in the Atlantic. This is obviously great news for our coastal areas. So far, I see no solid signs of development anytime soon. Enjoy! Tonight on HurricaneTrack News/Talk we will be speaking with David Lejeune and Bryan Bost of the Signature Group. Their company works to restore damaged properties in the wake of flood events and other catastrophic losses. I thought it would be interesting to hear of their experiences over the years and to discuss what people can do to mitigate such loss in the first place. Join us tonight at 9pm ET right here on the homepage. It will be a very interesting topic and one that few people know much about. UPDATED: 10:30 am EDT, July 7, 2009 TS BLANCA IN THE EAST PACIFIC IS YET ANOTHER SHORT-LIVED SYSTEM Looking at the latest satellite photo of the east Pacific and tropical storm Blanca, it is easy to see that the storm is weakening. The culprit? Colder waters. The storm formed in an area where sea surface temps were warm enough but only by a slim margin. Its track has taken it over progressively cooler Pacific waters and this will mean yet another short lived tropical cyclone in the east Pacific. At least it is not any threat to land. There is a chance some of the remnant moisture from the storm will turn northeast with time towards California but we'll have to see about that. There are no other areas of concern in the east Pacific at this time. In the Atlantic Basin, we have no issues to worry about from Africa all the way over to Texas. Again, I want to remind you that this time of year is typically very quiet anyway. We have about another month or so until the lid normally comes off in the tropical Atlantic and if it is going to do so this year, then mid-August would be the time to look. As of now, things are nice and quiet and should remain that way for the rest of the week. Tomorrow night on HurricaneTrack News/Talk, we will be speaking with the folks from the Signature Group- a company that handles, among other things, water damage restoration. I met them at the Florida hurricane conference back in May and thought it would be interesting to hear some of their stories about dealing with hurricanes such as Rita and Ike. We will also talk about how the public can prepare for a flood event or other catastrophic loss event to their home or business. A little planning can go a long way. That's tomorrow night, 9pm ET right here on the homepage. UPDATED: 10:20 am EDT, July 6, 2009 EAST PACIFIC SEES SECOND TROPICAL STORM OF ITS SEASON FORM AS ATLANTIC REMAINS TRANQUIL Tropical storm Blanca has formed well off the coast of Mexico in the eastern Pacific. The NHC began issuing advisories this morning and puts the storm about 420 miles SSW of the southern Baja peninsula. The storm is not expected to threaten land as it moves on a path away from the Mexican coast. Meanwhile, the Atlantic remains as tranquil as ever with no signs of tropical storm formation in the near future. Towards the end of the month, there may be a period of more favorable conditions, which we would expect to see in any year. For this week, all should remain nice and quiet. UPDATED: 12:50 pm EDT, July 1, 2009 MAJOR OUTBREAK OF DRY, STABLE AIR IN EAST ATLANTIC AS EAST PACIFIC IS ABOUT TO POP SAL is back. In this case, the Saharan Air Layer. It is a blast of warm, dusty and very stable air that comes off of Africa and extends out in to the Atlantic. Check out the link below from the CMISS site. It shows very clearly the strong SAL outbreak. You can track its progress over the coming days as the air mass migrates westward. What does it mean for tropical development? A solid cap placed on convection in the east Atlantic- at least for now. While there is a forecast for less than average dust outbreaks over the Atlantic, we can expect to see bursts like the one today. It is fascinating to see and modern satellite technology allows easy tracking of these large scale features. The Atlantic Basin is and will be very quiet for many days to come. No worries at all for coastal areas for this coming big weekend. In the east Pacific, all is quiet for now but it appears that several areas of development may pop up in the coming days. The ECMWF model in particular is showing a string of storms developing in about 3 to 10 days. The good news is that it would appear that these potential developments would be far off the coast of Mexico and moving generally away from land. It is amazing to see computer model forecasts for something that is not there now, but very well could be several days out. We'll see. The east Pacific is primed for development right now so it would make sense at least. UPDATED: 10:30 am EDT, June 30, 2009 JUNE TO END WITH NO NAMED STORMS FOR THE ATLANTIC- JULY WILL BEGIN MUCH THE SAME So far, so good. We have made it through the first month of the hurricane season with no named storms in the Atlantic Basin. This means too, of course, that there have been no impacts from tropical storms or hurricanes either. Even the east Pacific has been fairly quiet overall with one very brief hurricane just off the Mexican coast. The pattern looks to remain such that I do not expect to see any activity in the Atlantic for the remainder of this week and in to the weekend. This is one of the quietest periods of the hurricane season coming up and it is rare to have tropical storms or hurricanes in any year during this period. It's just one of those things about climatology- a real lull before the storm kind of thing. Later in July, we would normally see an uptick in activity as conditions gradually become more favorable across the Basin. For now, and the upcoming 4th of July weekend, no worries at all. UPDATED: 2:10 pm EDT, June 28, 2009 93L NOT LIKELY TO DEVELOP MUCH AS CONDITIONS ARE SIMPLY NOT CONDUCIVE RIGHT NOW It looked like we could see our first named storm as last week came to an end as we were watching a vigorous tropical wave in the western Caribbean Sea. Now, it appears less and less likely that this system will develop. It just goes to show that even though seemingly all of the ingredients can be in place, development is not always a sure thing. There are so many conditions that have to be just right for a tropical cyclone to develop and cyclogenesis, the birth of tropical cyclones, is very hard to figure out in many instances. So, all looks to remain quiet as we bring June to a close. Of course, we will not ignore the system as it has not vanished but I would be surprised if it developed much more. The east Pacific is also nice and quiet with no areas of organized convection present. I'll have more tomorrow. UPDATED: 12:05 pm EDT, June 27, 2009 COMPUTER MODELS NOT TOO AGGRESSIVE IN DEVELOPING 93L There is only one area to monitor this weekend and that is 93L in the northwest Caribbean Sea. It looked far more impressive yesterday than it does today but we expect this to occur as the deep convection pulses up and down. The NHC continues to give it a medium chance of development but probably only after in gets in to the southern Gulf of Mexico later tonight or tomorrow. As far as development potential, the only computer model that really ramps this system up is the HWRF- which stands for Hurricane Weather Research and Forecast. It is quite strong with its interpretation of what the future holds for 93L. Thus, I would think that it is not to be believed at this time. The other intensity models are not showing nearly as much growth as the HWRF and until, and if, we see a true low level center, it may be some time before the models settle down and agree with each other. The bottom line is that there is a disturbance to watch and it will affect portions of the northwest Caribbean Sea and surrounding land masses today and tomorrow. From there, it should move in to the Gulf of Mexico where there is some potential for it to develop further. How much remains to be seen. It will not spoil any weekend plans for beach-goers along the Gulf Coast so do not worry about it. I'll post more here on the situation this evening. UPDATED: 7:00 pm EDT, June 26, 2009 93L COULD BE OUR FIRST NAMED STORM FOR 2009 Conditions appear to be setting up to allow disturbance 93L to get better organized over the next few days. This might mean we will have our first named storm of the season. If so, the name will be Ana. Right now the large area of showers and thunderstorms is in its formative stages but it does look fairly impressive this evening. I understand that a recon mission is planned for Sunday to further investigate the system once it reaches the southern Gulf of Mexico. Initial computer model guidance suggests a possible track to the northeast towards Florida. It is highly uncertain at this time whether or not that will happen. For the weekend, the impacts will be felt along the Yucatan and adjacent land masses and coastal waters. In fact, there is a rather large area of clouds over the region, spreading northward in to Florida now. Development should be slow and there is plenty of time to monitor conditions. I'll post more here very late tonight and throughout the weekend. UPDATED: 2:05 pm EDT, June 26, 2009 WESTERN CARIBBEAN AND SOUTHERN GULF OF MEXICO LOOKS TO BE PLACE TO WATCH OVER THE WEEKEND We are starting to see some changes with activity in the Atlantic Basin. There is a vigorous tropical wave that has flared up over the last 24 hours in the area just east of the Yucatan peninsula. The NHC has given it a decent chance at developing further and in fact, some of the computer models show this getting better organized over the next few days. Right now, the main impact is of course inclement weather over portions of the western Caribbean but this should move on out over the weekend as the tropical wave heads for and across the Yucatan. From there, we will have to monitor it closely once it emerges in to the southern and southwest Gulf of Mexico. I'll know more about this feature as I travel home from my talk in Houston last night. I'll post another update by 8pm ET tonight. The rest of the tropics, including the east Pacific, are quiet. UPDATED: 8:30 am EDT, June 25, 2009 LIVE IN OR NEAR HOUSTON? COME OUT TONIGHT FOR A TALK ABOUT HURRICANE IKE This evening will cap off a very busy and productive week. I am in Texas now after making my way here from North Carolina since Monday- making stops along the route for meetings and other tasks that needed to get done now while things are quiet. Now comes the finale, so to speak, of the trip with my presentation for the American Meteorlogical Society chapter in Houston. It begins this evening around 7pm at the Clayton Library on Caroline Street in Houston. The talk is open to the public and you do not have to be an AMS member to come out. I will present a PowerPoint presentation covering the 2008 hurricane season and particularly, our Ike mission. I'll show data sets as well as incredible time lapse video from our remote cameras that were placed around the city last September. If you have any questions about it, feel free to send me an email. I hope to see some of our Texas visitors there this evening. As far as the tropics, there is nothing to mention right now. All is quiet and looks to remain that way for several more days at least. This is one of the slowest periods of the hurricane season normally. The heat is certainly on across much of the Southeast and Gulf Coast states, but nothing with any wind, rain or storm surge! I'll post more here later tonight after the talk in Houston. UPDATED: 9:30 am EDT, June 24, 2009 ANDRES, IN THE EAST PACIFIC, WEAKENS WHILE THE ATLANTIC BASIN SHOWS NO SIGNS OF DEVELOPMENT Andres was a hurricane for a fairly brief period yesterday but has begun to weaken as of late. All warnings have been dropped for the Meixcan coastline but folks along the southern tip of the Baja should keep an eye on the future progress of the storm. The official forecast from the NHC shows that Andres will turn more west with time and begin to fade away over progressively cooler Pacific waters. There are no other areas of organized deep convection in the east Pacific which is great news. The Atlantic Basin is also very quiet which again, is expected this time of year. I do not see any solid indications of development in the long range computer models either. July should start out nice and quiet- hopefully. I am in Mississippi today doing some work on the two weather stations that we have in Pascagoula and Bay St. Louis. I have to tell you, the heat down here is unreal. There is so much energy stored in the air that it pushes on you like a weight. Going from the cool, indoor air-conditioning to the ultra-humid air outside is an experience. Record high temps were the rule across the region over the last few days and more could fall today. I leave Mississippi for Texas this evening and will be in Galveston tomorrow morning before my talk in Houston tomorrow evening. I will post full details of that talk in a write-up tonight. At least the tropics are behaving but this heat is remarkable! I'll have more tonight. UPDATED: 9:00 am EDT, June 23, 2009 TS ANDRES VERY CLOSE TO THE SOUTHWEST COAST OF MEXICO- ATLANTIC IS TROUBLE FREE The east Pacific continues to be active as we are watching TS Andres- the first named storm for that region. The latest info from the NHC tells us that the storm is getting closer to the coast of Mexico- not too far from Manzanillo. Top winds are around 70 mph and the storm is forecast to become a category one hurricane later today. Looking at the latest satellite pictures, the storm does not appear too well organized. This is good news as we do not want to see a rapidly intensifying system this close to the coast. None the less, Andres is expected to bring copious amounts of rain to the region along with the usual effects of high winds and rough seas. The NHC forecast calls for the storm to eventuall turn away from the coast and head out to sea. Until then, folks in and traveling to this portion of the Pacific coast of Mexico should pay close attention to the situation. In that Atlantic, things are quiet. There is a small area of convection in the western Gulf of Mexico where pressures are a little lower, but it is not likely to develop much before moving inland. The long range computer models do not suggest the threat of tropical storm formation over the next five days at least. The activity in the Pacific is indicative of a more favorable upper level wind pattern which in turn favors deep tropical thunderstorms to develop. This pattern should move eastward and across the Atlantic Basin over the next couple of weeks. Whether or not it is enough to trigger any organized areas of convection remains to be seen. All this week, I am traveling across the northern Gulf Coast en route to Texas. I have a talk in Houston on Thursday evening. Today, I am in Atlanta for a meeting and then it's on to Mississippi to check in on our weather stations in Pascagoula and Bay St. Louis tomorrow. From there, I will make my way to Texas with a return trip to the Bolivar Peninsula and Galveston on Thursday before the presentation that evening in Houston. I will post more info on that talk here tomorrow- the public is invited and I will have more details tomorrow. UPDATED: 12:30 pm EDT, June 19, 2009 TROPICS NOT LOOKING BAD FOR THIS WEEKEND- EVEN WITH TD1-E OUT THERE We know things are usually quiet during this early period of the Atlantic hurricane season. So far, this trend looks to continue for the next several days. For the most part, strong upper level westerly winds are keeping any chances of deep thunderstorms from developing anywhere in the Atlantic Basin. As a result, we are not seeing any organized areas of convection and the long range computer models depict a quiet pattern for several days to come. Even in the east Pacifc, where TD1-E is located, we are not seeing too much activity. The depression is looking healthier on satellite images but remains just below tropical storm intensity. It should come ashore near Mazatlan tomorrow and die off quickly over the mountains of Mexico. There is the possibility that some moisture will be injected in to the flow over the Southwest U.S. but it should not be much more than an increase humidity and a slight up-tick in rain chances. Other than that, the heat is the news. As the Southeast and Gulf Coast states bake, enjoy the beach weather. You'll want to pack plenty of sunscreen and water! Have a great weekend and stay safe out there. We want you back next week. I am heading to Texas beginning Monday- more on that Monday morning. UPDATED: 3:30 pm EDT, June 18, 2009 TD NUMBER ONE FORMS IN THE EAST PACIFIC- NOT FORECAST TO BECOME VERY STRONG The east Pacific now has its first tropical depression of the hurricane season. The NHC has begun issuing advisories on TD1-E (the "E" is for East Pacific, obviously) earlier today. Satellite images show a fairly well organized system and it is possible, as well as forecast, that the depression will become TS Andres. There is not a lot of opportunity for it to strengthen before moving inland over Mexico this weekend. None the less, the threat of rain and generally squally weather will linger for portions of the Pacific coast of Mexico. Perhaps there will also be some residual moisture moving in to the Southwest United States but we'll have to wait and see about that. For anyone with vacation plans in Mexico, no worries. The worst case is a rainy and breezy weekend but that is far better than a hurricane! The rest of the east Pacific is mostly quiet with only one other area of disturbed weather located to the southwest of TD1-E. The NHC says that this system is not likely to develop as it moves off to the north with time. I'll have more on TD1-E tomorrow morning. UPDATED: 8:30 am EDT, June 18, 2009 ALL THE ACTION IS IN THE EAST PACIFIC Things are getting a little more active in the tropics but not on the Atlantic Basin side. Instead, it is all in the east Pacific for the time being. We have 92E, the well organized low pressure area off the coast of Mexico and another disturbance to its southwest. Even with this fairly active pattern, there appears to be little threat of either of these systems becoming anything too dangerous. 92E is likely on its way to becoming a tropical depression later today but the intensity models are not very bullish on it getting very strong. The track forecasts from the various models suggest a turn towards Mexico but again, as a relatively weak tropical storm. This would mean rain and wind for coastal locations but exactly where remains to be seen. As mentioned, the Atlantic Basin remains very quiet overall. Strong upper level winds are the dominant factor across much of the tropical Atlantic and these are not forecast to relax anytime soon. I should point out that this is not at all unusual for June. We are in a transitional period as we move from spring to summer. The water temps are still warming and it won't be until we get in to early August that I would expect a significant ramping up in activity. That is what typically happens in any hurricane season. Still, we certainly want to monitor any possible areas that could pose problems in June and July but for now, the Atlantic Basin is not conducive for development. I'll have more here later today when/if the NHC upgrades 92E in the east Pacific. UPDATED: 10:00 am EDT, June 17, 2009 TONIGHT ON HURRICANETRACK NEWS/TALK: SPRINT'S EMERGENCY RESPONSE TEAM MANAGER, TANYA LIN With the tropics remaining nice and quiet, for the most part, we are able to continue our series of informative programs during our HurricaneTrack News/Talk editions. Tonight, we will speak with Tanya Lin who is the manager of Sprint's emergency response team. You would not believe what goes in to planning for a major event like a hurricane and what it takes to get the people and the equipment ready to respond as soon as it is safe to do so. With so much reliance on wireless communications these days, we feel cut off, quite literally, when there is a disaster that ceases our technological capabilties. Tanya will share her experiences with us during tonight's program. It all begins at 9pm ET right here on the homepage. We'll have the live chat function up as well for interactivity and to help with any questions our audience might have. In the tropics, the only area we are keeping a close eye on is 92E in the east Pacific. The NHC gives it a high chance of developing in to a tropical depression over the next day or two. The low is still sputtering some but it does have a shot at becoming not only the east Pacific's first tropical storm of the season, but also the only one named this month ANYWHERE on the planet. We'll discuss this as well on tonight's program. Elsewhere, the Atlantic Basin is free and clear of any issues and looks to remain that for many days to come. Get ready though, a major heat wave is on tap for a good deal of the Southeast and Gulf Coast states- but no threats from the tropics. UPDATED: 10:15 am EDT, June 16, 2009 NEW AREA OF DISTURBED WEATHER IN THE EAST PACIFIC WHILE ATLANTIC BASIN REMAINS QUIET We have a new area to watch in the east Pacific now. It is an area of low pressure, now officially 92-E, and is situated well off the coast of western Mexico. Very early computer model runs indicate that it might become a tropical depression sometime over the next few days but beyond that, as always, it is hard to tell. The initial track predictions from those models suggest an eventual turn back towards the north and east with this system as high pressure breaks down over the north and east Pacific. It will be something to monitor and if it does develop in to a named storm, it would be the first one of the east Pacific season- Andres. On the Atlantic side, all is fairly quiet. We are entering a period of more favorable upper level conditions that would allow deep tropical thunderstorms or convection to develop. None of the long range computer models seem to latch on to any one area and develop it over the coming days. We'll have to watch the western Caribbean and southern Gulf of Mexico towards the end of the month as the GFS MJO forecast shows quite favorable upper level conditions during that time period. Whether or not that comes to pass, we'll just have to wait and see. For now, all remains quiet except for the disturbance in the east Pacific. I'll post another update concerining that system this evening. UPDATED: 9:30 am EDT, June 15, 2009 WE ARE HALF WAY THROUGH JUNE WITH NO PROBLEMS So far, so good. We have made it 15 days in to the hurricane season, and of course June, without any tropical storms or hurricanes. This holds true not only for the Atlantic, but also for the east Pacific. Things have been remarkably quiet in the east-Pac since their season began on May 15. If my research proves correct, June 19 is the latest in modern times that the east Pacific has gone without seeing a named storm form. We are four days from that record- we'll see if it can hold. None of the long range computer models suggest any significant development in either basin over the next several days. Taking a look at recent sea surface temperatures, it is clear that an El Nino is taking shape in the Pacific Ocean. How soon the effects begin to show up across the Atlantic Basin remains to be seen. It is still early enough in the Atlantic hurricane season to expect high level winds to be strong across the Atlantic. If we see this pattern continue in mid to late August, then I think we can credit El Nino for that negative effect on potential developing hurricanes. In the Atlantic, SSTs have warmed some off the coast of Africa but there still remains a large area of lower than normal temps between Africa and the Lesser Antilles. However, most of the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean and Gulf are running slightly above normal. We will just have to wait and see how this impacts the rest of the hurricane season. For now, all is quiet. On Wednesday night, we will have Tanya Lin from Sprint's Emergency Response Team as our guest on HurricaneTrack News/Talk. We'll talk to Tanya about how Sprint gets their network ready for hurricane season and the challenges that confront their team before, during and after a hurricane landfall. The program is live and free of charge to listen in on right here on the homepage. I'll have more on that as part of Wednesday's post. UPDATED: 8:55 am EDT, June 12, 2009 ALL IS QUIET- EVERYWHERE Just 24 hours ago, it looked like there would be a tropical depression in the east Pacific. This morning, that feature is almost gone completely. In fact, the entire globe is void of any tropical cyclones. There are not even too many suspect areas to monitor either. I have no explanation as to why we are seeing this lack of tropical cyclone activity. Water temps are plenty warm in the usual areas of development and are in fact warmer than normal in most of the Pacific (hence the threat of El Nino). So there must be something else going on that is beyond the obvious. I will have to look in to it and ask a few questions of people who should be able to help out with this. I also will look in to how long the east Pacific has ever gone before seeing its first named storm. The season began there on May 15- we've made it almost a month without a single tropical storm in that region. Amazing. There is also very little indication that things will change anytime soon. None of the long range computer models suggest that we will see tropical cyclone development in the Atlantic over the next 5-10 days. As for the rest of the world's ocean areas, we'll just have to see which region pops first. It's bound to happen sooner or later. For now, the tracking maps will remain blank. I'll have more tomorrow morning. UPDATED: 8:45 pm EDT, June 11, 2009 TROPICS HAVING A HARD TIME PRODUCING ANYTHING SIGNIFICANT Just when it looked like a TD was forming in the east Pacific, the brakes were applied and development seems to have halted. In fact, most of the tropics are very quiet world-wide. Not sure why this is the case but no one is complaining. We'll obviously continue to monitor the east Pacific and the Atlantic but nothing looks imminent in terms of tropical cyclone formation. I'll have more here Friday morning. UPDATED: 9:30 am EDT, June 11, 2009 QUIET PATTERN IN THE EAST PACIFIC ABOUT TO COME TO AN END It looks very likely that we will have a new tropical depression in the east Pacific later today. An area of organized convection, which has been festering off and on for the last few days, located well to the southwest of Mexico, looks to be ready to be classified as a depression. The designation may be rather short-lived though since the system is moving steadily towards cooler waters. The NHC's intensity model, SHIPS, does not show this getting too strong. The limiting factor will be the cooler waters out in front of it which won't provide the energy needed to intensify very much. It is also a signal to us that the region is getting in to a more favorable phase as we see the MJO pulse coming through. That is basically a time period where by deep tropical convection is more likely to form in what is called "upward motion". Tropical cyclones need the ability to grow vertically and a favorable upward motion period is often a trigger to get things started. We will watch this MJO pulse as it moves on across the east Pacific and through the Atlantic Basin. Right now, there are no solid indications of development in the Atlantic, Caribbean or Gulf, but that could change as we progress through the next few days. I'll post more here on the east Pacific system later today. UPDATED: 10:00 am EDT, June 10, 2009 TONIGHT ON HURRICANETRACK NEWS/TALK: WE CONTINUE OUR DISCUSSION ABOUT HOW WE PREPARE FOR OUR FIELD MISSIONS Tonight, we will pick up where we left off last week with an in-depth discussion about how we prepare for our hurricane field missions. From the tropical storms like Fay to the history-making hurricanes like Katrina and Ike, we have been there for just about every landfall in the United States since 1999. Once in a while, one will get away and we miss the boat (Dolly last year). We will talk about how we determine when to leave, where to set up our equipment and how we manage to get in and out of a disaster zone without even a scratch. There is so much more to the process than anyone could ever know. Tonight, we will recall some of our greatest moments and even a few not-so-great moments that left us all wondering why we ever take on such beasts in the first place. That's 9pm ET right here on the homepage. We'll have the live chat up and running as well. Hope you can join us. And oh yeah, the tropics are nice and quiet as we would expect for this time of the season. UPDATED: 9:55 am EDT, June 9, 2009 QUIET PATTERN CONTINUES There are no areas of concern to mention this morning and even the system in the east Pacific has become less organized. The overall quiet pattern should continue for at least the next five days. This is not at all unusual for this time of year. Water temps are still warming and there are still areas of very strong upper level winds that will limit the development of deep thunderstorms over the tropics. There may be a window of opportunity towards the last 10 days of the month for something to get going as a more favorable upper level pattern swings in to the western Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. Until then, June will remain inactive. UPDATED: 8:30 am EDT, June 8, 2009 TROPICS MORE ACTIVE IN THE EAST PACIFIC THAN THE ATLANTIC It looks as though the east Pacific will have its first named storm fairly soon. A large area of organized showers and thunderstorms, well off the coast of Mexico, has a favorable environment in which to continue developing and should become a tropical depression. The forecast from computer models suggests that the system will continue to move away from Mexico. If it does continue to develop and becomes a named tropical storm, it would be Andres. There are no other areas of interest in the east Pacific. Switching over to the Atlantic Basin, we are watching a rather disorganzed area of clouds just off the coast of Central America. While the NHC is giving it a low chance of development, I must say that none of the global computer models show this system getting going anytime soon. It appears that the upper level winds will be too strong and will shred the deep tropical thunderstorms that must develop and sustain themselves for pressures to lower and the process to continue. None the less, there is considerable tropical moisture associated with this disturbance and the adjacent land areas could see periods of substantial rain fall. Otherwise, I see very little reason to be concerned about this system developing right away- if ever. The remainder of the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico are free and clear of any threats of tropical storm formation for at least the next week. June is normally a slow month and so far, it is living up to that standard. I'll have more here tomorrow morning. UPDATED: 11:30 am EDT, June 6, 2009 QUIET WEEKEND AHEAD BUT WILL NEXT WEEK YIELD OUR FIRST NAMED STORM? The Atlantic and east Pacific are nice and quiet today with no areas of concern to discuss. We are seeing a little more in the way of deep thunderstorms developing in the southwest Caribbean. This is likely the beginnings of what the GFS model has been showing for several days now- the potential for tropical cyclone formation. That model in particular has been very persistent in trying to develop something in the western Caribbean and there continues to be reasons to believe it could actually happen. A more favorable upper level pattern is going to set up across that region over the next week to 10 days and there is a trigger mechanism by way of a tropical wave coming in from the east and generally low pressures in the area to begin with. So while today and tomorrow will be void of any problem areas in the tropics, we will want to watch the western Caribbean much closer as we progress through next week. I'll have more here on Monday morning. UPDATED: 9:05 am EDT, June 5, 2009 GFS AND NOGAPS MODELS SUGGESTING DEVELOPMENT OF SOME KIND OVER THE NEXT WEEK Right now, the GFS global computer model is fairly alone in its persistent run-to-run development of a tropical cyclone in the western Caribbean next week. It has been showing this feature for several days in a row now and thus we will have to certainly keep an eye on the region- as we would anyway this time of year. Oddly, the other models really do not show this same development except for the Navy's NOGAPS model. Without the other major models jumping on board, it is hard to say with any certainty that we will actually see something develop in the western Caribbean next week. However, let's examine the reasons why there might be. First, a more favorable upper level pattern looks to be setting up over the coming days that would allow for deep thunderstorms to get going and sustain themselves. Second, there is available energy in the region with plenty of warm water and a possible focusing mechanism from either a tropical wave coming in from the east or the remnants of an old cold front that would be left behind. Third, it is this region that we would expect to see development come from this time of year. So, if we do have a tropical cyclone spin up next week in the western Caribbean, it should not be any surprise and not a signal that the season is off to the races. It would totally line up with what is normal for this time of year. The weekend ahead looks very nice and this would not be a factor for any land areas until later next week. If you're planning a trip to the western Caribbean, just be aware of the current and forecast conditions. I'll post more about this potential development late tonight. The remainder of the Atlantic and east Pacific are quiet. UPDATED: 8:45 am EDT, June 4, 2009 TROPICS QUIET BUT LONGER RANGE MODELS SHOW POTENTIAL FOR CHANGE The coming weekend will be nice at the beaches as there are no threats of tropical storms or hurricanes anytime in the near future. However, looking over the global computer models that go out beyond the typical three to five day time period, there are signs that changes could be on the way. As the present moment, strong upper level winds and just generally unfavorable conditions prevail over most of the Atlantic Basin. That looks to change slowly over the next week to 10 days with a more favorable upper air pattern setting up in the western Caribbean Sea. In response, the GFS operational model, for example, develops a storm in that region within the next 120 hours or so. Other models also hint at lowering pressures in the western Caribbean with an likely increase in deep tropical convection as a result. It's just something to monitor as we get in to next week. We have the luxury of numerical guidance in the modern age of computers and often times the models give us enough clues to know generally when conditions will favor tropical storm formation. For the next few days, all will remain quiet in both the Atlantic and the Pacific. I will have more here tomorrow. UPDATED: 11:00 am EDT, June 3, 2009 TONIGHT ON HURRICANETRACK NEWS/TALK: GET TO KNOW US A LITTLE BETTER We have had some great guests over the last two years on our weekly program. Tonight, we will be the guests. We have received several emails over the last few months asking us to talk about what we do, how we do it and how we came to be here in the first place. So, tonight on HurricaneTrack News/Talk, we will talk about us. It will be Mike Watkins and me for sure and hopefully Jesse Bass too- although he has SkyWarn training this evening that may prevent him from joining us. Either way, it will be an informative program as we discuss our history, how we accomplish our hurricane field missions and other stories from the past. Join us at 9pm ET right here on the homepage. We'll have the live chat feature enabled too for an interactive experience. The tropics, in both the Atlantic and the east Pacific, are nice and quiet with no threats of development anytime soon. UPDATED: 2:35pm EDT, May 29, 2009 TD 1 MEETING ITS DEMISE OVER COOLER ATLANTIC WATERS The first tropical depression of the soon-to-be Atlantic hurricane season does not have much more time before it loses its warm core and dies away. The heat content of the life-giving Gulf Stream is gone now as the depression has moved out over the open waters of the North Atlantic. There will probably be a few more advisories from the NHC regarding the system but it should be done with by later in the weekend. The rest of the tropical Atlantic and east Pacific are quiet and we should not expect any problems in both areas for the next several days. June is typically not a hot-bed month for activity and if there is any, it will most likely be in the Caribbean Sea or Gulf of Mexico. There are also periods of time when we might expect to see development chances increase and now is not one of those time periods. Perhaps later in June, but for now, the weekend ahead will be nice for coastal areas of the U.S. and Mexico- as well as the islands of the Caribbean. On Monday, I will post info on the hurricane season ahead and talk about what we have planned here on the site as well as in our field program. Have a good weekend. UPDATED: 4:50 pm EDT, May 28, 2009 NHC SAYS TD 1 HAS SMALL WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY LEFT TO BECOME FIRST NAMED STORM OF 2009 The latest word from the NHC indicates that TD #1 remains just that- a tropical depression. Top winds remain near 35 mph but could increase just slightly if the system can gain some deeper, sustained convection. Time is running out, however, and the depression will soon travel over progressivly cooler sea surface temps- and meet its demise. So what does it say about the upcoming hurricane season? Very little. The depression formed during a period of time where conditions just happened to be favorable. It did not originate from a tropical wave like the ones we see emerge from the coast of Africa. This is important because early and pre-season development like this has little to do with what may lie ahead in the meat of the Atlantic hurricane season. If we see additional development and more importantly, development early-on from the deep tropics, then it might be time to become alarmed. For now, it is just a unique event that has people talking- which is a good thing overall. Hurricane season begins Monday and we want people to be connected with the latest info regarding the tropics. I'll post more here tomorrow. UPDATED: 11:50 am EDT, May 28, 2009 TD ONE FORMS FROM LOW PRESSURE AREA OFF THE NORTH CAROLINA COAST Things have indeed begun a little early this year. We now have officially the first tropical depression of the Atlantic hurricane season- even though the season officially begins on Monday. TD1 is forecast to become a tropical storm as it moves away from the United States and in to cooler waters. It is important to not read much in to this event as it is not connected to the hurricane season being more active than normal. Conditions just happened to be favorable between two areas of strong upper level winds and this small low pressure center took full advantage of its environment. It will be interesting to track but that's about it. I'll post more this evening. UPDATED: 9:00 am EDT, May 28, 2009 SEVERAL CLUSTERS OF CLOUDS BUT NOTHING THREATENING LAND As we look at the satellite images of the Atlantic this morning, we notice several clusters of convection or thunderstorm activity. One of them is 91L, the small low pressure area off the North Carolina coast. It has become fairly well organized overnight and has some chance of becoming a tropical depression or even a tropical storm. It appears to be riding the Gulf Stream and thus has ample warm water under itself. However, time is limited for additional development but it would not be out of the question to see this get upgraded to more than it is now later today. It won't matter though since the system is moving away from the U.S. coastline. It is interesting to have two strong disturbances fire up in these last days before the hurricane season officially begins. It is probably just a matter of the pattern being somewhat ripe at the moment and not truly indicative of a busy hurricane season ahead. In the Gulf of Mexico, two large areas of showers and thunderstorms are moving from west to east across the Gulf after moving off the coast of Texas. These complexes of thunderstorms can produce locally heavy rains and quite squally weather but should not amount to much more than that. Once in a while, we do see these systems organize and become small but fast developing tropical storms or even hurricanes. None of the computer models show that happening this time around but we won't ignore their presence. In the east Pacific, all is relatively quiet and should remain that way for the next few days at least. I'll post more here this evening with an update on 91L off the Carolina coast. UPDATED: 11:30 am EDT, May 27, 2009 TONIGHT ON HURRICANETRACK NEWS/TALK: DR. JEFF MASTERS- PLUS, CHAT LIVE WITH SPRINT AND ME DURING AN ONLINE PREPAREDNESS FORUM We have two big events planned for today and this evening. First up- Sprint is hosting an online preparedness forum where by you can chat live with their Emergency Response Team and yours truly. The event starts at 1pm ET via the link below. So go grab some lunch and then come back and join Sprint and me for this unique online forum. Tonight on our weekly edition of HurricaneTrack News/Talk, we welcome Dr. Jeff Masters from the Weather Underground as our guest. Millons of people have visited Wunderground.com and use it on a daily basis for all kinds of weather info. His hurricane blogs are extremely popular (as well as non-hurricane news) and offer a level of detail that is unique to Dr. Masters. We'll talk to him about all of that plus his days flying in to hurricanes- especially Gilbert in 1988 and Hugo a year later. Tune in tonight right here on our homepage. The program begins at 9pm ET and we'll have our live chat function up and running for you to post real time questions and comments. As for the tropics, we are watching 91L off the Carolina coast for possible development but it looks like it will not be in the cards this time- at least nothing significant. The remainder of the Atlantic and east Pacific are nice and quiet. UPDATED: 9:10 am EDT, May 26, 2009 BUSY WEEK AHEAD AS WE GET READY FOR THE HURRICANE SEASON There is a lot to cover this morning. For starters, we have been monitoring a weak area of low pressure to the east of the Bahamas for possible development. It looks now like the low will remain fairly weak and do little more than provide a moisture stream for the Carolinas over the next day or so. It is also hurricane preparedness week and today, the focus is on high winds from tropical cyclones. Be sure to visit the NHC's preparedness/awareness section of their web site- linked below. While most of our visitors are probably quite up to date on hurricane hazards, etc., some may be new to coastal areas and if so, you'll want to visit the link posted below. Knowing the enemy, so to speak, is a great beginning to preparing for a hurricane. On Wednesday night, we will have Dr. Jeff Masters as our guest on HurricaneTrack News/Talk. You probably know of Dr. Masters through the Weather Underground site- an extremely popular portal for all kinds of weather data, blogs and photos. We'll talk with him about how it all began and his days flying the NOAA planes in to hurricanes such as Gilbert in 1988. We now have live chat during the program so you can interact with us and post questions or comments in real time. That's Wednesday night, 9pm ET, right here on the homepage. Next Monday we begin the 2009 Atlantic hurricane season. I am going to post quite a lengthy discussion on several topics related to the season ahead and some reflections on the past. We have been at it for 10 years now and look forward to an innovative and exciting future. I will go over that and much more on the June 1 post. UPDATED: 11:00 am EDT, May 25, 2009 SATELLITE IMAGES AND COMPUTER MODEL DATA SUGGEST ANOTHER LOW PRESSURE AREA TO FORM OFF OF SOUTHEAST COAST It's not even June 1 yet and already we have had a close call with one low pressure area that nearly became a named storm. Now, it appears another low is trying to develop in the vicinity of the Bahamas (see graphic below). The GFS model, in particular, shows this system getting better organized but remaining fairly small in size. It tracks the low northward and just skirts the NC Outer Banks later in the week. If it rides along the Gulf Stream, then water temps will be plenty warm for this to acquire tropical characteristics. It will be interesting to see what becomes of this feature over the next couple of days. Right now, it poses no immediate threat to anyone except for boating interests in the Bahamas and adjacent waters. It is something to keep an eye on and I will post more info on it throughout the week. The east Pacific is free and clear of any areas of potential development. UPDATED: 1:50 pm EDT, May 23, 2009 LOW PRESSURE TRIED TO GET ITS ACT TOGETHER JUST BEFORE COMING ASHORE ALONG THE MS/AL LINE We came quite close to having a tropical depression form before June 1 in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Close, but no cigar, as they say. The low caused quite a stir this past week as extremely heavy rains fell across portions of Florida- certainly putting a dent in the dry weather concerns there. The system also spawned waterspouts and funnel clouds along with gusty winds and rough seas. Last night, it looked like it was coming together enough to make a run at being a true tropical cyclone. Time ran out and it is now inland over the Deep South. The good news is that along the coast, conditions should improve and the latter half of the big weekend should be fairly decent. The bad news- rain and squally weather will spread farther inland as the remnants of the low drift northward over the coming days. Be alert for changing weather conditions as these tropical lows can produce bursts of severe weather- especially when daytime heating is at its maximum. As always, carry a battery operated NOAA Weather Radio and you'll be in the know should severe weather threaten your area. The rest of the Atlantic Basin is quiet and should remain that way even as we get in to the official start of the hurricane season on June 1. In the east Pacific, the NHC is monitoring a weak area of low pressure well off the coast of Mexico. It will probably never have a chance to develop before hostile conditions set in and dissipate it completely. I'll have more here on Sunday. UPDATED: 10:05 pm EDT, May 22, 2009 LOW PRESSURE IN GULF OF MEXICO COULD BECOME FRIST TROPICAL DEPRESSION OF THE YEAR As I mentioned in an earlier update, the weather along the northern Gulf Coast is not going to be very pleasant over the weekend ahead. The culprit is the low pressure area that brought insane amounts of rain to portions of Florida this past week. That low is now in the Gulf and moving towards the coasts of Mississippi and Louisiana. This has prompted a coastal flood warning for that region as onshore winds will be strong enough to induce what is essentially a storm surge- to the tune of 2 to 3 feet above normal tide levels. The NHC has issued a special outlook and notes that the system does have potential to become the first tropical depression of 2009. If so, we will track it on our Java maps and I will post frequent updates throughout the weekend. Also- we have a pair of permanent weather stations along the Mississippi coast- one in Pascagoula and the other in Bay St. Louis. Check the links below for access to their real time weather info and a live web cam from each site. Our good friend Jim Edds of ExtremStorms.com sent us the photo below. It was taken from HD video out on Pensacola Beach earlier Friday. You might have seen the video on The Weather Channel. Jim lives in the area and says that it is quite rough out there- giving the body boarders a run for their money! Be careful in the rough surf conditions- even though this is not a hurricane, it still has effects that are capable of causing problems- especially for people visiting the beaches and are not used to such changeable weather conditions. I'll post more here on Saturday. UPDATED: 4:35 pm EDT, May 22, 2009 NOT THE BEST WEEKEND AHEAD FOR PORTIONS OF THE NORTHERN GULF COAST I wish I had better news but it looks like the low pressure area that brought Florida as much as 2+ feet of rain will bring inclement weather to portions of the northern Gulf Coast this weekend. The NHC has the low pressure designated as 90L which is the first step in tracking the potential development of tropical or sub-tropical cyclones. The chances remain fairly low that this system will become a bona-fide tropical depression or storm but it won't matter much since the dirty work will be the rain and squally weather. For people along the northern Gulf Coast, be ready for changing weather conditions over the next few days. You can access excellent information for your locale by visiting weather.gov and putting in your ZIP Code. That will give you rather detailed info on what to expect where you are most concerned. The main issue will be heavy rains and a few gusty winds with the stronger storms. Also- since this is a big boating weekend, seas could be quite rough so take it easy out there. If anything changes with this feature, I will post the info as soon as possible. I'll also post short updates, radar links, etc. on our Twitter page. Otherwise, I'll have more here tomorrow morning. UPDATED: 9:15 am EDT, May 20, 2009 TONIGHT ON HURRICANETRACK NEWS/TALK: GEORGE SAMBATARO FROM PC WEATHER PRODUCTS We have a great program lined up for tonight. Our guest will be George Sambataro from PC Weather Products. He is the developer of HURRTRAK- a very powerful PC based hurricane tracking tool that goes far beyond "the skinny black line". We have used the software since 2005 and featured it in several shots on our 2005 Tracking the Hurricanes DVD. Tonight, we will talk with George about how the software came to be, who uses it and what some of the more popular features are. We get several emails each year asking us about the software and what we think of it- so I thought it would be nice to hear about it from the man who developed it. The program begins at 9pm ET tonight right here on the homepage. We will also debut a special chat feature as well that will allow you to interact with us LIVE as the program progresses. This will be a great way to send us questions without any delay. In other news- we will be watching the pesky low pressure area that has plagued Florida as it moves out in to the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Rain fall has been excessive in some places in Florida. A visitor to the site emailed me this morning with a report of at least 8 inches at Crystal River, FL. The SunShine State sure needed the water but enough is enough- for now. Hopefully things will begin to dry out as the low slowly pulls away. We are now just 11 days away from the start of hurricane season and we will need to begin monitoring the tropics a little closer each day. I see nothing solid in the computer models to indicate any threat of development over the next week to 10 days. UPDATED: 7:25 pm EDT, May 19, 2009 ASK AND YE SHALL RECEIVE- NOW IF ONLY THE REAL HURRICANE SEASON COULD BE THIS EASY With the exception of a few areas that have had severe weather and a little too much rain, this latest event, also known as "non-tropical low", has brought much needed relief from the skies. That relief is rain. Much of Florida, especially south Florida, has been rather dry as of late and this low pressure area was the answer to a lot of prayers. Be sure to check out the link to the regional radar below. The SunShine State is rolled up in rain tonight and it will likely last through tomorrow as well. The inclement weather should then move slowly west and in to the Gulf of Meixco as the week comes to an end. In fact, the weekend looks rather nice across much of Florida with diminishing chances of rain. The low pressure area responsible for the foul weather should push in to the Gulf with little in the way of tropical development. However, you never completely discount the outside chance of something unexpected happening- that is why it would be unexpected. So we will monitor it and will talk about the system during tomorrow night's edition of HurricaneTrack News/Talk. We'll also have a special guest- George Sambataro from PC Weather Products. More on all of that tomorrow morning. UPDATED: 9:20 am EDT, May 19, 2009 LOTS OF RAIN AND WIND BUT NOTHING TRULY TROPICAL The large area of rain and wind in and around Florida is not likely to become a tropical or sub-tropical storm. None the less, the weather system has brought heavy rain, severe weather and strong winds to much of Florida. This pattern will continue for the next couple of days as the area of low pressure begins to move westward across the state and in to the Gulf of Mexico. The NHC says that it will not issue any more special outlooks for this system and that chances are low of additional development. We will have to see what happens when the low moves in to the Gulf of Mexico where water temperatures are running above normal right now. It is hard to say with these non-tropical low pressure systems what may happen. The bottom line is that more rain and generally inclement weather is in store for Florida and adjacent coastal waters. Be careful if you plan to do any boating or hitting the beach/surfing. As I mention quite often here, be sure to check your local conditions using your local NWS office located at weather.gov. I will post an update on this feature later this afternoon or early evening. The rest of the Atlantic is too hostile for tropical storm formation right now. The east Pacific is also quiet for the time being. Program note- tomorrow night on our weekly edition of HurricaneTrack News/Talk, we will have PC Weather Products president, George Sambataro as our guest. We have had several people over the years ask us about their software, HURRTRAK, and it will be great to talk to George about the use of his program throughout the hurricane planning industry. We welcome any questions you may have and will actually debut our first live chat window during tomorrow night's program. Tune in right here on the homepage at 9pm ET. I will go in to more details tomorrow. UPDATED: 5:45 pm EDT, May 18, 2009 NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER HAS EYES ON LOW PRESSURE AREA IN SOUTHWEST ATLANTIC It is not often that we talk about development of a tropical cyclone in the Atlantic at this time of year. Once in a while, it does happen and this year is one of those times. For several days, computer models have suggested the development of low pressure somewhere near Florida. Earlier this afternoon, the NHC issued a special tropical weather outlook which replaces the special tropical disturbance statement that was used for many years. The special outlook referenced a weak area of low pressure that has formed over eastern Cuba and the southeast Bahamas. The statement goes on to say that there is a fairly low chance of continued development right now. None the less, a Hurricane Hunter plane is tasked to further investigate the area tomorrow if need be. The low and associated weather will bring unsettled weather to the Bahamas, Cuba and Florida over the next several days. In fact, Florida is being hammered by rain this evening due to an unrelated weather feature. The entire complex system of low pressure areas and a dying front in the region will mean that heavy rains, high seas and rough surf are in store for Florida and possibly surrounding states over the remainder of the week. This will do much to relieve the dry conditions but without the severe effects of a tropical storm or hurricane. Be aware, however, of changing weather conditions, especially along the beaches, where rip currents could be an issue. As always, refer to your local NWS forecast office for details on your specific area. As a side note, the low pressure area is also known as "90L". Some of you know exactly what this means and why. For those that don't, let me explain. I wrote NHC forecaster and chief of the hurricane specialists unit, James Franklin, to shed some light on the subject. He tells me that the NHC will label or designate an area of disturbed weather as an "invest" for the Atlantic and east Pacific (the Joint Typhoon Warning Center may also do this for the east Pacific if they wish). This means that the area is tagged and then labeled with a number, 90-99 (then it starts over), and the letter "L" for Atlantic (or "E" for east Pacific). Upon this designation, additional resources such as microwave satellite data and computer model guidance, are allocated to the suspect area for additional investigation. So, when we talk of "90L", etc. this season, you now know what this means. What will be the future of the current 90L? Stay tuned. I will post another update here tomorrow morning. UPDATED: 8:00 am EDT, May 18, 2009 NON-TROPICAL STORM TO MAKE NEWS THIS WEEK AS LOW PRESSURE GETS GOING THIS WEEK OFF OF FLORIDA It is likely going to be a wet and windy week along portions of the east coast of Florida- gradually covering a good deal of the peninsula. The culprit? A non-tropical area of low pressure that has been forecast by the major computer models to develop for several days now. The latest runs suggest development of this low anywhere from the western tip of Cuba to just off the southeast coast of Florida. Right now, clouds, showers and scattered thunderstorms are ogranizing on the Atlantic side in the Bahamas. This whole mess should continue to develop and spin up a surface low which would track towards Florida and in to the southeast Gulf of Mexico. Reading the latest forecasts out of coastal Florida, rip currents are going to be a big problem along with the potential for significant beach erosion and rough surf conditions. This should be taken every bit as serious as a named tropical storm would. Boaters, beach goers and surfers alike should all pay attention to the latest info from their local NWS office. The biggest plus to this event will be the much needed rain that is almost certain to fall across a good deal of Florida. In fact, the rain could be heavy at times so be cautious and slow down while driving in the Sunshine state. It could take a few days to get this weather system out of the area but at least the rain fall will help out with the very dry conditions across the region. Once this low pressure gets in to the Gulf, it should track westward and we'll just have to wait and see if it can gather enough tropical characteristics to be worthy of a name. That is several days away and the computer guidance offers differing solutions. It could be wet and stormy across the eastern Gulf Coast states for much of the week ahead. I will post another update on this developing system later this afternoon or early evening. In the east Pacific, only disogranized areas of clouds are seen in satellite imagery off the coast of Mexico. There does not appear to be much chance of tropical cyclone formation here for the next several days. UPDATED: 9:20 pm EDT, May 17, 2009 DIFFICULT TO FIGURE OUT WHAT WE WILL BE DEALING WITH IN WATERS OFF OF FLORIDA NEXT WEEK As you probably have read about across the many sites that tackle such issues, an area of low pressure is forecast by most, if not all, computer models to develop somewhere off the coast of Florida this coming week. Exactly when, where and how "tropical" this low will be are questions that remain tough to answer. It does appear that some much needed rain is heading for portions of Florida and in fact, we could see some rather heavy amounts. Different computer models depict different things with this potential system and considering that it is still only mid-May, it looks like a rain event for the most part. This would be a great benefit to Florida and could help to ease the drought conditions somewhat. When and if the NHC issues any info concerning the future of this low pressure area, I will post it right here as soon as it becomes available. Right now, the process should be rather slow but the week ahead looks wet for a good deal of the Florida peninsula. Stay tuned! The east Pacific is null and void of any areas of concern for the time being. I'll post more here Monday morning. UPDATED: 7:45 pm EDT, May 16, 2009 WET WEATHER POSSIBLE FOR FLORIDA AS PRE-SEASON LOW PRESSURE AREA TAKES SHAPE NEXT WEEK Rain. It is needed across much of the Florida peninsula and it might come in a big way early to mid-week. The reason? A pre-hurricane season area of low pressure is forecast to develop by most of the global computer models and its proximity to Florida might be the ticket. It will all come down to timing and location of the low and how well organized it becomes. Right now, it looks fairly interesting and there is at least some chance that this gets a name. Before all of that, let's first see what gets going in the days ahead. Right now there are some showers and thunderstorms festering south of Florida where water temps are warm enough for the feedback mechanism to become established. I will keep monitoring the situation over the remainder of the weekend and will post an update tomorrow. In the east Pacific where their hurricane season has begun, all is quiet and I do not see any threats for development anytime soon. UPDATED: 6:30 pm EDT, May 14, 2009 EAST PACIFIC HURRICANE SEASON STARTS TOMORROW PLUS, LOW PRESSURE AREA SHOWING UP ON MODELS FOR FLORIDA NEXT WEEK Tomorrow, the east Pacific hurricane season begins. It starts a little sooner than the Atlantic due to more favorable conditions earlier in the year. The National Hurricane Center in Miami handles forecasts for this part of the Pacific Basin and we too will report on any areas of concern in that region. East Pacific tropical cyclones are called tropical depressions, tropical storms and hurricanes just like their Atlantic counter-parts. The east Pacifc season could see more activity than average due to a general warming trend in Pacifc sea surface temps this year. We'll begin watching closer starting tomorrow. On the Atlantic side, computer models are suggesting that a low pressure area will develop south of Florida or near the southern tip of the state next week. Water temps are marginally favorable and a very late-May tropical or sub-tropical system is not out of the question. The good news is that if such a system were to develop and interact with Florida, much needed rain could result. I am starting to see more chatter about this potential feature on various blogs and other sites. We'll watch the region and will actually hope for a weak system to get going due to the benefits of rainfall. Otherwise, there is nothing of concern at all in the Atlantic Basin. I wrapped up my participation in the Florida hurricane conference today and am now in Orlando. I will do some visiting of local media and then Sprint's network team tomorrow before heading back home. It was a great week in the Ft. Lauderdale area and I wish to thank All Road Sat for making it happen. It is such a great company and to see their representative, Tina (whom many people knew already!) interact with people with the genuine interest and attention to their needs and questions was refreshing. Thanks go out to Tim Millar as well. His hospitality and "Shepherds Pie" were much appreciated. I'll post more here tomorrow afternoon. UPDATED: 3:45 pm EDT, May 11, 2009 FLORIDA HURRICANE CONFERENCE UNDER WAY I am in Ft. Lauderdale at the Florida Governor's Hurricane Conference which began today. I drove down yesterday and am staying with friend and colleague, Tim Millar. Tim operates the Cyclone Research Group and was an exhibitor at the conference last year. This year, I will be back inside the convention center with the Tahoe and our wind tower and one of our remote camera Storm Case units. The exhibition begins on Wednesday and runs through Thursday. Today and tomorrow, Tim and I will be working on several projects to prepare for the upcoming hurricane season. The weather is hot and dry here in south Florida and in fact, we saw the shuttle Atlantis go up shortly after 2pm ET. There is much work to do in order to get things ready on the equipment and logistics side of things- now imagine trying to ready an entire state. That is the purpose of the Florida conference and even in the face of the economic troubles, there should be excellent participation from local, state and federal agencies as well as many commercial outlets and media interests. I will conduct some interviews and be on the lookout for that next break-out product that could help making preparedness easier and less costly. Everyone is trying, it seems, to build that better mouse-trap. We shall see. I will be eager to showcase our capabilities in field data collection. This is a great opportunity to meet the men and women behind the scenes of emergency operations and municipalities that might have to deal with a tropical storm or hurricane this year. We are supported at this year's conference by our friends at All Road Sat. Their sponsorship has allowed me to travel to the conference exhibit days and take part in this important event. They will have a representative from their company with me- Tina Blanco- and I look forward to introducing everyone to her and All Road Sat- in person! I hope to have some video from our set up later on Wednesday. Speaking of Wednesday- we will be producing HurricaneTrack News/Talk from Tim's office this week. He lives between Ft. Lauderdale and Miami. Mike Watkins will be joining us live as the three of us, with Jesse on the line from Vriginia. We'll leave it "open topic" for that night and talk about what ever comes to mind. Next week we have Dr. Jeff Masters joining us from the Weather Underground. Busy times ahead indeed. I'll post several updates and video clips as the week progresses. UPDATED: 11:30 am EDT, May 8, 2009 HURRICANE AWARENESS TOUR WAS FANTASTIC It is not often that hundreds of people turn out for a hurricane awareness event. Many times we are lucky if a dozen or more take the time to learn about hurricanes. Yesterday was a wonderful exception to the norm. It was all part of the NOAA hurricane awareness tour which began on Monday in New Hampshire. Members of the National Hurricane Center staff as well as NOAA scientists and flight crew were on the scene with their awesome WP-3 Orion hurricane hunter plane. In addition, several local agencies from law enforcement to the Red Cross and local HAM radio attended with exhibits of their own. I was accompanied by James Lewis who is quite the air plane buff. He was more excited about seeing the NOAA plane than anything else. But the plane was late- due to bad weather. Ironic, huh? By about 10:30, the plane landed and a slew of media outlets proceeded to take video, photos and probably even send "tweets" about the event. It was awesome to see the very plane that was in the eye of such hurricanes as Katrina, Rita, Wilma and Ike (and many others too). After it landed, it made its way over to the staging area and was greeted by numerous school children. After the inclement weather had passed, wave after wave of kids made their way around the exhibit area to visit the various displays, airplanes and other set ups to listen in on the latest in hurricane science. James and I set up our 5-meter wind tower and one of the Storm Case remote cam units along side the Tahoe and its cargo trailer. The kids and their teachers were simply a joy to speak to. They showed genuine interest in our work and had many excellent questions. The most often was "do you know Jim Cantore". I told some that they could in fact follow Mr. Cantore on Twitter. I think that most kids did not know what Twitter was- yet. The day was long and divided in to two parts weather-wise. The first few hours were cool and rainy with one episode of thunderstorms that caused the plane to wait in Raleigh. The second half of the day turned out very nice with abundant sunshine and stiff breezes out of the south. In fact, James and I look like cooked ham with a nice sunburn on our faces. This will be nice to deal with when I go to Florida next week for the hurricane conference. Perhaps I need to apply some make-up. Nope. Later in the day, the general public could attend and did they ever. I met so many people who were familiar with our work. It was positively one of the best experiences of my career. Here there was this enormous plane with all of its capability and yet people were seemingly just as eager to stop by the Tahoe and say how much they appreciate OUR work. It really meant a lot to James and me to have this kind of reception. We talked with people right up until quitting time at 5pm sharp. It was a very positive event and one that I hope leaves a lasting impression on those who came out for years to come. I am pleased that NOAA and the NHC took the time to make it happen. I have posted photos from the event in a directory on the site. Feel free to browse through them. For those of you on Facebook, we now have a Fan page with a nice photo album. Simply log in, or sign up on Facebook, and search for HurricaneTrack.com Fan Page. NOAA Hurricane Awareness Tour photos from Wilmington, NC event HurricaneTrack.com Fan page on Facebook UPDATED: 9:40 am ET, April 24, 2009 TWITTER, HURRICANES AND YOU By now, most of you know that there is this relatively new phenomenon called Twitter. If not, click here. The free service has exploded on to the social networking scene and is used by many major news organizations, NASA and other science-related sites to post quick updates covering just about any thing you can imagine. Today, I am going to discuss how we plan to use Twitter this hurricane season. I signed up for a Twitter account back in February. Since then, I have posted over 100 updates or tweets as they are called. Most of them were relevant to our work here on the site. Some were more general in nature. However, I see a real potential here to use Twitter as we progress through the hurricane season. First, I think it would be a great way to post my thoughts for the day as I begin to develop them early in the morning (sometimes not so early). Example- if I was planning to talk about a disturbance in the Caribbean that looks like it could develop but I have not yet accumulated enough information to post a full commentary, I can at least put out a headline on Twitter like "Tropical disturbance in Caribbean has potential to become named storm later in the week. Full update on HurricaneTrack.com shortly". For everyone who is following hurricanetrack (our username), they will receive this update and know to check the site later for a full report. It gives our visitors a heads-up about our plans for the day in terms of what is going on with the site. A sneak preview, if you will. That is one utilization of Twitter that makes good sense for us. Another is breaking news events. We all like to be "in the know" when something of importance to you comes down the news wires. I see where we can use Twitter to post quick breaking news items concerning changes with a currently named storm or hurricane. Let's take Katrina as an example- when it became a category five, we could have used Twitter to immediately post that information before we had time to write up a full report on the homepage. I think too that we can use it to post watch/warning info, links to hurricane local statements and other important information. What's really nice is that I can do this with my cell phone with very little effort. I can be anywhere, anytime and get a phone call or otherwise hear of something important and have it on the Web in less than 20 seconds. This can be especially useful during our field missions when we witness something worth posting about but don't have time to write up a full report and get it online. This has huge implications during the worst part of a hurricane landfall as we can post wind readings, pressure readings, etc. from the Tahoe's weather gear to augment the data coming in from our wind tower. The possibilities are many. The power of Twitter has been realized during recent major news events. I see a real potential here for it to continue to be of importance during severe weather as well- and especially hurricanes. I encourage our visitors to check it out if you have not already done so. We have used it for a few months now and even reference Twitter in our weekly HurricaneTrack News/Talk program in a segment where we look at the top 10 "tweets" containing the search term #hurricane. As the season arrives, more and more people will use Twitter to spread information about hurricanes, specific named storms and events. I think it is a great resource and we look forward to putting this technology to use and hope to do some good with it as an additional tool for our visitors to take full advantage of. So, if you are already a "tweeter", sign in and follow us- we are @hurricanetrack. If you are not sure what Twitter is all about, check out their site and perhaps you too will join in the latest Internet craze that, if used properly, has real value. UPDATED: 9:00 am EDT, April 20, 2009 INLAND FLOODING A MAJOR ISSUE WITH TROPICAL CYCLONES Most people think of wind and rain when visualizing what it must be like to experience a tropical storm or hurricane. What they don't often realize is how much rain actually falls and the potential that exists for extensive flooding problems. Tropical cyclones are by their very nature wet. The release of rain is actually part of the process that drives these storms. Condensation is a warming process and the excessive amounts of water that is stored in the tropical atmosphere is released in torrents of rain. For some areas that are in dire need of water, this heavy rain can be a welcome sight. However, too much of it can have very dangerous and often deadly consequences. It is all a matter of where and how long. Typically, a slow moving tropical depression, tropical storm or hurricane will dump the most rainfall. This makes good sense for obvious reasons. However, even more swift moving systems can produce flooding rains if they encounter other forces in the atmosphere such as a cold front. In areas with mountains, such as the Greater Antilles and portions of Central America, the lifting effect, or orographic lift, can enhance rains from tropical cyclones causing massive mudslides and flash floods. This is especially true in Haiti and Honduras/Nicaragua where great losses of life have taken place over the last 20 years alone. For the United States, the problem is complex as a lot depends on where a tropical cyclone makes landfall, how fast it is moving and where it tracks after landfall. Take TS Allison in 2001 as an example. The fairly disorganized storm made landfall near Galveston, TX in early June of that year. The slow moving storm dumped so much rain on the region that Houston was brought to a stand still for several days. The remnants of Allison continued to plague the northern Gulf Coast states for several days as it drifted around the region- slowly moving towards the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic states. Allison caused over 5 billion dollars in damage and killed nearly two dozen people. All of this from a mere tropical storm. In 1969, category five hurricane Camille made history by wiping out a large portion of the Mississippi coast with an enormous storm surge. Camille had extremely high winds as well but it left its mark in the Appalachains of Virginia with flooding rains that people still talk about even today. Fast forward to 2004, hurricane Frances moved inland over Florida and then turned north in to the Southeast U.S. bringing flooding rains to the mountains of North Carolina. Before that event, the remnants of hurricane Gaston, just a few days prior, brought extreme flooding to portions of Richmond, Virginia. The list goes on and on and if we look just to last season, the big story with TS Fay was its rain. Melbourne, FL and surrounding areas set records from the amount of rain that came down. The slow moving storm dumped over 20 inches of rain in Brevard county and flooded some 15,000 homes across the state. The biggest issue with inland flooding from tropical cyclones is deaths by drowning in vehicles. Too often, people try to cross rain-swollen road ways because they "know" the area or are in a hurry. It is said that only six inches of water can move a vehicle. This is especially true if the water is moving. Often times we see where swift moving water undermines the roadway, causing unseen holes, large enough to swallow cars and SUVs. Then, someone comes along and drives across dark, murky water only to be swept downstream, unable to escape. This is such a preventable tragedy and one that common sense can help to mitigate or even eliminate completely. The best bet for preparing for the threat of excessive rain fall is to keep informed. You won't know that too much rain may fall in your area until the storm or hurricane is practically right on top of you. From there, it is a matter of where the rain falls and how much. Again, the use of common sense is the best plan of action. Don't let children play around flooded ditches or culverts. It may look fun but the water is full of toxins, animals and insects and can be swift-moving. Stay home, don't drive through flooded areas- no matter how well you know them or what vehicle you have. Moving water is your worst enemy- if it can carve out the Grand Canyon, it can sweep your huge SUV away with little warning. I have posted a link to the Southeast River Forecast Center as a resource this coming hurricane season- and any time of the year. Check out the site- it offers excellent data and information concerning the threat from freshwater flooding. We'll talk more about inland flooding from tropical cyclones on Wednesday night's edition of HurricaneTrack News/Talk. Southeast River Forecast Center UPDATED: 10:45 am EDT, April 17, 2009 WHEN DEALING WITH HURRICANE STORM SURGE, PLANNING AHEAD REALLY IS THE BEST PLAN There are many elements of weather that can be fully mitigated against. Some however, are too big of a problem to solve and we simply must have a plan to deal with them. One of those elements is hurricane storm surge. While not every hurricane (or tropical storm for that matter) produces a significant and destructive storm surge, the ones that do can be life-changers. The big hurricanes of the past such as Camille, Katrina and Ike produced record-setting storm surges and wiped out a tremendous amount of property along the coast. While some would argue that we have no business living along the immediate coast, the fact is that people do live and work in areas vulnerable to utter destruction from storm surge. So what is the answer? For most people who do not have new, modern hurricane storm surge mitigation measures built in to their homes or businesses, the simple answer is to plan for the worst. It may be that the day comes when a powerful enough hurricane strikes your area and produces a storm surge capable of destroying or severely damaging your property. So with that pleasant thought in mind, here is some advice: plan now to save what you can later. Let me elaborate. We have such a gift with hurricanes in that we know when they are coming. Unlike violent tornadoes which give far less warning, we can elude a hurricane by simply evacuating from its deadly effects. That is the first step: save your butt. Learn NOW if you live in an area that could flood severely enough to cost you your life under the right hurricane conditions. If so, figure out NOW where you will go. In most cases, you will only have to get off the beach and go a few miles inland. There is no need to drive 500 miles away unless you plan to make a vacation out of the whole ordeal. Learn the evacuation routes and the procedures that your community will follow. Then, when a hurricane threatens and the local officials ask that you leave, do so as soon as possible. Sure you can play it close and see whether or not the hurricane really does pose a danger to you personally. If you do that, you better make sure you are keenly aware of how the surge will advance and how long you have until you can flee. People who lived on the Bolivar Peninsula before Ike thought that they had more time to wait and see what "category two" hurricane Ike would do. That was Thursday and Thursday night- September 11, 2008. By Friday morning, their escape routes began flooding and people were stranded. Some of those people were never heard from again. So unless you really know how to monitor a hurricane and are willing to risk it all, it is far better to leave early, get to your safe haven and then wait things out there. None the less, there will always be people who cannot or will not leave- no matter what. You have the chance to save your life and the lives of your family members- take it and heed the warnings from your local officials. That is the first step when having to deal with the un-thinkable. Step two is also simple but requires some work on your part. If you know that your home or business is within a flood zone that could suffer serious flooding, enough to ruin your dwelling, then figure out now what you would want to save and move out if the big one is headed your way. While we would all want to pack everything up and haul it out of harm's way, that is usually not feasible. So go through your home or business and take note of what you would not want to lose in a flood. Take photos, store them on flash drives and CDs. Store them somewhere else like in your safe deposit box. Next, figure out how you would pack up those critical belongings and how long it would take to do so and then to get the heck out. If all of this can be done before the arrival of tropical storm conditions, then you have a good plan. Save what you can and then be prepared for a long and tedious road ahead. That's the third step: recovery. As hard as it may seem, you have to think about dealing with losing most of your possessions. If you live along the immediate coast, there is a chance, however small, that you could lose your home and its contents. It happens. Being able to accept this ahead of time and resolve how you will deal with it is the best move. Denial is the worst mistake. Read about others who have had to deal with a major hurricane or other disaster and how they dealt with it. There is almost no assurance that things will be easy. Take our friend Mark Garcia in Galveston, TX. He had a plan. He had insurance (flood insurance) and was prepared. He lived in the region for many years and knew the risks. Yet after Ike, when his home was nearly a total loss from the surge from Galveston Bay, his troubles really began. It took phone call after phone call and many hours, days and weeks of wondering when help would arrive before things turned a corner. All of this for a man who was fairly well prepared. Some people get lucky and things happen quickly and smoothly. For most, the recovery is a long and stressful road. It is very important to think about that. This is very serious. I am not suggesting this become an all-consuming venture for you who live along the beach and other highly vulnerable areas, but it is something to discuss amongst yourselves. Hopefully the time will never come that you have to deal with this. But for a large portion of our wonderful coastline, that time may run out this hurricane season. I wish we knew what areas were going to be hit in the future. That would really help with planning- obviously. But there is no "Biff Tannen Hurricane Almanac for the Last 50 Years" that was brought back from 2059. We have to accept that living along the coast means having to deal with sunny skies, warm breezes and a great lifestyle. However, every once in a while, a hurricane with a name like Carla, Andrew, Hugo or Ike comes along and turns paradise in to a hell on earth. With some advanced thought and planning, you can at least put a dent in the stress and impact that these storms have on your life. Next week, I will talk about inland flooding from heavy rains associated with tropical cyclones. UPDATED: 11:00 am EDT, April 13, 2009 HURRICANE HAZARDS: UNDERSTANDING STORM SURGE As we continue the progression towards the start of the hurricane season, I am presenting a series of write-ups on the various hurricane hazards that are typically dealt with. We began with a look at hurricane winds- now we move on to storm surge. This will no doubt be a complex and important topic as storm surge has the greatest potential for loss of life during tropical cyclones- especially hurricanes. Understanding the basics It is vital that people understand what storm surge is and what it is not. The portrayal of storm surge in movies such as The Day After Tomorrow gives people who have not dealt with storm surge directly the idea that it is a large wave that comes sweeping in with the arrival of the worst part of the hurricane. While there certainly are large and battering waves, storm surge is more about a gradual process than a quick climax when a hurricane makes landfall. Let's start at the very heart of what storm surge is. Storm surge is primarily a function of the wind blowing on the water- piling it up somewhere else. Think of a shallow pool. If you had a fan that was strong enough, you could blow the water from one end of the pool to the other- and flood what ever was on the other side. You can do this with a cup of water. Just a quick blow on the surface of the water sends little waves out and if you blow hard enough, you can remove water from the cup. This is essentially what a hurricane is doing with its wind field. Even tropical storms can produce storm surges- as can other non-tropical storms such as Nor'easters. The methods are usually the same- strong winds blowing on a body of water- piling it up against a land mass. The stronger the wind, the more energy is put in to the water and the higher the surge can be. But there are other factors- many others. A hurricane over the open ocean blows the water around with little consequence to any land areas. Over time, ocean swells are generated like cirles on a pond when you toss in a rock. These swells can travel for hundreds, if not thousands, of miles and reach the shore as thundering waves. This is the first sign that a hurricane, and its storm surge, is on the way. These swells can aid in the production of rip currents and make surf conditions very dangerous- even for avid surfers. As the hurricane draws closer to land, several factors come in to play that will ultimately determine how high the surge level is for any particular area along the coast. Generally speaking, the intensity of the hurricane, the size of its wind field and the shape of the coastline are the main drivers in determining the severity of hurricane storm surge. For now, I invite you to take a look at a tutorial about storm surge that was produced several years ago for a project I did for the Army Corps of Engineers. It gives you a good idea of what storm surge is and a few basics about what to do to protect property against it. On Thursday night (we are doing the show Thursday night this week), during our weekly HurricaneTrack News/Talk program, we will go in to much more detail about storm surge, historical instances of hurricane surge and action that can be taken to save lives and property. This is an important issue and one that has the real potential for a large loss of life given the right circumstances. So check out the link below and then we hope you can join us Thursday night LIVE as we dig deeper to further explain this powerful hurricane hazard. Understanding Storm Surge UPDATED: 9:05 am EDT, April 9, 2009 WHEN DEALING WITH HURRICANE WINDS, DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE GARAGE DOOR As we draw closer to the upcoming hurricane season, there is one major aspect of being prepared that many people fail to understand properly. It is likely the single largest opening and thus the most obvious point of failure in your home or business. It is the garage. Many times, we have seen garage doors blown in by hurricane force winds. This happens simply because the door is large and thus contains a great deal of surface area in which to catch the wind and allow its pressure to act as a battering ram. With the right gust of wind, usually lasting only a few seconds, the garage door fails, the wind enters that part of the house and the roof can begin to lift. This often leads to a domino effect and possible total loss to the structure. Even the loss of an attached garage can cost many 10s of thousands of dollars to repair. So what can be done? Many newer garage doors are built to some standard of wind code. Read what labels might be on your door. Understand what forces the door can handle. If you're not sure, look for a phone number or web site or company name on the door and contact them for more information. Ideally, you want to mitigate the effects of hurricane winds and if your door is not built to modern codes, the best solution is to purchase some type of brace that can be installed in the event of a hurricane threat. There are several companies that offer such braces and your best bet will be to do a search on the Internet for them. We do not have any particular brand or company to endorse or recommend but at this year's Florida Governor's Hurricane Conference, we will do our best to locate a few and do a Q&A with them about this subject. With any hurricane protection product, the most important issue is to make sure the product is built to a standard code and not just a gimmick that someone claims will do the trick. It needs to be tested in a lab setting with exposure to as close to real world elements as possible. Again, I will try to interview some of the better known companies who will be exhibiting at the conference in Florida next month. In the meantime, I have posted a link to a great FEMA publication on protecting your home from hurricane winds. It has information inside concerning garage door protection. Check it out via the link below. UPDATED: 8:30 am EDT, April 8, 2009 TONIGHT ON HURRICANETRACK NEWS/TALK: WE DISCUSS THE LATEST FORECAST FROM COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY AND GO OVER THE FOUR HURRICANE HAZARDS Yesterday, Colorado State University released their second forecast for the upcoming hurricane season. The numnbers indicate an average season ahead. We will discuss the forecast in detail tonight on the program. In addition, we will take a closer look at the four main hurricane hazards and talk about the structure of hurricanes. Tune in tonight at 9pm ET right here on the homepage. As usual, if you have a question for us ahead of time or even during the program, email it to us at: mailroom@hurricanetrack.com. If you can't listen in live tonight, we'll have the program archived as we do with every edition. Hope you can join us. UPDATED: 10:00 am EDT, April 6, 2009 UNDERSTANDING THE HURRICANE HAZARDS This week I will begin my series of write-ups that are intended to help get our visitors on the same page as far as understanding hurricanes, their effects and how to prepare for them. Today, we begin with a look at the four main hurricane hazards: wind, storm surge, flooding rain and tornadoes. Before we even have to deal with a hurricane, it must go through several other stages of development. Hurricanes are an extreme form of what is called a tropical cyclone. Simply put, this is a storm system that is well organized, with a warmer center of low pressure than it has out along its edges. A tropical cyclone derives its energy from convection or thunderstorm development. This releases heat in to the atmosphere and the process continues as long as there is a warm water supply- about 80 degrees and higher. Tropical depressions, tropical storms and hurricanes are all examples of tropical cyclones. There are also sub-tropical cyclones but for now, we will stick to just the warm-core, tropical variety. As you probably know, there is a classification scheme called the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Damage Potential Scale to aid in preparing for the potential effects of any given hurricane. A category one is the weakest with a five being the strongest. However, the scale does not suggest anything about specifically what to expect at your home or business. It is a general guideline of what damage typically occurs in each category of hurricane. Any hurricane is capable of chaning YOUR life forever. Wind Today, I will discuss a hurricane's ability to cause damage with wind. Afterall, we name a hurricane a hurricane because it has winds of at least 74 mph. But what does this mean? When the report from the NHC says that hurricane-X has maximum sustained winds of 75 mph or what ever, what does that mean? A lot of people believe this means that the winds are blowing at that speed everywhere in the hurricane all the time. This is not the case at all. Aircraft sample only a tiny portion of the hurricane as they fly through it. I have a nice video clip describing how they do that linked here. Watch it and you will understand better how this is done using aircraft. The other method for determining that we in fact have a hurricane is satellite observation. Through a variety of methods employed by meteorologists, satellite imagery can be used to estimate the wind speed of a developing tropical cyclone and if, in fact, it has become a hurricane. A well developed, round appearance and/or the presence of an eye would be strong indicators that a hurricane exists over the open ocean- beyond the reach of aircraft recon. Sometimes ships encounter developing hurricanes and help to relay information on their intensity. The strongest winds in a hurricane are usually found somewhere within the eye wall or ring of thunderstorms that surrounds the relative calm of the eye. However, even the outer rain bands can contain strong winds, especially in gusts. To better prepare for the winds of a hurricane, it is important to understand that the wind field of any hurricane is not uniform- it is always changing. There will be times when the wind is just kind of blowing along at a steady clip and then all of a sudden, it will pick up and blast the area with strong stabs of wind- almost like a burst of energy from the sky. This is pretty much what is going on. Strong convection or thunderstorm activity can lead to rapid changes in wind speeds and lead to so-called downbursts. These gusts of wind usually last for only a few seconds but they can add several 10s of miles per hour to the overall wind speed. It has been my personal experience that winds are usually stronger when the rain increases. This makes sense due to the fact that heavy rain would be associated with deeper convection and thus the stronger wids aloft could be brought down to the surface more effeciently. Once a hurricane is inland, something different begins to happen. The frictional effects of the surface wind slowing down due to interactions with trees, hills, higher terrain, etc., causes a sort-of tumbling of the wind field. This leads to substantial wind gusts for areas well away from the immediate coast. Inland residents in a hurricane warning area should be on the lookout for this. Trees are easily knocked down due to this phenonenon and can have deadly consequences. This is why it is so important for people to remain indoors and to put as many walls between them and the exterior of the structure as possible. You cannot predict when one of these monster gusts are headed your way- so it is best to remain inside and well away from windows. Wind is by far the most talked about element of a hurricane since that is how we identify them. Below is a list of additional online resources with a wealth of information concerning how to protect your property from wind damage. There is no easy solution as every home or business is different. Each coastal area has its own set of unique issues such as building codes, etc. My suggestion is that you take the time to read the information linked below and then look deeper at your own situation. Learn what you can do inexpensively to prevent damage in a future hurricane. The more you know, the better prepared you will be. We will talk more about wind effects in hurricanes on our Wednesday night edition of HurricaneTrack News/Talk. If you have a specific question for us, send it along via any of our email links. We will do our best to answer them. National Hurricane Center preparedness info- hurricane wind hazards DisasterSafety.org- a great site for learning about business and home wind mitigation techniques Against the Wind publication from FEMA- in PDF format UPDATED: 10:00 am EDT, April 2, 2009 HOW "HURRICANE SMART" ARE YOU? Now that it is April and hurricane season begins in less than 60 days, how educated are you about hurricanes and their effects? Over the next two months, we are going to work on getting our visitors as ready as they can be- mentally- for a hurricane. How so? By starting with the basics and moving our way up. I believe that understanding a phenomenon as unpleasant as a hurricane is the key to taking a lot of the fear out and replacing that anxiety with knowledge. We will use our collective experiences as well as computer illustrations and video clips to go through the steps of understanding better what it is that coastal residents (and inland) are up against. I encourage you to send in any questions you may have via email so that we can post it with a corresponding answer. One key goal I hope to accomplish is making sure that you understand the forecast products from the National Hurricane Center and how to interpret them. There is so much useful information contained within their products, especially the forecast discussion. In addition, I want to continue to emphasize the importance of utilizing local information from your local NWS office. When all of the available pieces of what can be a complex puzzle are put together, you then have a more complete picture of what actions to take and what you can expect for your area. Starting next week, class begins. I will post the first segment that will cover the hurricane hazards: wind, storm surge, rain and tornadoes. Each day, I will add more information, complete with illustrations, photos, videos and links to other sites. I will also incluide a PowerPoint presentation that you can download and use for your community as needed. No one knows it all, we certainly don't and dealing with hurricanes is a constant learning process. No matter what we face this hurricane season, I want to make sure we are all on the same page as far as knowing the enemy. The rest will take care of itself. UPDATED: 1:30 pm EDT, March 30, 2009 TONIGHT ON HURRICANETRACK NEWS/TALK: FILM DIRECTOR, ROBERT GREENE Can we change the weather? Should we? Have we already? Join us this tonight for our weekly edition of HurricaneTrack News/Talk as we chat with director Robert Greene about his new film, Owning the Weather. It is going to debut at the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival in Durham, NC on Friday, April 3. I have screened the film as some of my video has been included and I have to say that it is a very deep and interesting work. We will discuss the film with Robert as well as delve in to the question of whether or not we should tamper with hurricanes in order to mitigate their effects on us humans. Tune in tonight right here on the homepage. You may view a trailer for Robert's film via the link below. Have a question for us for the show? Email: mailroom@hurricanetrack.com Owing the Weather trailer on YouTube HurricaneTrack News/Talk Info and Archive UPDATED: 8:20 am EDT, March 26, 2009 IS THERE AN EL NIÑO IN OUR FUTURE? There is reason to believe that we may be headed towards a warm episode period in the tropical Pacific later this year. In short, an El Niño may be in the works. Why? Several key indicators are leaning towards this scenario including a steady and pronounced drop in the SOI or Southern Oscillation Index. When the SOI plummets and goes negative, and then remains that way for a while, we typically see a relaxation of the trade winds across the tropical Pacific. This has to do with pressure differences across the vast ocean. When the trades weaken, warmer water can pool as the upwelling caused by normal or stronger than normal trade winds ceases. Additional evidence of the possible El Niño can be found in the various computer models that predict such things many months in to the future. Several are pointing towards warm conditions in the Pacific by this coming fall. How warm the Pacific gets remains to be seen. A couple of the models point to a significant El Niño while others are not as bullish. The impact on the Atlantic hurricane season could be dramatic- depending on the extent of any warming that takes place. El Niño conditions in the Pacific often curtail Atlantic hurricane activity due to a variety of reasons. One is stronger upper level winds in the deep tropics of the Atlantic. This would tend to lessen the amount of tropical waves that can fully develop. We'll have to see how this develops over the coming months. I have posted a couple of links below for more information about monitoring sea surface temperature changes in the Pacific. What is an El Niño from NOAA Great global sea surface temps map ENSO information from Australia's Bureau of Meteorology UPDATED: 9:15 am EDT, March 25, 2009 JAMES FRANKLIN, BRANCH CHIEF, HURRICANE SPECIALISTS UNIT, NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER, ON TONIGHT'S HURRICANETRACK NEWS/TALK We have an opportunity this week to learn from someone who knows more about hurricanes than I can ever hope to. That is what our program is all about. Tonight, James Franklin from the National Hurricane Center, will join us on HurricaneTrack News/Talk. Among other accomplishments, he was involved with developing the GPS dropsonde used for measuring hurricane intensity. His work has paved the way for a better understanding of how the winds of a hurricane change with height. James is also a forecaster at the NHC and you may have seen his name a time or two at the bottom of some of the advisory products. We will discuss the process involved in writing those advisories and talk about what goes on both during the season and the six months of "off" time. This will be our third program for 2009 and it begins at 9pm ET right here on the homepage. Have a question for our guest or us? Click any email link and feel free to send it along. Hope to have you join us! UPDATED: 10:30 am EDT, March 19, 2009 HURRICANES DON'T KNOW ABOUT THE ECONOMY I received an email yesterday from the Florida Governor's Hurricane Conference stating that they would be pressing on with the 23rd annual event despite the set backs in many attendees' budgets. This came as a result of an apparent misconception that perhaps the FLGHC would not be held this year. The letter makes it clear that the conference will be held as planned. The letter also brings up a very interesting issue. Here is a quote from the letter: "...hurricanes are not controlled by our budgets and their continued threat will not lessen or go away because we have less money to prepare." I think this is very valid and is something that could be a real problem if we are faced with a significant hurricane this season. Some people have very little money in the bank to be worrying about hurricane preparedness. The cost of evacuation alone may be too much for still others who may have to sit tight in the face of extreme danger. Even though hurricanes know nothing of our economic woes, our ability to repsond to them on a personal level may be more impaired this season than any other in recent memory. We may get lucky and escape any major issues this season. If we don't get a free pass, then what? It will be more important now than ever before for people to work together within their own communities in the event of a hurricane threat. With less money available to prepare or evacuate, we could see some real problems if the right hurricane comes along in the wrong place. This is something I will keep an eye on and plan to research more when I myself travel to the Florida conference in May. We have been fortunate to have earned the support from a sponsor, All Road Sat, and will be attending this year's conference after taking last year off. I will use my time there to talk to some of the experts in emergency management about this potential huge problem. I will also work on getting someone who can comment on this on our HurricaneTrack News/Talk program. In the meantime, if you live in a hurricane prone area and are facing tough economic times, be thinking about just what you would do if faced with an evacuation order or the possibility of your home being uninhabitable due to a hurricane or other severe weather situation. Disasters cost money- there's no getting around that. But, as the quote above points out, the hurricanes are not going to stay away because we can't afford them. I don't know the answer but it is worth some deep thought and I will report more on this in the coming weeks and months. UPDATED: 9:00 am EDT, March 12, 2009 BE HURRICANE SMART As we get closer to the start of the 2009 hurricane season, I thought it would be a good idea to put forth a new initiative. I call it Hurricane Smart. The idea is using education as the foundation for preparedness. The more you understand the phenomenon, the better equipped you will be to deal with it. No one has all of the answers- we certainly don't- but we can work harder at understanding the hurricane problem in this country. Starting in early April, I will present a series of posts that start with Hurricanes: 101, their very basics, and then move up through the science and the preparation aspect of the hurricane issue. I will use graphics and photos when possible to better demonstrate some of the concepts. In addition, we will use our HurricaneTrack News/Talk programs to expand on these topics and have experts come on with us to assist. The goal is to have basically an online class, if you will, that will help to explain what hurricanes are all about and how to best take measures to protect ourselves when they threaten. I think that this will be a good opportunity for people who perhaps have just moved in to a coastal region- or who may not have yet dealt with a tropical storm or hurricane. From the basic definitions to more complex issues such as evacuation and understanding the products issued by the National Hurricane Center, a better educated public will then have the tools to make informed decisions when the time comes. Once I begin the series, I will encourage you to send emails with your questions or concerns about any hurricane related issue. We will try to get expert advice from a variety of people in the field. Then, on June 1, you'll be armed with more knowldege than you had previously. Stay tuned! UPDATED: 11:20 am EDT, March 11, 2009 FOR OUR 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY, A NEW SPONSOR It was ten years ago today that I purchsed the domain name hurricanetrack.com. Not long after, the site was up and running. Now we celebrate a decade of providing millions of people with unique, innovative and hopefully helpful information regarding hurricanes. Technology has played a big role in our success and we continue our tradition of reporting, preparedness info, news and of course, our live coverage from tropical storm and hurricane landfalls. We will begin our second decade with a new sponsor. I am proud to introduce you to All Road Sat- a satellite communications rental and sales company based in San Diego. They approached us about supporting our work and we now have a significant new partner to bolster our efforts. All Road Sat provides incredible customer service and caters to the adventure traveler to those in business, industry and emergency management who might need emergency satellite communications equipment. They pride themselves on being available 24/7 and getting the right product in your hands as soon as humanly possible. I will talk more about All Road Sat in the coming weeks and we will have an interview with some of their staff during a future edition of HurricaneTrack News/Talk. We appreciate their support and in fact, it is because of this new sponsorship that we will now be proudly exhbiting at the Florida Governor's Hurricane Conference in May. I will have the Tahoe and several pieces of our remote monitoring equipment to showcase at the event. We'll also have some of the latest in sat-phone technology on site as well. I look forward to involving All Road Sat in our plans this year. Check out their site via the graphic below. Tonight at 9pm ET, we will debut the first HurricaneTrack News/Talk of 2009. I am working on a few news topics to open the program with and will also answer some emails from you- our visitors. We may even squeeze in a guest or two if there is time. If you cannot listen live, no worries- the show is saved for download to your MPS device or you can just listen online after I upload it to the archive. If you have a question or comment for us, feel free to send it on. Our email is linked at the bottom of this page. Last but not least, I wanted to express a big thank you to everyone who has supported us for these past 10 years. We could not do this without an audience to appreciate our efforts. We receive numerous emails each year and most are kind and encouraging. As we start on year 11, I hope that we can continue to bring you a perspective on hurricanes that not only informs you, but also inspires you to learn more about these incredible phenomenon. It is cliche' I know, but truly, the more you know, the less you leave to chance. I always encourage our visitors to take full advantage of the Internet and use this site as one of many resources out there. For those who live in harm's way- we will do our best to provide solid, up to date info without using fear to sell. Hurricanes are scary enough, we'll stick to the facts and be true to our many visitors that have come to rely on us year after year. Thanks again- here's to another successful 10 years ahead. UPDATED: 8:45 am EDT, March 10, 2009 HURRICANETRACK NEWS/TALK RETURNS Ten years ago tomorrow, this site was introduced on to the growing Internet. We will celebrate our anniversary during the kick-off edition of HurricaneTrack News/Talk tomorrow night. The radio-style program begins at 9pm ET right here on the homepage. We will take a look back at the last 10 years with some highlight stories and thoughts from Jesse Bass, Mike Watkins and myself. We will also cover a few news items of note- including a look at how Texas is faring in the months since Ike. We always invite our audience to send questions or comments to us ahead of time or during the program. You may do so via our email link at the bottom of the homepage. Also, tomorrow I will announce a new major partner and sponsor of our work. We are very proud to have been approached by this company and look forward to introducing our visitors to their extremely relevant line of products and services. Who is it? Check back tomorrow morning to find out! I'll have more about it as well during the program tomorrow night. UPDATED: 9:45 am EST, March 9, 2009 LOOKING BACK AT 10 YEARS OF HISTORY On March 11, 1999, HurricaneTrack.com was born. This week, we will celebrate our 10 year anniversary. I am continuing my look back at the last ten years of this site's history. On Wednesday, we'll celebrate during a special edition of HurricaneTrack News/Talk. 2008: OUR BIGGEST YEAR EVER If you missed any of the posts reflecting on our 10 year history, they are available for read in our archives linked below. In our first year without a major financial sponsor, we had to rely on our visitors, much like public radio does with its listeners, to support our work. We had develop a whole new Premium Services area of the site which included several unique features centered around our ability to stream live video of our missions. From the very first days of 2008, people signed up. Throughout the pre-hurricane season months, a steady increase in our members continued and we knew we had a chance to survive. It also meant a lot to us that people were willing to essentialy pay us to work for them. During any hurricane missions, we would in fact go to work and put in countless hours of driving, planning and executing the field work. Our first shot was in July. Jesse Bass and I worked the TS Cristobal mission along the NC Outer Banks. We staged at the Coast Guard station in Hatteras and did our best during the rather weak tropical storm. It was a good warm-up for things to come. We missed out on hurricane Dolly and should have been paying closer attention to it during its early stages of development. Mike Watkins and I came so close to going for it and hauling butt across the Gulf Coast to extreme south Texas. In a way, I am glad we didn't. Missions like that can be dangerous with so many hours on the road. Our good friend and colleague, Tim Millar, was in the area and actually went in to northeast Mexico to intercept the hurricane. Tim phoned in to us live during a special edition of our HurricaneTrack News/Talk program, which began in March of last year. During our conversation, he recorded a wind gust to 119 mph. It was an awesome moment and for the 300 or so people who were listening, a chance to hear something new and different on the site. By August we tackled TS Fay in Florida. Jesse, Mike and I worked the several-days-long mission and came away with some great data and additional testing of our remote camera units. We picked up several dozen subscribers along the way and for some, they lived on the live stream as we ventured all over the Florida peninsula. They would even email us and help with finding gas stations, hotels and places to eat. The interactiveness between us and our live audience was something that we immediately discovered in 2005 when we started the live streaming, but each time we do it, we are marveled at how close it connects us with our members. Next up was Gustav. As with some of my writings concerning the 2005 season, this hurricane mission could be a book in and of itself. The short of it was this: Mike and I would travel to New Orleans where we worked closely with CNN to cover the hurricane. We deployed a remote camera unit at Artillery Park and streamed a video signal so clear that CNN could not believe it was coming from one of our Storm Case units and not a hi-end TV camera. They plugged us in with their ground teams and provided a hotel room, gas and other logisitical support as needed. Mike and I continued to work as Gustav closed in and we placed a camera unit along the levee in Kenner. This too had an amazing view and caught numerous power flashes as the late night hours ticked away. We then proceeded west to New Iberia where we deployed our 5 meter wind tower and a third camera unit. Everything worked very well from a field stand point but the exposure that CNN was giving to us overwhelmed our site's server. It had been three years since any major network promotion of HurricaneTrack.com. I guess millions more people now own computers or something, we had no trouble at all during the record setting '05 season but our exposure on CNN during Gustav was too much for the site. It ran, don't get me wrong, but imagine 5,000 people in line for ice cream on a hot day in late August. There is an endless supply of ice cream at the little truck but it will take a while to get to all of the people in line. We heard about it from emails but prevailed by having people on the outside, some of whom we have never met, offer assistance. It just goes to show- be careful what you wish for! In the end, Mike and I did an exceptional job and collected excellent data from our site in New Iberia- and by use of the remote cameras. We interacted with our subscribers throughout the mission and provided them with our best work to date. CNN was very pleased with the results and made us feel very much a part of their team. Mike and I had some once in a lifetime experiences on this mission but those were nothing compared to what was coming next in Galveston. By the time we had returned to our respective homes from the Gustav mission, Ike was clearly on just about every coastal resident's mind. In between Gustav and Ike, Jesse and I worked TS Hanna in NC and SC. It was not much more than a distraction for people on vacation along the coast. We were worried though that Hanna could become a strong hurricane- thankfully, it did not. The deaths it left behind in Haiti were enough to deal with and underscored yet again the dangers of tropical cyclone rains. For the Ike mission, Mike Watkins and I would again work together. It seems we always get the dangerous Gulf Coast hurricanes and this time would be no different. Again, the Ike mission alone would fill a great book, believe me, but I will have to do the best I can to summarize things here. We had the attention of CNN big time. They were all about the remote camera project and did everything they could to assist us. Mike and I arrived in Galveston during the early evening of Thursday, September 11. By late that night, after scoping out potential locations for the Storm Case units, the Gulf had already erased the beach front and was in fact coming up over the sea wall. We knew Ike was going to be bad. On Friday morning, the seriousness of the situation became grave. We heard that people were now trapped along the Bolivar Peninsula to our east. The waves were crashing in spectacular fashion against the sea wall that was erected soley because of the hurricane threat. For now, it was protecting the historic city from a Gulf rampage. We set out the first camera unit at Bermuda Beach- not where we had intended. Our original target was farther west but the roads were already flooded and impassable. We set out the first unit and had it online in no time. The shot was nothing short of extraordinary. For anyone watching on our subscriber side or on CNN, it was an incredible moment. A small blue house sat in the background of the view, surrounded by a raging Gulf of Mexico. You could clearly see the waves advancing towards the camera which was mounted high up, well out of reach of the lethal storm surge. We had one down and at least two more to go. We then set up another camera across the boulevard from the Galveston Hurricane Monument. Our thought was that if the surge was going to breach the wall and slam the city, that this vantage point would be excellent for monitoring conditions and the potential surge. This unit too went online fairly quickly. Above our heads was blue sky with broken clouds. Not a rain drop to be found. It was hot and breezy. Hundreds, it not thousands, of people were out and about taking pictures, video or just staring at the angry Gulf of Mexico as it assaulted the sea wall one wave at a time. The rest of the day was spent trying to get a unit downtown. Our friend in the region, Lew Fincher, was tring to help us via phone as he watched our location over the live streaming video. From Broadway north to Galveston Bay, flood waters were the rule. Then, fires broke out seemingly everywhere. The largest was over by the port cranes. The city was resembling something out of a war movie with billowing smoke rising in every direction at the same time people were running scared with their possessions in hand. Ike was closing in at a slow pace but in front of it was an epic storm surge. By now, people were probably losing their lives on the Bolivar Peninsula. It was still not even raining much. The eye was many hours away. We stopped and thought about what it must have been like in 1900 when the great hurricane of that day took the city. We knew what it must have been like- we were living it 108 years later. We managed to set up our wind tower at Galveston College and had its data online with ease. We decided to set up a third camera unit along the Gulf at Ave N 1/2 and 14th Street. Its view was eerie as the sky grew dark among these huge blasts of water coming from the Gulf. Time was running out. We took shelter at the San Luis Resort where we documented the hurricane from inside. That was something we would never forget. The sound of the wind. People who have heard it on our DVD say it reminds them of a horror movie. I believe the sound engineer Ben Burtt would be hard pressed to replicate some of the ear-piercing shrieks and disonnate whistles that rang through the building. Mike and I were concerned about the windows and were in fact evacuated down to the 2nd floor for safety (we were on the 11th floor). Ike made landfall at around 2am local time. By the next morning, its damage was clearly evident. We spent the next 48 hours collecting our gear and talking to people who survived the hurricane. We had a flat tire on our cargo trailer but this was not much more than a nuisance. We met Mark Garcia whose home was flooded severely by the Bay surge. He helped us to fix our flat and get us on our way. We left the beaten down Texas coast on September 14. I returned a month later and toured the Bolivar Peninsula. I saw exactly why the NWS used the term "certain death" to describe what very well may happen to those who do not evacuate that region. Ike was terrible. It caused many billions in property damage and killed dozens of people. For the Bolivar Peninsula, Ike was one of the worst hurricanes ever. I do not think enough attention has been placed on the region considering what happened there. The economy and the election took over as top stories in the days after Ike. I made sure to show things like they really are on our 2008 DVD which covers Ike extensively. For us, it was a very successful mission and we are still evaluating the data and the video that was captured during this historic hurricane. We will use this data to help motivate people to become better acquainted with their own hurricane risks and to not ever second guess a major storm surge event. After Ike, I traveled to Maine in an attempt to intercept hurricane Kyle. No such luck. It was a beautiful trip north and I saw a part of the country I had never been to before but Kyle was out of reach and the mission was a dud. The people I met in Maine were excited to see a truck like mine and I had some great conversations with many people. One lady came running off her tour bus (for leaf sight-seeing) and ran over to the Tahoe and asked me if I was Jim Cantore. Not even close. She was quite disappointed. I simply laughed. It capped off a remarkable year on many levels. For the site, it was our biggest year ever. We had over 1 million unique visitors to the site with most of them coming in August and September. We served over 4 million web pages total and grew our member base substantially. For our tiny corner of the Internet, things were looking up. Amidst the horrible news regarding the economy on a daily basis, we felt okay about the future. After all, we had made it this far- why quit now? The best is yet to come. Tomorrow I will talk about plans for 2009 and beyond. Then, on Wednesday night at 9pm ET, we will produce a special edition of HurricaneTrack News/Talk right here on the homepage. All you have to do is drop by to listen in- free of charge. If you have any comments, questions or otherwise you would like to share for the program, send them to: mailroom at hurricanetrack.com or click on any email link on this page. It's been a great 10 years and we appreciate all of the support from everyone since day one. On Wednesday, we'll begin another 10 years... UPDATED: 12:15 pm EST, March 6, 2009 LOOKING BACK AT 10 YEARS OF HISTORY On March 11, 1999, HurricaneTrack.com was born. Next week, we will celebrate our 10 year anniversary. I am continuing my look back at the last ten years of this site's history. On March 11, we'll celebrate during a special edition of HurricaneTrack News/Talk. 2007: ANOTHER LIGHT YEAR FOR U.S. HURRICANE ISSUES AND A BIG CHANGE FOR US If you missed any of the posts reflecting on our 10 year history, they are available for read in our archives linked below. The 2007 hurricane season was not very eventful for the United States. This was not the case for Central America which had to deal with back-to-back category five events in Dean and Felix. The only hurricane to affect the U.S. was Humberto, a small, compact hurricane that struck the extreme upper Texas coast. For us, the only real mission was for ex-hurricane Noel along the Outer Banks of North Carolina in early November. During the early part of the season, we spent a great deal of time on the road visiting Lowe's stores as part of our annual hurricane readiness tour. All tolled, we visited 50 stores from Virginia to Texas and talked to thousands of people as part of our biggest efforts to date in hurricane education. Later in the summer of 2007, I visited CNN HQ in Atlanta to begin working on a project with them that would yield extraordinary benefits a year later. For the most part, 2007 was un-eventful in terms of hurricane impacts and the much needed break was welcomed news for coastal residents. The biggest event for us took place towards the end of '07. Due to the faltering economy and the need to cut spending, Lowe's canceled our program. After working with them since 2001, we would have to cut ties and go without their support. It was a tough pill to swallow and had huge implications on our future work. None the less, the other way to look at it was this: for six years, Lowe's did more for hurricane preparedness than I have ever seen any company do. They also supported this site and our field work, allowing us to accomplish many goals in that time period. We had to move on and figure out a way to survive without their financial support. We figured that we would turn to the people- the very people who visit this site daily during the hurricane season (and even during those off-months). We already had a unique service in the live streaming video product and if we enhanced it with other tools, we might have something of value. The end of 2007 had brought major changes to me personally and for all of us who have been involved with the site and the field team. After working on some upgrades to our pay-services, we officially launched HurricaneTrack.com Premium Services in early 2008. An uncertain future was before us. As it turned out, 2008 was quite successful on many levels; with a little help too from a network called CNN. I will re-cap our biggest year to date on Monday. Then, on Wednesday night at 9pm ET, we will have our first edition of HurricaneTrack News/Talk. I'll have more on all of that next week. UPDATED: 9:15 am EST, March 4, 2009 LOOKING BACK AT 10 YEARS OF HISTORY On March 11, 1999, HurricaneTrack.com was born. Next month we will celebrate our 10 year anniversary. I am continuing my look back at the last ten years of this site's history. On March 11, we'll celebrate during a special edition of HurricaneTrack News/Talk. 2006: SLOW YEAR FOR HURRICANES, BIG YEAR FOR OUR WEATHER DATA EFFORTS If you missed any of the posts reflecting on our 10 year history, they are available for read in our archives linked below. After the historic 2005 hurricane season, no one was looking forward to the '06 version. Early predictions had indicated the possibility of more destructive hurricanes impacting the United States. As it turned out, atmospheric conditions did not allow for much activity overall and the nation was spared any major issues from the tropics. We continued to step up our efforts in hurricane awareness and education. Lowe's and Sprint worked with my staff and me to travel the coastal areas and talk hurricane preparedness whenever possible. The entire team was busy with Lowe's hurricane fairs and Sprint's involvement in setting up presentations for us at schools, museums and even at their own call centers. People were now quite interested in hurricanes- they had little choice. The painful reminders of the past two seasons were still very much evident. In early June of 2006, I approached Lowe's about installing permanent weather stations across the Mississippi coast as part of their rebuilding efforts. In the wake of Katrina and the lack of reliable weather data, I felt it was important to put something in place that the communities could tap in to and even use as an education resource. Lowe's agreed and put me in charge of the project. When all was said and done, we had a complete 10-meter tower system, topped with an RM Young anemometer, set up at the Bay-Waveland Middle School in Bay St. Louis, MS. Their principal was so proud of the accomplishment and on the 1 year anniversary of Katrina, it was operational. We all chipped in, Mike, Jesse, our intern Todd, to get things up and running and to introduce the students of the school to the value of weather data. We wrote our own interface and software to get the data from the equipment to this site. Sprint provided the wireless Internet for us and the station has been running ever since. It was of great use during hurricanes Gustav and Ike last year and has provided us with live weather data plus a web cam image on a very consistent basis. Once in a while, the laptop locks up and we have to get someone there to re-start the computer. I don't know how NASA does it with their projects! You can't send a guy to Mars to re-start a rover there. None the less, we are extremely lucky to have a reliable system in place, especially when the threat of tropical cyclones exists. In addition to the weather station in Bay St. Louis, we also set one up in Pascagoula at the Jackson County EOC building. The anemometer sits high atop their existing steel pole, for the lack of a better word, about 60 feet off the ground. We donated a dedicated laptop to their facility and it has also been transmitting weather data and a web cam image since late 2006. I have been back to both locations several times to present information to students, emergency management staff and the community as a whole concerning the availability and use of the data. My hope is that when the next powerful hurricane directly impacts the Mississippi coast, that we can provide wind data, as well as other meteorological information, that people can trust as accurate and help them know the true effects of such an event. I will continue to keep the equipment maintained and we provide the data and web cam images absolutely free of charge right here on the site (look under LIVE DATA in the main menu). I am very pleased that Lowe's and Sprint had the forward thinking attitude to help make this happen. The people who use the data appreciate it very much and when the time comes that another Katrina visits the region, and we all know it will happen one day, these two data points will serve a great purpose. The remainder of 2006 was un-eventful in terms of our hurricane field work. There was Alberto in June which was a reminder that tropical storms can create serious flooding threats. We also dealt with Ernesto in late August which gave a lot of people reason to be worried as it looked like it would strike the same areas Katrina did just a year prior. Luck prevailed and the tropical storm brought strong winds and heavy rains to the Carolinas and up in to the Mid-Atlantic, but fell short of its potential slap in the face to those recovering along the battered Gulf Coast. That was it for 2006. We had a chance to pause and take a break from the relentless onslaught of hurricanes. My crew and I began planning for 2007 and our biggest year ever for our education efforts. Little did we know that the house of cards known as our economy was about to come crashing down and with it, an end to a powerful partnership. I'll reflect on 2007 in tomorrow's write up. UPDATED: 10:05 am EST, March 3, 2009 LOOKING BACK AT 10 YEARS OF HISTORY On March 11, 1999, HurricaneTrack.com was born. Next month we will celebrate our 10 year anniversary. I am continuing my look back at the last ten years of this site's history. On March 11, we'll celebrate during a special edition of HurricaneTrack News/Talk. HURRICANE WILMA If you missed any of the posts reflecting on our 10 year history, they are available for read in our archives linked below. Hurricane Wilma was at one point the strongest, most intense Atlantic hurricane on record. Its tiny 2-mile wide eye was unprecedented and the late-season category five monster went on to batter portions of the Yucatan and then Florida. We would set out one last time for a mission that proved to be extremely successful in many ways. I worked the Wilma mission with James Lewis and Mike Watkins. James had come on board with us to offer his help in moving the heavy equipment and driving when needed. His expertise in small engines, especially generators, was a big plus as well. James and I left North Carolina for Florida on Wednesday, October 19. We had with us the three remote-cam Storm Case units and another Storm Case that would be used for weather data. We figured it would be better to place the cameras separately from the weather station. As Wilma raged in the waters just off of the Yucatan, we made the long trip south, stopping in Orlando for the night. On Thursday, Wilma approached the Cozumel area and began to lash the Yucatan with hurricane conditions. Residents in the Florida Keys and along the west coast of the Sunshine State were keeping a close watch on Wilma's progress. James and I had all the time in the world as it looked as if Wilma was going to slow down or perhaps stall- giving us plenty of room to make sure we were ready. We continued southward, reaching Naples in the early evening hours. On Friday, October 21, James and I met with Collier county emergency management officials to discuss plans for the remote cameras and the weather station. Collier is a large county with Naples being the largest city. On the southern end was Everglades City, the former county seat before hurricane Donna forced a change to Naples. In between is Marco Island, a beautiful resort location but very vulnerable to storm surge flooding. We knew we could easily cover the entire coast of Collier county with our three cameras. Our plans were coming together but Wilma was moving very slow- so James and I did a little sight-seeing. We took an air boat ride through the Everglades to pass the time. It was amazing. Here we were in an extraordinary ecosystem that was likely to be rocked by a powerful hurricane in a little over 48 hours. You would have never known it though while we were zipping around the Mangrove forests. It was just warm and muggy with mid-level clouds, intermittent rain and virtually no wind. On Saturday, Mike Watkins joined us and we began to solidify our plans to place the camera units throughout Collier county. One would go at the boat ramp on Marco Island- known as Caxambas Pass. The other would be placed down in Everglades City, high atop the Sprint central office building, overlooking the city. The third camera would be placed on a small bridge in Naples, overlooking a water way that could possibly fill up with storm surge and flood surrounding homes and businesses. We would deploy the weather station at Marco Island as well. The fire department offered to lift us high up to mount the anemometer on a concrete light pole, giving us excellent exposure to the wind. Everything was set. The plan was perfect. We had our own area to work in at the Collier county government complex. It was picture perfect as far as executing a mission. For the people of south Florida, times were tense. Wilma was hung up over the northeast Yucatan and the forecasts were uncertain. It could end up being a non-issue, weak hurricane or a large and powerful, destructive event for millions of people. Everything depended on how long Wilma remained over land. The clock was ticking. By Sunday morning, hurricane warnings were posted for a good deal of the Florida peninsula and the Keys. Wilma was on the move but was not strengthening, yet. James, Mike and I waited for the right moment to begin setting up the Storm Case units. We began in Everglades City. Local officials there had evacuated all of their buildings for fear of a substantial storm surge. We knew we could not mess around and wait too long. Everglades City is no place to get trapped in during a hurricane. By late afternoon, it was clear that Wilma would make landfall very near our location, we got to work and had the first remote camera unit up and running a couple of hours before dark. The view was incredible. We provided Collier county with a link to view the camera. It was a great way for their officials to keep tabs on the city without having any people there. The camera would run for about 18 hours- giving us plenty of time to get through the night. What would the camera capture the next day? Only time would tell. Next we set up the unit on Marco Island. By now, it was dark and the outer bands of Wilma were closing in. The pass was getting rough with waves bouncing around the bulkheads of the marina area. We quickly got the second unit up and running and secured it to the building using steel chains. We were not going to lose any more Storm Cases- we learned much from Katrina and put those lessons to good use during Wilma. I remember emailing a link to the Marco Island camera to Max Mayfield at the NHC. He was very impressed at the view and could easily see the rough water in the shot. It was a great use of the technology and so far, everything was working as it should. However, when we tried to set out the weather station, one of the power supply units shorted out and we had no spare. This meant that the RM Young anemometer would not function. There would be no wind data from Marco Island from us. We did leave the barometer sensor out to at least record the air pressure. We departed Marco Island for Naples with two camera systems now fully functional. Later in the evening, we set out the last of the Storm Case cams. This one was in Naples on top of a bridge. The view would show what ever surge might come in once the sun rose the next day. People following along on the site were able to track our movements and monitor the three remote cameras non-stop. It was now up to Wilma. Our part was finished. We went back to the Collier EOC for shelter and some rest. At around 3am Monday morning, we went back over to Marco Island and then down to Everglades City to check on things. The wind and rain were really picking up and Wilma was now a category three hurricane and getting stronger. So far, there was little damage but the worst was still a few hours away. After one last trip out in to the open for some spot observations, we took shelter back at the EOC. The eyewall of Wilma passed over and blasted the southwest Florida coast. Near sunrise, the eye passed over. We ventured out and made our way to Marco Island. Because the eye passed right over the area, the surge was not as bad as it was farther south, along mainland Monroe county. Still, there was considerable flooding and wind damage. The back side of Wilma passed and gave us quite a beating. It was foolish for us to have been out like we were but the lure of wanting to measure the winds and see the effects up close were too much to resist. We were lucky and sustained no damage to the Tahoe. Wilma raced across Florida and out in to the Atlantic. James and I were exhausted. Mike had gone back to his home near Ft. Lauderdale earlier in the night before and was safe at home with his family. Wilma came to him though and left him, along with millions of others, in the dark for weeks. The mission was the biggest success up to that time. Our camera unit in Everglades City captured the storm surge as it inundated the area with several feet of water. We were able to see it live as it happened and knew, much to everyone's relief, that the city was not severely flooded. Had Wilma made landfall in Ft. Myers, it is possible that the surge in Everglades City and Marco Island would have been 10-15 feet, perhaps higher. For the first time ever, we were able to process the video tape and see the surge in time lapse. This provided the NHC with a unique perspective on how fast the surge advanced and how it reacted as the area filled with water. Numerous television shows aired the time lapse footage which provided us with exposure for the project. I often show the video in my talks that I do to demonstrate the effectiveness of our work. James, Mike and I had accomplished something truly remarkable and knew that we had a tool that would be very useful for local officials so that they too can monitor conditions from our remote cameras. From the trial-by-fire event of Katrina and through Rita and Wilma, we had come a long way in such a historic hurricane season. HurricaneTrack.com provided millions of people with unique, innovative and up to date information using a variety of methods. The support from Lowe's and Sprint was paramount to our success. But perhaps more importantly, we had the backing and encouragement of many who visited the site. We had begun our subscription service and had a great beginning to that venture. The 2005 hurricane season was over in terms of U.S. landfalls. Of course, the named storms continued on in to January of 2006. America was painfully aware of our hurricane problem now. How would we respond during 2006? Many believed it had the potential of being just as bad as '05. As we know now, we got a much-needed two year break. I'll go over our work in 2006 in tomorrow's write-up. For now, I invite you to view the Wilma mission video on my YouTube channel linked below. Hurricane Wilma, 2005 UPDATED: 11:30 am EST, March 2, 2009 LOOKING BACK AT 10 YEARS OF HISTORY On March 11, 1999, HurricaneTrack.com was born. Next month we will celebrate our 10 year anniversary. I am continuing my look back at the last ten years of this site's history. On March 11, we'll celebrate during a special edition of HurricaneTrack News/Talk. HURRICANE RITA If you missed any of the posts reflecting on our 10 year history, they are available for read in our archives linked below. Within three weeks of Katrina's devastating landfall along the Central Gulf Coast, hurricane Rita formed and wemt on to become one of the strongest hurricanes ever. Its central pressure dipped below 900 millibars and winds topped 175 mph while it was over the open Gulf. I set out for the Rita mission on Tuesday, September 20. I would work this mission alone but had tremendous help and support from everyone I work with- even if they were not with me in person. I had rebuilt three Storm Case units after losing the original three during Katrina in Gulfport, MS. The Rita mission was a chance for me to prove that I learned something about how to place the units effectively without losing them. I spent the first night of the mission in Lake City, Florida. On Wednesday, September 21, I began my move west along I-10 from Lake City. My plan was to stop in Beaumont, TX for the night and then plan on where to stage for Rita's landfall. Along the way, I posted regular updates to the site concerning Rita's alarming intensity. For our streaming video subscribers, they had another chance to accompany me in the virtual world as I traveled across the northern Gulf Coast. I made a stop in Foley, Alabama for a repair to be made on the Tahoe. Afterwards, I visited Gulfport just to see if I ran in to anyone who might have seen or heard about one of the missing Storm Case units. I spent some time with the National Guard in downtown and then continued west in to and across Louisiana. My friend Paul from Nevada, who now produces our HurricaneTrack News/Talk program, was monitoring my travels over the live stream. He helped me stay awake by streaming back to me live news feeds from CNN and The Weather Channel. Remember, this was just before any of those sites had their own live video services- we were indeed on the cutting edge and took full advantage of it. I managed to keep my wits enough to arrive at my hotel in Beaumont at around 3am local time. Rita was a powerful hurricane and was about to trigger one of the worst conceived evacuations in history. I spent most of Thursday, the 22nd, in and around Galveston. Rita was now a staggering category five hurricane and had prompted millions of people to flee the Texas coast- and areas inland, such as Houston. The news coverage was extraordinary. In New Orleans, the flooding from the levee failures was almost contained when Rita spoiled the success by sending more surge in that direction. It was a mess. The country was under siege from hurricanes. Dennis, Katrina and now Rita. And all of this just a year after the four hurricanes that impacted Florida and Alabama. People were scared and at the same time, tired of it all. I had to figure out where to set up my remote camera units. The forecast from the NHC suggested a landfall near Freeport- so I left Galveston in the evening and slowly made my way over to Clute- very near Freeport. The stream of traffic leaving the coast was like something out of a movie. For as far as I could see, vehicles were lined up, trying to make their way to Houston and beyond- some going to Dallas. I stayed the night in Clute at a small hotel there. The next day, HurricaneTrack.com would get a huge boost once again from CNN. Friday morning was interesting to say the least. There were almost no people in Clute and surrounding areas. The skies were blue and the day was hot- easily in the 90s. Only a few local gas station owners remained behind- worried about whether or not they should abandon their shops for safer ground near Houston. I knew from examining the latest info from the NHC that Rita was almost certainly not going to make landfall near Freeport any longer. The threat grew to Galveston and even Port Arthur. I explained this to one family who owned a nice shop and gas station in Clute. They were officially closed but after I pointed out the latest info, in detail, they felt safe and decided not to evacuate and go through that agony. There was no need to. They offered me a chance to fill up my gas tank and to get some supplies if needed. I gladly accepted, thanked them and made my way to Lake Jackson. I had arranged for an interview with CNN around mid-morning from Lake Jackson. They were interested in my ability to stream live video from my Tahoe. Very few people had this capability back then (many do now). So at around 11am ET, I went live with Daryn Kagan at CNN. Even though I was on the phone for the interview, they were showing my live stream as I drove around what should have been a very busy strip mall area of Lake Jackson. As I talked about my mission to place the remote cameras, they continued to show the feed coming in from the Tahoe's video camera. There was not another living soul anywhere to be found. No cars, no people. It demonstrated the vast concern for Rita as even the small towns along the Texas coast had all but emptied. I talked about my streaming video services and how people could sign up to see the live feeds for as long as they wished. The interview was over and that was that. CNN continued to run short clips from the interview throughout the day. I was not prepared for what happened next. Even though I was continuing to post timely, up to date information concerning Rita on the main part of the site, I was also maintaining the subscriber side as well. We had a couple of hundred people signed up at this point with many watching non-stop as I worked on my plans for the remainder of the mission. After the CNN interview, at least 1500 people signed on with us. It was more than I had ever dreamed of. I just wanted the project to fund itself and allow those who wanted to support our work a chance to see and hear something different and unique. We now had many more people watching and interacting with me than I planned on. It was a challenge and I had help from Paul to handle any technical issues that we had. Inevitably, there are people who need help in updating something on their PC that will allow them to access the streams, etc. I could not deal with this AND the hurricane. I was very appreciative that Paul bailed me out by being our "tech support guy". With close to 2000 people now watching my every move via the live stream and hundreds of thousands more keeping up with my mission on the regular part of the site, it was important to remain focused and deliver on what I had intended: useful data, video reports and live video feeds of the hurricane. The track forecast had changed and now had Rita making landfall much closer to Port Arthur. I left Clute and went back to where I began the mission- in Beaumont. The drive from Clute to Beaumont was bizarre. There were probably hundreds of abandoned vehicles along the road side. It resembled some disaster movie where people disappeared but their autos and possessions remained. At this point, late Thursday night, there was no traffic to speak of. I arrived at the hotel in west Beaumont, brought in some equipment to charge up and got a good night's sleep. I was going to need it. Friday, September 23 was the last day to work on where to set up the remote camera system. I traveled in to Port Arthur and made notes as to where I might place the camera units. Skies were cloudy now with off and on light rain. The wind was picking up a little but nothing severe. I made my way over to Pleasure Island, next to Sabine Lake, and found a great location for one of the units. There was a marina with huge pleasure boats and yachts still moored as if nothing were wrong- no hurricane coming this way. I knew that if the enormous surge from Rita were to impact this area, that I would capture it via the unit I would leave here. One down, two to go. On the site, I posted video reports about the conditions in Port Arthur. I had numerous emails from concerned residents who had left their homes and businesses behind. They relied on me for any pieces of info I could provide concerning their city. I did what I could and mostly replied that nothing had really happened yet. The rain and wind was increasing and the city was almost 100% empty. Other than that, Rita's worst effects were still many hours away. I received an email from someone within Louisiana's state government. They had seen the story about my remote camera project on CNN. Their suggestion was that I go to Cameron and place at least one unit there. They even told me of a house I could use to seek shelter when the time came. It was a large, sturdy house with plenty of provisions. I was tempted but knew that Cameron was not going to be safe for anyone. That portion of the Louisiana coast floods easily and Rita was likely going to send a lethal surge in to the region. I decided to stick to Beaumont/Port Arthur and placed the three units out before dark. One was on Pleasure Island- at the marina. The other was near a refinery somewhere on the outskirts of Port Athur. The third unit was placed on the roof of the hotel with the help of their staff. It had an excellent view of the buildings below- and of I-10 which passed right by the location. Rita was closing in and I decided to remain out in the open, near Port Arthur, to record wind readings, etc. I felt safe with my decision. Rita had weakened to around 120 mph by now. There was nothing within a mile of me and so I figured I could at least obtain reliable wind readings while avoiding a potential surge problem from the Gulf or Sabine Lake. Throughout the night, hundreds of people watched my progress on the live video stream coming from the Tahoe. They also monitored the other cameras placed out in the area. All were working just fine but darkness prevented any great detail except for the random power flash that would light up the sky. I was fairly safe in the open area that I had chosen to position the Tahoe and its instruments for taking measurements. I remember a huge passenger van passing me twice during blinding wind and rain. Other than that, no one else was out, for obvious reasons. As the eye of Rita made landfall at the TX/LA border, I received a call from George Noory who was hosting Coast-to-Coast AM that night. He wanted live updates of what it was like to be in the eye of a hurricane. I provided exactly that and as his show signed off at 5am ET, I was in the eye with calm winds and birds landing on the ground all around me. Rita had come ashore and brought a devastating surge to areas just to my east. I spent the next several hours, even after the weaker back side of Rita had passed through, surveying the damage in Port Arthur. The Sprint network remained fully functional and I streamed live video as first light approached the region. Flooding was a huge issue with low-lying areas inundated with as many as 10 feet of water. I had to drive very carefully to avoid all kinds of dangers. I remember getting emails from people watching the streaming video or the still photo web cam telling me to watch out for alligators, snakes and wild pigs. All of these creatures would be roaming the area seeking higher ground. Texans who were following my work were offering their support, encouragement and prayers. It was nice. I was able to give up to the second info over the stream and post text updates and video clips to the homepage- a tradition that millions of people had come to rely on since we began in 1999. At around Noon, I finally gave up the chase, so to speak, and returned to my hotel for some much needed sleep. Later in the day, I returned to Pleasure Island which had little surge to deal with. There was some wind damage and minor flooding but not the overwhelming surge that would come almost three years later with Ike. I easily retrieved the Storm Case unit and put it in the back of the Tahoe. I picked up the other one left out in the open near Port Arthur. The one on the roof of the hotel was blocked by pieces of the roof and other debris that had fallen during Rita. I was not able to retrieve it but had the manager send me the laptop and VCR that was housed inside of the case once repair crews began work on the roof. He did this within 10 days of Rita. The mission was a success. I learned a lot from Rita including the issues of dealing with a hurricane at night. I actually used low-light cameras for Rita but they just did not work against the blasting rain. It became obvious that in order for this remote camera project to really work, we needed a daytime landfall. We had that with Katrina but mis-calculated our ability to retrieve the Storm Cases in that hurricane. Other technical issues got in the way as well. This was not a cake-walk. Our work was difficult and had numerous opportunities for failure. We had to assume the worst each time and simply plan on learning from our mistakes. Only then would we be able to advance the project to that next level where we finally captured the deadly effects of a hurricane with no human involvement what so ever. It would be exactly one month later that we would get that chance in a small town along the southwest coast of Florida. Wilma would crush many records and we would be there for its historic landfall in late October of 2005. I'll post my Wilma retrospective tomorrow. UPDATED: 8:30 am EST, February 26, 2009 LOOKING BACK AT 10 YEARS OF HISTORY On March 11, 1999, HurricaneTrack.com was born. Next month we will celebrate our 10 year anniversary. I am continuing my look back at the last ten years of this site's history. On March 11, we'll celebrate during a special edition of HurricaneTrack News/Talk. THE KATRINA MISSION: THREE NEEDLES IN A HUGE HAY STACK If you missed parts one or two, be sure to check the commentary archive, linked below. The date was August 30, 2005. New Orleans was flooding and became an immense news story. People were fixated on the drama unfolding in the Big Easy as thousands who did not evacuate were stranded on their roof tops, or worse. It was an ugly picture and only evolved in to something worse as time went on. For me, the issue was Mississippi and the missing-in-action Storm Cases that had recorded this record surge from point blank range. I wanted to go back immediately and do all I could to search for them among the rubble of Gulfport's water front and vicinity. I dropped Mike Watkins off at his car in Lake City, FL and then turned back west along I-10 for Mississippi. I arrived in Gulfport to the same hotel that I had stayed in during Katrina at around 10pm local time. The area near I-10 that includes numerous outlet shops, restaurants and hotels was dark with the exception of emergency vehicles and their lights. Generators hummed loudly to break the otherwise silence of the post-Katrina night. I could hear people crying in the distance, some arguing with one another but I could not make out the reasons. It was very discomforting as I knew too that people were probably mourning the loss of family members, friends, co-workers, their possessions. I went up to the second floor balcony and held my Sprint phone up towards the sky- hoping for a signal so I could call people back home. The voice side of their network was simply overwhelmed with traffic- as was the case with all networks. Someone passing by mentioned I should use text messaging. It's funny how things you know often don't get put in to practical use until something obvious comes along to bring it to light. I knew this about texting. That the data spectrum was more likely to work than the voice. I sent a short message to Jesse Bass in Virginia, "did u get this?". Within seconds, he replied, "YES!". I knew that this meant Sprint's towers, at least some of them, were operational. It also meant that my air card should work too. I went to the Chevy Tahoe which has a powerful battery under the hood, and fired up the laptop. Within a minute or two, I was ready. I looked at the little LED light on the Sprint air card- it was blinking green. I had a signal. For the next hour or so, I composed a write-up about what was going on in Gulfport at that very hour. The emails from people all over the world were staggering. Many had begged me for information on their loved ones in places such as Waveland. No one had heard a peep out of Waveland since the morning of August 29. I had little in the way of comorting info but did post what I could as it was at least something. I made mention of the fact that I would be out and about looking for the three missing Storm Case units and that I would report more the next afternoon. I managed to get some sleep despite the heat of the night and the images that kept dancing in my head. I thought about David Garcia and his fire crew in Waveland. What happened to them? What if Mike and I had indeed gone to Waveland as planned? Answers to these questions would come soon enough. The task at hand was to carefully begin looking for three black boxes, about the size of a suitcase. I knew where I left them, I had no idea where they ended up. You might be wondering by now about GPS location devices or something similar. We thought about how to do that but never intended to lose the boxes in the first place. We grossly underestimated the storm surge and its ability to rip apart everything that we had attached the boxes to. So far, Katrina had beat us. I had optimism though and began walking up and down the streets of Gulfport, poking through debris, half expecting at any moment to find something rather unpleasant. I was elated that I never did. The day was hot and sultry and the city smelled of broken, old wood. It is impossible to describe. On I looked. It took about an hour of searching and I finally stumbled upon one of the units. It was in a debris pile near the back of a church. With the help of another man who was walking around the beaten city, I put the Storm Case in the back of the Tahoe. It was completely sealed shut and had no real damage to speak of. I opened it and quickly realized that it was the one I had left on the back steps of the First Baptist Church, right on Hwy 90. This meant that our efforts paid off. That the video camera recorded history from the very front lines of the enormous storm surge. Who knows what it captured! The potential for learning so much about Katrina's surge, the time it took to do its damage, the way the water moved, swirled and flowed, it was all there. Or was it? I later learned that I had a bad power supply feeding from the heavy duty battery to the laptop. The camera worked but its signal was not received inside of the recording system of the laptop- nor the VCR that we used for back up. The Gremlins had struck and as luck would have it, I found one needle in the hay stack but the needle was useless. Still, I pressed on and looked for the other two units. I KNEW that they were going to contain useful data. I knew this because we saw the feeds coming from the boxes during the hurricane. All I had to do now was locate the darn things. After walking for at least 10 miles, up and down streets and avenues, I had to give up. I saw Jim Cantore near the very location that Mike and I had placed the unit in downtown- near the Post Office. I told him of my search and asked him to keep an eye out if he could. He knew the importance of the project and what it would mean for science and people's understandig of Katrina if we could find even one of the cases. Jim was tired, I was tired. We were all overwhelmed at the utter devastation that lay all around us. In New Orleans, the water was still rising. I gave up looking for the missing cases in the late afternoon. I wanted to vacate my hotel room and make it available for search and rescue folks who were now pouring in to the region. I felt defeated but knew it was largely my fault. I went down along the back roads of the northern shore of Back Bay, near Biloxi. I stopped and talked with a family and even met a city councilman from Biloxi. As it turned out, his home was completely erased from its foundation. 100% gone. He and his family were safe. All along the quiet road were the remains of large homes. Most were bulldozed but some were simply flooded from the epic surge. For the houses that remained standing, you could see many with holes in the roofs- as if punctured by meteorites falling from the sky. Instead, they were escape holes; cut by what would be the survivors of Katrina. I had never seen anything like this. No one else had either. Not even Camille could compete with this kind of devastation. And this was one small street on the north side of Biloxi. From the shores of Alabama over to coastal Louisiana, the surge from Katrina rendered the region basically uninhabitable. The nation watched on their TVs and PCs. It was perhaps the darkest days since Galveston of 1900 in terms of our weather history. As soon as I could edit together more video of the people I met, I put it on the site. While I only managed to talk to a few families and get them on tape, it was enough so that someone, somewhere knew them. I encouraged people to share the video clips in any manner they could think of to get the word out that these families were okay. Once again, the response was nothing short of incredible. I received emails from friends and relatives of these families who had seen the footage I shot on their local TV station. HurricaneTrack.com became a beacon of hope for a small group of people who knew, without question, that their loved ones were safe. I then used the site to pass along information about where grass-roots relief organizations should go to help people. What the national news did not report was the fact that thousands of people were stranded along back roads and communities of the Mississippi coast- and elsewhere. I urged them NOT to set up shop at the major interchanges in parking lots of big box retail outlets. How would people get there? They had no running automobiles. In many cases, their entire homes were a total loss. They were wearing wet, smelly clothes and had barely enough energy to walk a mile- much less 10 or more. Relief had to come to them. People in the Carolinas and Florida read my advice on the site, took it and made a difference. I'll never forget that. In the weeks after Katrina, Mike, Jesse and I all went back to see our friends in Waveland. They had all managed to survive without much harm but their homes were wrecked. The surge had indeed crossed the rail road tracks as David feared- and warned us about. Had Mike and I been there around dawn on the 29th, as we planned, we would have lost the Tahoe. Granted I would have been able to document the event from the fire department as I did have a nice underwater camera housing that I could have used. But who knows what other dangers we would have faced? The stress too our families would have been tough. No one would have heard from us for several days. Waveland was a wasteland along the beach- and for about a mile inland. We are talking complete destruction. Nothing survived south of the tracks. People died here. We could have too. David and his crew survived but have memories that will haunt them for the rest of their lives. We documented what we could and posted more info on the site here in the weeks after Katrina. However, the 2005 hurricane season would not wait for anyone to grieve or recover. After Katrina, Jesse and I dealt with hurricane Ophelia along the North Carolina coast. We now had more than 100 subscribers to our streaming video service and this helped tremendously as it allowed me to replace the equipment that was lost during Katrina. Sprint and the Storm Case folks donated more gear too- which eased the financial costs greatly. Between Katrina and Ophelia, I had all but rebuilt the three boxes and was ready for another chance to put the project to use. Ophelia was a good test but towards the end of September, the Gulf would unleash another monster and send it towards the 4th largest city in our nation. Rita was about to add its own set of records to the growing list of the 2005 season. I'll post the extraordinary Rita mission write up tomorrow. Hurricane Katrina Part One Hurricane Katrina Part Two Hurricane Katrina Part Three UPDATED: 11:10am EST, February 25, 2009 LOOKING BACK AT 10 YEARS OF HISTORY On March 11, 1999, HurricaneTrack.com was born. Next month we will celebrate our 10 year anniversary. I am continuing my look back at the last ten years of this site's history. On March 11, we'll celebrate during a special edition of HurricaneTrack News/Talk. THE KATRINA MISSION: PART TWO If you missed part one, be sure to check the commentary archive, linked below. The time was around 1am on Monday, August 29, 2005. Katrina was only a few hours from making landfall in extreme southeast Louisiana. Mike Watkins and I had just finished setting up one of the remote camera units along the Urie Pier in Gulfport, MS. We returned to our hotel several miles up Hwy 49, near the I-10 corridor. I received a phone call from Art Bell, host of Coast to Coast AM at the time. We talked for about an hour and covered everything we could about Katrina, the gravity of the situation and my mission to record the event using the remote cameras and the weather stations. Emails poured in from this point on as millions of people were listening to his show. I talked about HurricaneTrack.com and what people could find if they visited the site. I remember Art asking me during a commercial break if my web host could handle the traffic. We did just fine. The interview wrapped up near 2am ET and Mike and I went back out to place the other two units. As we returned to the water front, along Hwy 90 in downtown Gulfport, we could see the water about to spill over and push in to the city. Urie Pier, which had access to cars only a couple of hours ago, was now completely under water. Our first camera unit and weather station was still working although we could not see the live stream for reasons unknown. Our next location to place a Storm Case was at the back steps of the First Baptist Church in Gulfport. The church itself sat above Hwy 90 and stood out as a landmark along Gulfport's coastal skyline. The spire was still lit by a beautiful white light- with sheets of rain passing through. There was very little traffic at all. We proceeded to position the Storm Case along the back steps and ran the camera and its cable down the iron stair way some 30 feet away. We secured it, turned everything on and streamed live video at around 2:30 in the morning. For those still up and watching on our web site, they knew our sense of relief that all was working well with this unit. It had an incredible view across Hwy 90 towards the park across the street from the church. Upon sunsise, it would witness an alien world of violent weather and destructive water. The camera unit was designed to operate for about 15 hours, maybe more. Next, we quickly placed the third and final unit along Hwy 49, in the heart of downtown but several blocks north of the port and the Gulf of Mexico. The bright amberish street lights cast a strange light over the city as the rain fell harder and harder. We could see water running down the street along the gutters, racing towards a meeting with the encroaching Gulf. Rats scurried for higher ground, seemingly quite aware of the impending doom about to be unleashed. Mike and I got the unit up and running in no time and aimed the camera, itself mounted on a sturdy light pole, torwards the US Post Office building and the port. If the surge was going to come up that far, we would capture it and see it live from the safety of our hotel room, some four miles north. We were done. Our equipment had been placed to the best of our ability. Two out of the three units were functioning as they should. At the pier, our anemometer measured winds gusting in to the low 60s now. The pressure was dropping quickly as Katrina drew closer to the coast. We had about three hours to go until first light. It was time for some rest. After putting our heads down for maybe 90 minutes, it was time to greet Katrina from the relative safety of our hotel. I pulled the Tahoe out in to the open parking lot as the sun came up. The roar of the wind was very familiar. Signs crashed down and loosely constructed buildings began to tear apart. Near the water, our cameras were recording and transmitting their video like secret spies as Katrina's effects began to really show. At some point, we lost the video signal from the Baptist Church cam. I felt it was too dangerous to go and remedy the problem. I figured at least the S-VHS recorder inside would capture up to 9 hours of the drama unfolding there. The same would hopefully hold true for our unit on Urie Pier. We lost contact with it around 5:50 am local time. If it had survived, with the gear being protected by the water-tight Storm Case, then we would have historic footage of Katrina's massive storm surge. We still had a live feed from our downtown camera and we could easily see the Gulf of Mexico advancing up the street. Water whipped in to a white froth as strong bursts of wind blasted the city. Emails by the hundreds filled my inbox. People wanted information. I did the best I could to keep up. For those watching us on the live video stream, they witnessed everything that I witnessed- as if they were there with me. When the roof tore off of the Hampton Inn in front of me, our online viewers saw it happen- and heard my elevated reaction. It was an amazing day for HurricaneTrack.com and as word got out about our live feeds, news networks from around the world wanted to tune in. I had little time to explain to them how it worked, remember, streaming video of hurricanes was brand new, most news outlets had no idea how to capture my feed and re-broadcast it on television. For those that did, including Fox 26 in Houston, their viewers saw a changed world. For as much as New Orleans was receiving in media coverage, it was the Mississippi coast that was under immediate attack from the lethal surge. Of course, to be fair, the areas along the "toe" of Louisiana, such as Buras, were hit first and put under water. But with so much attention focused on New Orleans, it seemed that few realized how bad conditions were in Mississippi. Even Mike and I had no idea of the totality of the damage until we ventured to the water front hours later. At some point during the mid-morning hours, the local infrastructure in Gulfport took a hit from the surge and wind of Katrina. We lost our ability to stream video or to send and receive email. Katrina was now inland over southern Mississippi and moving just east of north. Mike and I slowly made our way down Hwy 49 towards downtown Gulfport. Once we reached the area near the Hancock Bank building, the devastation was obvious. All around us was total ruin. Piles of wood, vehicles and concrete block littered the streets. We had to carefully navigate through a maze of wreckage like nothing we had ever seen before. Amazingly, we could access Hwy 90 and drove towards the Baptist Church. When we saw it, we could not believe our own eyes. Most of the building was gone with only steel structure remaining. Huge pilings from the yacht basin lay strewn across the lawn of the church. Entire sycamore trees were torn out of the ground, as if uprooted by a Hollywood-style monster. It was almost too much to bear. We shot video to document but felt an immediate sense of sadness- even though this was not our city. We were not sure what to do next. There were no people out at this point and there was a chance that we would encounter those who did not survive. It was a tough situation and one that I will never forget. After heading back to the hotel to regroup and collect our thoughts, we went back to the downtown area late in the afternoon to begin looking for the Storm Case units. This turned out to be a futile effort as everything that we had attached them to was gone. The Urie Pier itself was mostly destroyed. The restaurant that was plainly in the view of our camera was completely erased from the planet. The Baptist Church was almost a total loss with piles of brick and rubble and a danger of further collapse. On Hwy 49, we had no luck finding the case we left there either. The entire scene had changed. It really did look like a scene from that summer's War of the Worlds movie but this was real, no special effects here, only harsh, brutal reality. We searched for the Storm Case units for as long as we could. Despair set in and as night fall closed in, we knew it was time to leave Gulfport and figure out what to do next from somewhere else. Civil unrest became a concern as people were in shock and without food, water, shelter or gasoline. We also heard about the horrors beginning to take shape in New Orleans. Our sense of survival took over and we quickly packed up and headed east in to Alabama. One of the key moments in our 10 year history took place in the evening of August 29, 2005. I shot some video of the damage in Gulfport and then a shot of me setting up the scene. I actually edited the piece on my laptop in the Tahoe as Mike drove us out of Mississippi. I strung together the hand held video shot along the water front and downtown areas of Gulfport with my intro, proclaiming something like "words cannot describe what you are about to see". After rendering it out to a WMV file, I searched for Sprint's data signal and found it. I uploaded the video to our server and placed a link to it on our homepage. From there, the video became viral, as they say, and was passed around the Internet like free money. The Weather Channel aired it. The Drudge Report was buzzing about it. Message boards lit up with comments and links to it from all over the world. People flocked to the web site to view the completely raw and non-polished look at a post-Katrina Gulfport. For many, it confirmed their worst fears. For others, it gave them a look at what very few news outlets were talking about- due to the mega-story unfolding in New Orleans. It marked a time in our history when we did something to really tell it like it is. I did not care how I looked nor how well edited the piece was. It was breaking news and we delievered it. We did not sell it to the highest bidder or make any money off of it at all. That was not the point. We wanted people to know what was going on in Mississippi and they appreciated that. Day one of post-Katrina was almost over. Mike and I made it to Tallahasse, Florida where we finally slept after some 40 hours without meaningful sleep. I'll post part three tomorrow. For those who have not seen it, feel free to view our Katrina segment from the 2005 DVD via our YouTube channel. UPDATED: 9:30 am EST, February 24, 2009 LOOKING BACK AT 10 YEARS OF HISTORY On March 11, 1999, HurricaneTrack.com was born. Next month we will celebrate our 10 year anniversary. I am continuing my look back at the last ten years of this site's history. On March 11, we'll celebrate during a special edition of HurricaneTrack News/Talk. THE KATRINA MISSION Hurricane Katrina was the first time that I would broadcast every moment of the field mission live to the web site. We had worked hard from the beginning of the year to understand and then take advantage of our ability to stream video from the Chevy Tahoe. We also developed remotely operated units to stream live video and weather data. This was an important step for us as we could spread ourselves out and have "virtual storm chasers" placed in areas that were too dangerous for us. Few hurricanes are ever as dangerous as Katrina was. For HurricaneTrack.com, this would be the most important mission to date. I set out from North Carolina on August 24. I began streaming live video the moment I left my driveway. We had to set up the streaming video system as a pay service due to the uncertainties in our costs to produce such video. It was also a new way to generate funding for our work. On August 1 of 2005, we officially launched our subscriber services for people who wanted to follow our missions via a live video/audio feed. To my knowledge, no one had ever tried anything like this- not for hurricanes or any other severe weather reporting. We were going to be live during every waking moment of our work. At the beginning, the response was pretty good. We had about 40 people signed up when I departed for Florida and my first encounter with Katrina. It was immediately evident that the streaming video idea would be a phenomenon all its own. People could not only see and hear my every move, but they could also interact with me through email. I could then talk to them over their computer and address questions that they had. From the first hours of the mission, people were hooked and followed me, off and on, as I drove from Wilmington, NC to Titusville, FL. Katrina was just a tropical storm in the Bahamas. The next day, things would get more intense. On August 25, a Thursday, I continued southward and met up with Mike Watkins in the Ft. Lauderdale area. We made our way over to Deerfield Beach and deployed one of the Storm Case units, complete with a live camera and a Davis weather station. Our contact in Deerfield Beach was Jim Mathie, whom I knew through FEMA's Project Impact program. We worked with him and several of his colleagues to place the remote unit on the pier in Deerfield Beach. Katrina was growing in strength and was almost a hurricane. We had our very first remote camera and weather station operational and it was working very well. Our subscribers were watching a live video feed of the Atlantic Ocean as it rolled in towards the condos that lined the beach. Weather data poured in as well. It was a great moment for us but little did we know what would lie ahead. We had two more units but decided not to worry about deploying them with time running out before Katrina made landfall. Mike and I drove back to the beaches of Ft. Lauderdale and took wind readings- streaming live video the entire time. It was incredible to have people tuning in, watching and listening to our reports, right as they happened. We had established a virtual hurricane mission for dozens of people from all over the country. On the main page of the site, I contiuned to post video updates and text reports of our mission. Just after dark, Katrina made landfal near Miami with the eye passing over the National Hurricane Center itself. Mike and I continued our mission on in to the night and we eventually retrieved the Storm Case from the pier at Deerfield Beach. Tired, we went back to his condo where I dropped him off, rested a bit and then drove west to Naples. I had a good friend there who offered for me to sleep at his house and then use his garage to prepare the equipment for Katrina: part two. On Friday, August 26, I spent most of the day answering emails and working on getting the equipment prepped for the Gulf Coast leg of the mission. Mike went to work for the day and would join me on Saturday. Katrina had pounded south Florida with high winds and flooding rains. While there was plenty of attention paid to the area, fears were quickly mounting along the Central Gulf Coast as Katrina looked to impact that region next. I worked late in to the night Friday to make sure everything was ready. We had three Storm Case units, each with a pair of video cameras and one weather station. We knew Katrina would be a significant hurricane for some place, we had to be ready. On Saturday, August 27, Mike Watkins and I departed Naples and made our way over to the Mississippi coast. We stopped in Gulfport after a good day's drive. Again, all along the way, we interacted with our audience as we streamed the mission continuously. It was a marvel of modern technology and yet it seemed such a simple concept. People embraced it and we had a loyal, dedicated following. After a long, long haul across I-10, we got some much needed sleep in Gulfport. By Sunday morning, August 28, Katrina had become an international news making category five hurricane in the open Gulf, just south of Mississippi and Louisiana. At this point, we knew that lives were going to change forever. We had plans to go over to Waveland, along the western coastline of Mississippi. There we would work with the fire department to set up two of our remote units. We would then shelter at their building, to the north of the rail road tracks that spanned east-west across Mississippi, south of I-10 and north of Hwy 90. The fire chief, David Garcia, mentioned that if the water did not cross the tracks, we should all be okay. I was more worried about the wind than the surge as memories of Charley were still vivid in my head. I had little working knowledge of how bad the surge would be. Still, we had work to do and we scoped out a couple of locations for the two Waveland units: one along Coleman Ave and the other, right at the fire station. We would go back to Gulfport and deploy the third unit at the Urie Pier and then come back to Waveland near dawn on Monday, the 29th. That was the plan. Plans change. I posted updates as often as possible on the main page of the site. My words were strong and I knew that people would be fearing for the lives of their friends and relatives in the area. New Orleans had its own problems to deal with but the main message for the entire region was: get out and get out now. We stayed but had a hotel up near I-10 in Gulfport that would be a good place for shelter. We were not going to be anywhere near the water front. Our remote camera units would do that for us. By late evening, the Gulf had begun to rise and waves were almost crashing over Hwy 90. Mike and I grew quite concerned about Waveland and made the decision not to go there after all. Instead, we would place the three Storm Case units in Gulfport. We set up the first out on the Urie Pier. With it was a Davis weather station. The streaming video from the Tahoe was working flawlessly. For some reason, I could not get it working from the Storm Case unit. After practicing it over and over all summer, nothing seemed to work. The web cam we used as back up for still images worked fine. The Davis data streamed out fine. I just could not get the video to stream like it was supposed to. I knew that the video was being recorded inside the unit, but it was not streaming live. Oh well. We had two more chances to get it right. Katrina was closing in quickly. The wind was picking up now with stinging rain pelting us. The sounds of steel cables lashing against boat masts resonated across the harbor. White caps marched in, one after another, towards the historic city. Out in the open Gulf, waves taller than many buildings in the city were gathering and heading our way- driving the water levels even higher. People listening and watching on the live stream could hear our anxiety and frustrations about the first unit not working 100%. It was a tough night and was only going to get tougher. I'll continue with the Katrina mission tomorrow... UPDATED: 9:10 am EST, February 23, 2009 LOOKING BACK AT 10 YEARS OF HISTORY On March 11, 1999, HurricaneTrack.com was born. Next month we will celebrate our 10 year anniversary. I am continuing my look back at the last ten years of this site's history. On March 11, we'll celebrate during a special edition of HurricaneTrack News/Talk. 2005: THE DAWN OF LIVE VIDEO DURING OUR MISSIONS The 2005 hurricane season is one of the most incredible events in all of weather history. Never before had so many intense hurricanes impacted so many people. For most, the 2005 season will remembered solely because of Katrina. For us, it was everything that had a name that year- from Arlene in early June to Zeta which lasted in to the early days of 2006. Never before was HurricaneTrack.com so busy and it happened just when we tried something new. I'll take a look back at 2005 over the next few days as it is quite a task to summarize the historic season in just a few paragraphs. Let's start at the beginning- with Arlene and our new project: live video. In 2001, we began using a web cam hooked up to our laptop to send images to the site over the Sprint network. At first, it was one picture every five minutes or so. As their network became more robust, we increased the timing to one image a minute. We knew that the next level though would be live video. Imagine if we had live video during our harrowing hurricane Charley experience. What if we had broadcast Ivan's surge live from Gulf Shores? In early 2005, we learned how to do it from some friends of ours at HurricaneCity.com and SunCam.tv. By June, we were ready to test it for a live audience. The season wasted no time and as TS Arlene threatened the central Gulf Coast, Mike Watkins, who had just come on board with us, joined me for a brief mission in the path of the storm. We went to none other than Gulf Shores, Alabama and were quite troubled to see storm surge running up under the houses along the West Beach area. People were obviously still dealing with the aftermath of Ivan- there was no room for any more tropical mischief, not this soon. But here it was- Arlene was not too strong but churned up enough of the Gulf to send the water in to a battered coast line. It was at this point that we tried out the live streaming video idea. I placed the player code on the homepage, made an announcement about it in the commentary that afternoon and streamed live from Gulf Shores for a couple of hours. The response was off the charts. People emailed us in amazement that they could see what we saw as it happened. There was no audio, not yet, but the video worked very well. This was a major milestone in our evolution and we knew we had to improve on it and put it to good use. Over the next few weeks, I worked on building remote versions of the streaming video system using Storm Cases (great name, huh) to house the laptop needed as well as the huge marine battery required to power everything. I figured we could leave one or two of these things out in the elements during severe hurricanes, when we had no business being exposed ourselves. The boxes would stream back live video to the site for us to monitor remotely- from anywhere in the world. Who knew that a month after Arlene, that Dennis would provide another test run? This time, it was Jesse Bass who joined me for the mission. The location- Gulf Shores, Alabama. It seemed that a target had been placed in the region and that there would be no rest for the weary. We contacted our friends with the police department, whom we got to know during Ivan as they were of great assistance to us, and told them we were coming back once again. This time, we had something new to test out and we wanted to be able to share the video stream with their department and other emergency management agencies in the area. Jesse and I arrived plenty early and began scoping out locations to place one of three Storm Case units that I had crudely fashioned between Arlene and Dennis. Everything was set- Dennis strengthened dramatically to nearly a category five monster- we were ready. By dawn of Sunday, July 10, it looked like a terrible situation was about to unfold for the Alabama coast once again. We monitored the hurricane from the Tahoe and were ready to deploy the Storm Case units. As it turned out, Dennis went to the right of its forecast track and did not make landfall in Alabama. In fact, the small core of the hurricane passed some 60 miles to our east- putting us on the off-shore, weaker flow. None the less, we did manage to fire up one unit that was placed in Perdido Key. I remember vividly Jim Williams from HurricaneCity.com showing the live stream on HIS live broadcast. He called me and we went live via phone to talk about conditions. All the while, live video streamed from Perdido Key as hundreds of people watched online. We missed the eye and Gulf Shores was spared, for now. Farther east, Dennis caused significant damage to areas near Navarre Beach. Our project had two successful tests. The hurricane season looked like it would set records- it already had with Dennis. For the next month, in the weeks before Katrina, I worked like a mad scientist in his lab to perfect a system that would be able to withstand enormous forces while transmitting live video and weather data from remotely placed units. I bought a cheap video camera to replace the silent web cam in the Tahoe. Our video stream was about to be joined by audio from the Tahoe. From now on, anything that we saw or heard (or said) would be seen and heard by anyone tuning in. On August 24, 2005, a mission began that would give HurricaneTrack.com a new level of exposure and success as well as redefine our role in providing information. Katrina was still a little more than a day away from the Florida coast and five days away from making history. Tomorrow, I will go back to those fateful days of late August, 2005. UPDATED: 10:20 am EST, February 20, 2009 LOOKING BACK AT 10 YEARS OF HISTORY On March 11, 1999, HurricaneTrack.com was born. Next month we will celebrate our 10 year anniversary. It is hard to believe that it has been almost 10 years already. Over the next several weeks, I will take a look back at the site and its evolution over past decade. A lot has changed with technology and the way we keep the site updated but the one constant has always been this commentary. I will dig up some memorable past commentaries and share them here between now and March 11. Then, that night, the 10 year anniversary of the site, we will resume our popular feature from last year- HurricaneTrack News/Talk with some very special guests as we reflect on the past 10 years. 2004: VIDEO UPDATES, LIVE WEATHER DATA AND THE BIG-4 HURRICANES The 2004 hurricane season will long be remembered for the hurricanes that lashed Florida and Alabama. For us, the '04 season marked a significant step forward in our ability to provide information from the field. We had perfected the art of posting text and even photos in near real time but we wanted to migrate to posting video reports and automated live weather data. Needless to say, we had numerous opportunities that year and took full advantage of them- even during some extremely challenging situations. Hurricane Alex blasted the Outer Banks of North Carolina on August 3, 2004. We were on the scene in Hatteras Village and witnessed an impressive storm surge with winds gusting to over 100 mph. It lasted only for a few hours and then skies cleared- Alex came and went in under a day. Jesse, John and I worked the mission and recorded a series of video reports to post on this site during the latter portion of the hurricane. Those reports were posted here within an hour of recording them- providing our visitors with more than just a written account of what the area had been through. This marked the beginning of a whole new era for us as we could now function on a new level- not having to wait until after we returned home to post video clips. Just 10 days later, we would find ourselves posting video reports from southwest Florida where hurricane Charley was about to unleash its full fury. By the time we departed for Florida for TS Bonnie, which preceded Charley by about a day and a half, we had a prototype program to test from my long time friend and our web programmer, Jason Secosky. The program would capture the wind data from our RM Young data logger (to measure wind) and send it to the site. This was important to us as we wanted the system to be automated and updating every minute. There were commercially available programs that would accomplish a similar task but we wanted our own customized system. Charley gave us a chance to test things out. The Charley mission could be its own book, maybe one day I will write about it. For now, the short version is that the cat-4 hurricane gave us the scare of a lifetime. After being ready for the hurricane near Bradenton Beach, we learned of its surprise turn towards Charlotte Harbor. We had to abandon our plans which included sheltering with local officials, etc. and providing them with real-time weather data. So off we went to the Port Charlotte area along I-75 and an encounter that changed us in profound ways. We posted regular video updates throughout the day of Friday, August 13 as our mission changed with each advisory from the NHC. We had thousands of people following our reports on the site but surprisingly, no media had called upon us to speak of. I think most of the major networks were staked out in Tampa and were not able to move as swiftly as we could to reposition. None the less, the site was extremely busy with traffic from folks wanting to know the very latest on Charley's effects on Florida. Emails streamed in constantly and it was tough to keep up. The hurricane struck with a ferocity that I have not seen before or since. We survived but were shaken up by the shear force of the category four hurricane. As conditions improved, we continued to post reports about the experience and then took off towards Orlando for another meeting with Charley. We caught up again with the core of the decaying hurricane near Lake Monroe- this time at night. Along the way, we took numerous wind readings and forwarded them to the NHC and NOAA's Hurricane Research Division. After a marathon day of dealing with Charley, we finally called it a night once it reached the Atlantic near Daytona Beach. The next day, we raced back to North Carolina after just missing Charley's landfall in Brunswick county- where my office is. It was an incredible event and once again demonstrated the power of the web site and its ability to keep people informed with more than just descriptions of what was going on. Next up was hurricane Gaston in South Carolina. It was not much more than a step between Charley and Frances but Jesse and I worked the mission along the Isle of Palms in SC and then north towards Bulls Bay. We posted reports and video clips as well as ran the web cam- providing periodic snap shots of the world outside the Tahoe. Labor Day 2004 was ruined by hurricane Frances. Floridians would evacuate in huge numbers for the once extremely dangerous category four hurricane. Frances nearly stalled and then dramatically weakened just a day or so before landfall near Stuart, Florida. We were ready with an entirely new experiment- a fully automated, unmanned weather station, also known as the Isuzu Rodeo. The plan was to convert it in to a drone, if you will, and load it up with instrumentation such as video cameras and weather gear. The idea was to then leave it out in even the most dangerous hurricane- allowing it to take a beating while we retreat to safety indoors. It was an odd idea, I realize, but we had no further use of the Isuzu at this point since the Tahoe was our work horse. With a few modifications, including a bight-yellow paint job to make the vehicle stand out in case we "lost it", we were ready for Frances. Throughout the summer of 2004, our programmer Jason worked hard to develop our automated weather reporting system and after testing it during Alex and Charley, it was ready for the public to view during Frances. We would now offer our visitors written updates, a live web cam picture, video reports and now live weather data. All of this would be delivered entirely over Sprint's network. The age of wireless Internet was nothing short of a miracle in my opinion and were just beginning to tap its vast potential. We set up the Isuzu at Sewell's Point between Stuart and Hutchinson Island. With the flick of a few switches, we powered up the equipment and began transmitting data late in the afternoon of September 4th. All went fairly well considering it was our first attempt during real-world hurricane conditions. The system remained powered for a good 12 hours or so and collected and transmitted data and images throughout the duration of the landfall. There were some bugs to work out but all in all, we had a successful deployment of what we termed the Hurricane Landfall Project. The next and final mission for the Isuzu would come just two weeks later- along the shores of Alabama's coast. With Florida feeling quite battered by two hurricanes in less than a month, hurricane Ivan was not what anyone wanted to see coming at the Sunshine State. This time, the peninsula would be spared but the extreme western panhandle took a beating as the category three hurricane plowed ashore at Gulf Shores, Alabama. The storm surge was immense and devasted Gulf Shores and points east in to Florida. John and I worked the mission and had major success in deploying the Isuzu right in the center of the hurricane. Again, this could also be its own book, but to summarize, we had a great plan in place and executed it flawlessly. Along the way, we once again used the web site to post important information, video reports and of course, live web cam pics. We deployed the Isuzu-turned-weather-station along the beach front in Gulf Shores- directly behind what was once the Paviliion area. Just hours before dark, we fired up the computers, the weather instruments and the cameras and left the small SUV to face Ivan alone. Even during the peak storm surge, the equipment continued to operate and send data. We recorded winds to 114 mph and a pressure of 947 millibars. The on-board cameras captured the surge inundating the resort town. Darkness overtook- rendering the cameras useless, but the weather data kept pouring in. Late the next day, after skies had cleared and the rain had departed, we waded through nearly waist-deep surge flooding to retrieve the Storm Case that housed the recording equipment. It was similar to searching for a flight data recorder and the information would prove to be quite important. It matched up well with other data collected by sophisticated radar operated by Dr. Josh Wurman from the Center for Severe Weather Research. We also recovered the video tapes from the cameras and had a chance to study the evolution of the surge like never before. The Isuzu was totalled for the most part. I had it towed back to North Carolina and sold it on eBay to help fund some of 2005's projects. People in Gulf Shores still talk about the little yellow truck that took a stand against Ivan. They even show a video about it at the local museum. For us, it was proof once again that using remote sensing technology was the better way to conduct dangerous hurricane field work. Success was nice but the hurricane season was not finished- not just yet. Headlines in some Florida papers stated NOT AGAIN!!! as hurricane Jeanne moved towards the peninsula. Eddie Smith and I took up the challenge of our 5th hurricane mission of the season. We had little energy but gave it our all in the Vero Beach area. Jeanne was a strong hurricane but a lot of damage had already been done by Frances. We recorded wind speeds in the upper 80s but had to do it using the Chevy Tahoe only since the Isuzu was completely out of commission in the wake of Ivan. We wrapped things up for the year and left a hurricane-weary Florida behind. HurricaneTrack.com was now visited by more than a million people from around the world. For our tiny corner of the Internet, this was a great accomplishment. Lowe's and Sprint provided us with the funding and the technology to accomplish goals that seemed unreachable just a few years prior. We learned how to do things better and safer. The next huge leap would occur in 2005- a year that re-defined what America thinks about hurricanes. I'll tackle that monster season in several parts beginning on Monday. UPDATED: 9:10 am EST, February 19, 2009 LOOKING BACK AT 10 YEARS OF HISTORY On March 11, 1999, HurricaneTrack.com was born. Next month we will celebrate our 10 year anniversary. It is hard to believe that it has been almost 10 years already. Over the next several weeks, I will take a look back at the site and its evolution over past decade. A lot has changed with technology and the way we keep the site updated but the one constant has always been this commentary. I will dig up some memorable past commentaries and share them here between now and March 11. Then, that night, the 10 year anniversary of the site, we will resume our popular feature from last year- HurricaneTrack News/Talk with some very special guests as we reflect on the past 10 years. 2003: CLAUDETTE AND ISABEL At the end of 2002, I met with the folks at Lowe's HQ who oversaw my contract each year. We agreed we should beef up our preparedness efforts and try to visit more cities in our "hurricane fair tour" schedule for 2003. To do this, and to accomplish other important goals, I asked if they could fund a new vehicle for our efforts. They gladly accepted. With their tie-in to NASCAR, I figured a Chevy Tahoe would be quite appropriate. Lowe's agreed and in February of 2003, the Isuzu Rodeo was upstaged by our flagship Tahoe. In late May, for the Coca-Cola 600 in Concord, Lowe's had me join the parade lap around the track at the Speedway. It was a proud moment and allowed me to introduce a lot of people to our project. The hurricane season had not even begun yet but we were anticipating a big year. In mid-July, I hopped aboard a jet in Myrtle Beach, SC with a bag packed with an entire functioning weather station, a laptop, a web cam and other essentials needed to chase a hurricane. This would be one of the rare times that I would actually have to chase down a hurricane in order to study it. Claudette was not expected to do much but overcame strong wind shear to become a hurricane on July 15. I made plans to fly in to Houston, rent an SUV and head south to intercept it. All went well and I executed a great plan with a mobile version of what would normally be on the Tahoe. Along the way, I posted updates on the site, similar to what Twitter allows now, and kept our followers informed as often as possible. I managed to get in position for the hurricane as it struck Victoria, TX after making landfall just to their east. I fashioned a 3 foot mast system from hardware I retrieved at the Lowe's in Victoria and was able to take reliable wind readings for several hours. Many of these readings I forwarded to the NHC the moment I recorded them. The next afternoon, I flew home. The Claudette mission was as smooth as could be expected and proved to me that if need be, I could do the field work without the Tahoe. Next came Isabel- the only other significant hurricane to affect the U.S. in 2003. Believe me, for those who lived it, they know it was an event that they will remember for years to come. Isabel made landfall in eastern North Carolina along the southern Outer Banks area and then moved in to the Mid-Atlantic states with considerable damage from storm surge and wind. Even Washington, D.C. was not spared as the Potomac swelled with surge pushed deep in to the region from the massive hurricane. I was in Atlantic Beach, NC working with Jesse Bass and John Van Pelt. We had more technology to put to use and also had our own CNN team following our every move. Once again, Jeff Flock from CNN would work with my crew and me as we covered Isabel's impact on the East Coast. This time, Jeff had his own crew dedicated 100% to shadowing Jesse, John and me. We began Monday afternoon, September 15 in Wrightsville Beach. I went live with Jeff at their satellite truck for the 5pm Wolf Blitzer show. Isabel was a top story and gaining attention. Not since Floyd had a hurricane of this magnitude threatened the entire East Coast. Remember, Isabel was at one point a solid category five hurricane and remained thay way for quite a while. This had people from Maine to Florida paying close attention. Of course, I posted frequent updates to the site and had begun making plans for where we would intercept the hurricane once it reached the East Coast. By the time that Monday rolled around, we knew it would be somewhere in North Carolina but the exact location was still unclear. I went on with Jeff during Wolf's show and we talked about the mission at hand. I pointed out some of the equipment we would use and made note of the fact that people could follow our progress via HurricaneTrack.com and our live web cam- plus our reports (now it's called blogging). Little did I know that after that one interview, the media would seek us out like never before. HurricaneTrack.com was about to go global. Throughout the next three days, CNN covered Isabel with us from Atlantic Beach. We thought seriously about Cape Hatteras but realized it might be too risky considering the enormous waves and surge that Isabel was pushing ahead of itself. This turned out to be a very smart decision as we could have easily been stuck out there for days and could have lost our vehicles- or worse. We took our stand along the beaches of the Crystal Coast and as Isabel closed in, we would take wind readings and post reports on the site. Once again, the Sprint network was our most powerful tool. Using an updated air card that they had provided to us, we were able to keep track of every tiny piece of information that came out regarding Isabel and its movements, strength and the latest in watch/warning info. Often, we would relay this up to the second data directly to CNN- allowing them a jump on other media with breaking news. It was an amazing time. We received calls from the Washington Post about the web site and our use of Sprint's technology to keep the site updated even under harsh conditions. Media outlets from Ireland and Germany called on us as well. My phone was never silent. Through it all, we managed to keep posting information, wind readings and other updates and now had a following of millions of people throughout the world. Isabel was our Superbowl up to that point. The hurricane made landfall just to our north, not even 30 miles away, and kept us on the weaker, offshore flow. Farther up the coast along the northern Outer Banks, friend and colleague Jim Edds was capturing amazing footage from the surging Atlantic Ocean. Other chasers and photographers would also deal with Isabel along the same area. It was a big story and the hurricane had quite an impact on most of the Mid-Atlantic and points north. Isabel set the bar for us and the site. We now had our largest audience ever. A lot of people would follow HurricaneTrack.com from here on out. They were hooked. Our style of on-site reporting coupled with the daily commentary, preparedness tips and other resources meant that people had another portal for hurricane information that was a mix of news, science and adventure. All of our skills and everthing we thought we knew about hurricanes would be put to the test during the 2004 season- to be covered extensively tomorrow. For now, check out the links below for more info on our Isabel mission. Post-Isabel summary Excellent write-up and photos from Jesse's site UPDATED: 10:15 am EST, February 17, 2009 LOOKING BACK AT 10 YEARS OF HISTORY On March 11, 1999, HurricaneTrack.com was born. Next month we will celebrate our 10 year anniversary. It is hard to believe that it has been almost 10 years already. Over the next several weeks, I will take a look back at the site and its evolution over past decade. A lot has changed with technology and the way we keep the site updated but the one constant has always been this commentary. I will dig up some memorable past commentaries and share them here between now and March 11. Then, that night, the 10 year anniversary of the site, we will resume our popular feature from last year- HurricaneTrack News/Talk with some very special guests as we reflect on the past 10 years. 2002: ISIDORE AND LILI HIGHLIGHT FIRST FULL YEAR WORKING WITH LOWE'S AND SPRINT After a great first year of major corporate support from Lowe's and Sprint, 2002 was setting up to be even more exciting as new opportunities arose in the world of hurricane preparedness and field reporting. The site was continuing its climb in popularity among people all over the world who like to keep watch of what is going on in the tropics. There was not much activity to deal with until late September when hurricane Isisdore threatened to be a potentially historic event for Louisiana. Fortunately, the large and powerful hurricane buried itself over the Yucatan and never regained much intensity before finally making landfall in southern Louisiana. Jesse Bass and I set up in Gulfport, Mississippi to record wind readings and shoot video. We used our wireless Internet from Sprint to relay information as fast as we could to the NHC. We also posted reports on this site which was very busy with people concerned about the storm. It was my first encounter with a Gulf Coast storm and it was impressive to say the least. I have posted a links to my video of Isisdore as well as Jesse Bass' write up from his site. In early October hurricane Lili came calling after tracking through the Caribbean Sea. I took off for Louisiana after only a few days' rest from the Isidore mission. I was joined by John Van Pelt who runs the StormStudy project in Raleigh, NC. It was our first mission together after we met earlier in the summer while at a Lowe's hurricane fair in Raleigh. We had little idea of what we were in for once reaching Morgan City- our target area for working the Lili mission. Over the course of the day of October 2nd, Lili underwent rapid intensification and became a deadly category four hurricane. I received phone calls from friends and colleagues back home and within FEMA who urged us to leave the area for fear that the storm surge would inundate Morgan City and place our lives in grave danger. It was the first time I had ever been nervous about my safety. We were working with my friend Jeff Flock from CNN once again and even his crew was not sure about remaining in Morgan City for Lili. We decided to get some sleep and when first light arrived, if Lili was still a cat-4, we would leave and go to Lafayette or Baton Rouge. Luck was on our side and Lili weakened almost as dramatically as it had strengthened the day before. By the time it made landfall near Avery Island, it was a shadow of its former self- a welcomed relief for many in Louisiana. None the less, the mission was not without its problems. The anemometer struck a telephone wire near New Iberia just as John and I turned off of Hwy 90 to head south to Avery Island. I had a camera running inside of a speical housing on the roof of the SUV and captured the incident in all its glory. I'll never forget the sound it made when we hit the wire and bent the pole nearly 45 degrees. The $850 anemometer was in three pieces on the road. The wind was howling and the rain was stinging as we got out and picked up the shattered remains of the high-tech instrument. I was somehow able to keep my cool. What good would it do to throw a fit about a mistake like that? Stuff happens when you are dealing with one of the most powerful forces on the planet. We proceeded with the mission and remained in the New Iberia area for the duration of the hurricane. I reported as much info as I could on the site but without the anemometer, I had little in the way of useful data. It was a shame but a lesson learned. I felt forunate that Lili weakened like it did, otherwise John and I could have been in serious peril. This was the first of what would be several encounters with Gulf Coast hurricanes in the years to come. Lili marked the end of the hurricane threat for 2002 and thus ended another chapter of this site's history. We had come a long way since Dennis and Floyd in 1999 where we had to rely on hotel room phone connections for sending and receiving information. HurricaneTrack.com was growing at a major pace and our innovations were just beginning. The Isuzu Rodeo that we were using as our work vehicle was getting a little worn out. My relationship with Lowe's was strengthening and it was time for a step up. In 2003, we would take that step and have CNN with us for every moment of what would be the biggest threat to the East Coast since Floyd: Isabel. Tomorrow, I'll recap that amazing week that put HurricaneTrack.com out in the mainstream media like never before. TS Isidore from Gulfport, MS via our YouTube channel Jesse Bass' write-up on our Isidore mission from his site Hurricane Lili via our YouTube channel- watch for when we hit the telephone wire! UPDATED: 9:45 am EST, February 16, 2009 LOOKING BACK AT 10 YEARS OF HISTORY On March 11, 1999, HurricaneTrack.com was born. Next month we will celebrate our 10 year anniversary. It is hard to believe that it has been almost 10 years already. Over the next several weeks, I will take a look back at the site and its evolution over past decade. A lot has changed with technology and the way we keep the site updated but the one constant has always been this commentary. I will dig up some memorable past commentaries and share them here between now and March 11. Then, that night, the 10 year anniversary of the site, we will resume our popular feature from last year- HurricaneTrack News/Talk with some very special guests as we reflect on the past 10 years. 2001: LOWE'S AND SPRINT ERAS BEGIN In late 2000, I received a phone call from Lowe's corporate HQ in North Wilkesboro, NC (where they were located at the time) asking about some of my work in hurricane preparedness. This lead to more conversations and by February of 2001, I had a face to face meeting with several key people at Lowe's with my long time friend and web programmer, Jason Secosky. We laid out a plan to use HurricaneTrack.com as an active portal for hurricane information, preparedness tips and updates during the season when hurricanes threatened the coast. Within a few weeks of that meeting, I had a signed contract with one of the biggest retailers in the country and we began a new era of hurricane preparedness efforts. With the funding, I was able to add several enhancements to the site and also begin our hurricane preparedness tours. In May of 2001, we visited Victoria, Texas as part of a series of "hurricane fairs" that were held across the Southeast and Gulf Coast states. From there, we traveled to New Orleans, Mobile, Tampa, Naples, Jensen Beach, Virginia Beach and many other locations in the Carolinas. It was a dream come true for me as I was able to use my knowledge of hurricanes to help others understand what they were up against and how best to plan ahead. By early summer, I really began looking harder at the possibilities of using my cell phone as a modem. I knew there had to be way. Again, I turned to my friend Jason for advice. He lived in Cary, NC and worked for SAS Institue. He informed me that he believed Speint offered a way to tether your phone to a laptop and gain access to the Internet at around 14.4kbps. I was skeptical but somewhat hopefull as, if this were true, it would be a major game changer for my work. I went to my local Sprint store and indeed they offered a Sanyo bar phone (as they are called) with a serial cable and software to use the phone as a modem. Within minutes of returning home and installing everything, I tried out the phone and dialed up the NHC's web site for starters. It loaded and history was made. While I am certainly not the first person who ever used a cell phone as a modem, for me it was major. This meant I could access radar, NHC reports AND update the web site anywhere that Sprint had covereage. As it turned out, their footprint covered just about any place I might be for a hurricane. Now, all I needed was a chance to put this technology to use. While all of these other great things were happening with my business, I also had the fortune of meeting Jesse Bass. It's a long story, enough for a book by now, believe me, but the short of it is that he knew all about HurricaneTrack.com and had purchased a few posters from our store. We met in Wilmington at a huge hurricane expo. Ever since, we have been friends and colleagues. His photography was what intrigued me as I needed someone to take pictures and video during our field missions while I worked on data collection and updating the web site. Jesse was eager and quite willing. In early August, we had our first mission together. Jesse drove down to Wilmington from Portsmouth, VA on Saturday, August 4th. We then took off in the early afternoon for Florida's panhandle. After an all night trek (something that would become quite the norm for us), we reached the Destin area right around sunrise on the 5th. We took some incredible time lapse video of the strengthening storm. All along the way, we were able to access the latest reports from the NHC and keep track of Barry's progress. I was also able to post updates on the site as often as I wanted to. The only downside was that I could not use the phone as a phone when it was being used for data transmission. I thought about getting another phone just to use as a modem. Fate intervened and the problem was solved. During the Barry mission, a crew from NBC's Today Show stopped us and did an interview. It aired the next morning, Monday, August 6. Kerry Sanders did the piece and narration for our story and for about a second, they showed the Sprint phone tethered to the laptop- and mentioned the info going to HurricaneTrack.com. Some 40,000 people visited the site immediately following that interview. One of them worked for Sprint. You guess it, the rest is history. I received an email from someone at Sprint within a few days of returning home and told them more about what we do. They offered a sponsorship that included phones and a PC card that would take the place of my bar phone for use as a modem. We were now technologically enabled like I had never thought possible. Even during TS Barry, we used the phone to transmit real-time data to the NHC; relaying wind and pressure data from several locations along the panhandle. Having an air-card would make things even easier. By early November, on my birthday in fact, Jesse and I had a chance to head out again. This time it was for category four hurricane Michelle which had the potential of impacting the Keys and Florida's west coast. One model, the GFDL, kept "insisting" that Michelle would take a more northerly course and affect Naples or Ft. Myers- after crushing the Keys first. The other major models showed a turn to the northeast with most impacts being felt in Cuba and the Bahamas. This is what happened but we took a chance and went south to Islamorada just in case. It was a good mission and we were able to test out our equipment and added a web cam to the line up. At about once every 5 minutes, we sent up a live image from the Isuzu to HurricaneTrack.com. People could now at least get a glimpse of what we were seeing- even if it were via only a small, grainy web cam image. For us, it was about staying connected. We pulled in more and more people to our site. With the regularity of our updates, people knew that we would be on top of it. Emails of thanks and praise poured in. We had a fan base that was growing and proven success with our field work. Lowe's was happy with our work and the media coverage that we received. Sprint was now on board and was very excited about our use of their technology within this type of work. The site was just three years old but had become a favorite among hurricane watchers and general weather enthusiasts alike. No hurricanes hit the United States in 2000 or 2001. That would change during the 2002 season and give us our first dose of the reality of Gulf Coast hurricanes. I'll cover that tomorrow. A look at the web site's homepage in May of 2001. Click for full-size version. There is also a video piece showcasing our work in 2001 linked below. Video montage of our work from 2001 UPDATED: 9:00 am EST, February 13, 2009 LOOKING BACK AT 10 YEARS OF HISTORY On March 11, 1999, HurricaneTrack.com was born. Next month we will celebrate our 10 year anniversary. It is hard to believe that it has been almost 10 years already. Over the next several weeks, I will take a look back at the site and its evolution over past decade. A lot has changed with technology and the way we keep the site updated but the one constant has always been this commentary. I will dig up some memorable past commentaries and share them here between now and March 11. Then, that night, the 10 year anniversary of the site, we will resume our popular feature from last year- HurricaneTrack News/Talk with some very special guests as we reflect on the past 10 years. 2000: HURRICANE GORDON The year 2000 was known more for its "Y2K" issues than for hurricane impacts on the U.S. None the less, there was one that I had a chance to encounter along the west coast of Florida- in Cedar Key. It's name was Gordon. I worked the mission with Eddie Smith and we both pulled an all-nighter to reach Gainesville, FL where we were able to get a few hours' rest before heading over to Cedar Key. We used the dial-up Internet once again in our hotel room for the latest reports on where Gordon was expected to make landfall. At this point, Gordon was a minimal hurricane but expected to weaken some as shear and dry air took their toll. We decided that Cedar Key would be the best location to record wind readings, etc. and so on we pressed- reaching the coast in the early afternoon of September 17. Eddie and I remained out on Cedar Key for several hours; well past dark. Gordon moved in on us and provided a spectacular display of wind and waves. As it turned out, many other storm chasers converged on this same spot as well. Among them, Jim Edds, now a good friend of mine. We met for the first time in that event and have been working with each other ever since. As night fell, the action picked up and the Gulf of Mexico came to life- putting large waves in to the small sea-wall and parking lot area of Cedar Key. I noted wind readings and the pressure fall as Gordon approached. I remember I had to phone home to my wife via cell phone and get her to post updates in text format on the site. It was slow and frustating but it did get the job done. Fortunately, this would be the last time I would ever have to work blind, so to speak. By the summer of 2001, wireless Internet would be put in to play. I'll review that fateful year on Monday. Hurricane Gordon in Cedar Key, Florida UPDATED: 8:50 am EST, February 12, 2009 LOOKING BACK AT 10 YEARS OF HISTORY On March 11, 1999, HurricaneTrack.com was born. Next month we will celebrate our 10 year anniversary. It is hard to believe that it has been almost 10 years already. Over the next several weeks, I will take a look back at the site and its evolution over past decade. A lot has changed with technology and the way we keep the site updated but the one constant has always been this commentary. I will dig up some memorable past commentaries and share them here between now and March 11. Then, that night, the 10 year anniversary of the site, we will resume our popular feature from last year- HurricaneTrack News/Talk with some very special guests as we reflect on the past 10 years. Hurricane Floyd On September 16, 1999, hurricane Floyd made landfall along the SE North Carolina coast as a category two hurricane. It created one of the largest evacuations in U.S. history and helped to re-shape the way such evacuations are handled even today. From Florida to Georgia and the Carolinas, Floyd posed a significant threat as a very strong category four hurricane. I remember it like it was yesterday. After the success of our hurricane Dennis field work and the exposure I received on CNN, I was eager to tackle the much more fiersome hurricane Floyd. I was busy with several projects within my core business of hurricane awareness and preparedness work and this allowed me to meet and consequently team up with Eddie Smith who was working for New Hanover county's emergency management department. He had great interest in what I was doing with the field program and arranged to go with me to Florida to intercept Floyd if in fact it came close enough to do so. We drove to Savannah, GA first where we managed to get a few hours of sleep. The next day, September 14, we went on to Jacksonville, FL and teamed up with CNN again. The frustrations of using dial-up to remain up to date on information was mounting. By this time I was also posting updates on the site as often as possible- but here again, we're talking one or two posts a day at best. We would have to use a borrowed laptop and dial-up Internet in our hotel room or where ever we could get a reliable landline phone connection. It was tough. After spending the night of the 14th in Jacksonville, it was clear that Floyd was going to hit farther north. On the 15th, we departed our hotel just after dawn and hit I-95 to head back to North Carolina. There was not a single vehicle other than ours (that we saw) on the Interstate. We passed back through Savannah via US 17 and it was a ghost town. I'll never forget that nor will the people who endured the hours of evacuation traffic. Those scenes were repeated for people leaving Charleston and Wilmington. Highways were clogged with hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the coast all at once. Floyd was a blockbuster hurricane and it had all of the East Coast on high alert. Our timing was such that by the late afternoon hours of September 15, everyone had cleared out. We had the highways to ourselves and made our way back up the coast along Hwy 17. Myrtle Beach was empty- like nothing I have ever seen before, or since. We reached Wilmington just before dark and already the flooding had commenced from the torrential rains that had been falling for at least a day. Eddie jumped off to re-group with emergency management officials and I checked in to get a pass to head out to Wrightsville Beach for observations. By early evening, Jamie Arnold, my friend from Charlotte, had arrived and joined me for the last hours before Floyd's landfall. We made our way out to Wrightsville Beach at around 9pm or so that evening. We remained on the beach all night and recorded wind and storm surge. It was an awesome experience. I was able to phone in reports to the NWS office in Wilmington as well as talk directly to the emergency operations center (EOC) for the county. I quickly realized the importance of intelligent information and its significance in dealing with hurricanes. I also spoke to several radio stations who had contacted me. Being able to relay wind readings, pressure information and what I was seeing with my own eyes was rewarding. I did not want to just be out there for the sake of it. Anyone can do that if they really want to. I wanted to contribute to the science and the public's awareness of what was really going on along Wrightsville Beach. The communications I had with the various agencies and media outlets was further proof that there was a need for this kind of work. After Floyd made landfall and put a sizeable surge across the area, Jamie and I made our way off the island and began to realize the other disaster was about to unfold. Within a day or so of Floyd's impact on North Carolina, the epic flooding had become national news. Most of eastern North Carolina was inundated by an overland surge of water from the relentless rains of Dennis and Floyd combined. I traveled inland to document what I could but found it extremely difficult to move around. Bridges were washing out and roads were cut off everywhere. None the less, I continued to roll tape and make notes of what was going on. I would then go back to my home and update the site with pictures and reports. I did what I could but wished beyond anything else that I had a way to update the site from the field. That was coming- for now, year one of HurricaneTrack.com was a success. Floyd taught me the importance of the information I was gathering. It also showed me how dangerous hurricanes can be and that they are more than just something we see on the news. Lives are affected and even lost. This was real. I was ready and planned on doing more with the site during the 2000 hurricane season which I will cover tomorrow. Below is a link to my hurricane Floyd video on my YouTube channel as well as the archived log of updates just as they were in 1999. Before there was Twitter or blogging, per se, we were making short, consistent updates to this site- 10 years ago. Who knew it would catch on? :-) Hurricane Floyd video from 1999 Our hurricane Floyd mission log with photos exactly as it looked 10 years ago UPDATED: 8:30 am EST, February 11, 2009 IN A MONTH- HURRICANETRACK.COM TURNS 10 On March 11, 1999, HurricaneTrack.com was born. Next month we will celebrate our 10 year anniversary. It is hard to believe that it has been almost 10 years already. Over the next several weeks, I will take a look back at the site and its evolution over past decade. A lot has changed with technology and the way we keep the site updated but the one constant has always been this commentary. I will dig up some memorable past commentaries and share them here between now and March 11. Then, that night, the 10 year anniversary of the site, we will resume our popular feature from last year- HurricaneTrack News/Talk with some very special guests as we reflect on the past 10 years. The beginning HurricaneTrack.com was first called Hurricane99.com since it was the year 1999 when I began the site. I knew I wanted a web site where I could post information about hurricane preparedness, tracking maps and reports from any field missions that I would undertake to study hurricanes and tropical storms at landfall. I posted my first commentary in early June of 1999 when TS Arlene formed and got the season off to a quick start. Later in the summer, hurricane Dennis formed off the Florida coast and moved up towards the Carolinas. I had my first "hurricane chasing" SUV ready to go with a roof-mounted anemometer and other weather gear to measure Dennis' effects. I posted my plans for tracking Dennis on the site and just by shear chance, a CNN producer in Los Angeles happened upon it. She contacted me and asked if they could tag along with me while I intercepted the hurricane along the coast. She said that CNN veteran hurricane reporter Jeff Flock would be working with me. A couple of days later, we all met up in Charleston, SC and tracked Dennis up the coast to its closest approach to the Cape Fear region near Carolina Beach. Along the way, I recieved updates via cell phone on the hurricane's position and strength from my friend Jamie Arnold who was still in school at UNC-Charlotte (he is now a TV meteorologist in South Carolina). I went live on CNN several times with Jeff Flock and perhaps, just perhaps, for the first time ever on national TV, we had live wind readings from a decent anemometer (a Davis instruments model) to provide up to the second data- even though it was only 8 feet off the ground and in a parking lot of a condo. None the less, it was incredible to be able to share this information live and bring back video from the area to also share via CNN. I remember I had to borrow a laptop from UNC-Wilmigton's physics dept with the help of my good friend Dr. Brian Davis. I accessed the Internet using dial-up in the condo that CNN had rented out for the hurricane. In fact, they were in this exact same condo for hurricane Bertha just three years earlier. I checked radar and reports from the NHC and passed along real time info to Jeff and CNN as often as possible. I was not able to update the site like I do now but did post reports and photos after Dennis passed by the region. Several days later, Dennis made a loop and came back towards North Carolina for its eventual landfall. I traveled out to near Cedar Island, NC with Dr. Brian Davis to take wind readings and shoot video. I posted the info on the site immediately upon returning home later that night. It was Sunday, Septmeber 5, 1999. Just a few days later, hurricane Floyd sprung to life and changed the way Southeast evacuations are handled forever. Tomorrow, I will take a look back at Floyd and how it changed things for not only how mass evacuations were handled, but the website and my career. I have posted a video clip showing my very first CNN piece from hurricane Dennis in 1999. I rarely talk about my media appearances but this was a classic and I wanted to share it. This had a huge impact on me in terms of what I thought was possible in providing the media with hurricane information. The most important aspect is this- had there been no web site, CNN would never have found me. My how fate intervenes. Enjoy the clip and if you remember seeing this, send me an email, I would love to hear from folks who have been following our work since the beginning. UPDATED: 9:30 am EST, February 9, 2009 SO FAR, NO EL NINO IN SIGHT One of the key indicators of how active an Atlantic hurricane season might be is the sea surface temperature pattern in the Pacific. During warmer then normal periods, or El Ninos, there tends to be greater amounts of wind shear across the tropical Atlantic- thus reducing the numbers and intensities of Atlantic hurricanes. The opposite is typical of years when sea surface temps are cooler than average across the tropical Pacific. It is interesting to note, however, that years such as 2005 had a neutral overall signal in the Pacific; it was the Atlantic that was well above normal in the sea surface temperature department. So what are conditions like thus far in 2009? The latest anomaly map from NOAA/NESDIS shows a fairly cool plume of sea surface temps across most of the Equatorial Pacific. There appeared to be slight warming taking place until just recently and as of today, an obvious La Nina pattern exists in the Pacific. There are many complicated factors involved with such huge oceanic features and the forces that drive them but to boil it down, there appears to be only a slight chance, if at all, of an El Nino forming in the Pacific between now and later in the summer. Note too that the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico are not running too much above normal either. There is still a lot of time and seasonal variations to take in to account between now and June- and more importantly, August/September. It is just something to monitor in the off-season. I have posted a link to the latest anomaly map from NOAA/NESDIS below. UPDATED: 10:30 am EST, February 2, 2009 HURRICANE IKE MISSION THE MOST SUCCESSFUL YET FOR US As I finish up the series of reports on our 2008 field missions, it is appropriate that Ike will be the ending chapter- so to speak. Before there was Ike, however, we had to deal with Hanna, a much less extraordinary event for the Carolinas. Hanna- September 5-6, North Carolina and South Carolina Jesse Bass and I braced for Hanna which had the potential of being a very dangerous hurricane for the Southeast United States. Fortunately, the conditions just did not allow the former hurricane to regain much intensity although Hanna killed many people on Haiti due to its excessive rains. We tracked Hanna through Friday, September 5 and in to the early morning hours of September 6. Our mission began in Southport, NC and ended up in Myrtle Beach. We intercepted the center near Little River, SC around 3:15 am ET, September 6. It was not much of an event and we recorded wind gusts in the 50s with pressure readings of about 985 millibars as the center came ashore. The track of Hanna was such that a good deal of eastern North Carolina felt tropical storm conditions as the storm raced off to the northeast and just offshore of New England. We were lucky here along the Carolina coast- had Hanna been a powerful hurricane, the angle of approach would have put an enormous storm surge in to Brunswick county, similar to what Hazel did in 1954. As it stands, Hanna will be remembered more for its lethal effects in Haiti. Hurricane Ike- September 12-13, Galveston, Texas I was not sure Ike would ever hit the United States. Most of the U.S. based computer models showed the hurricane making landfall near or just south of Brownsville, TX after its passage over Cuba. This was not the case for the ECMWF model or Euro which consistently showed Ike turning more towards the upper Texas coast. That is in fact what eventually happened and Mike Watkins and I were there for the results. We departed our respective homes in North Carolina and Florida on September 10. We made our way across I-10 and spent the night in Gulfport, MS. Along the way, Ike's outer rainbands were bringing us rain showers. The immensity of the hurricane was something to behold and on Thursday, September 11, we would see yet more examples of this power. After some rest in Gulfport, we took off to continue heading west for Texas. We decided to check out Hwy 90 along the Mississippi coast and are glad we did. The water levels being pushed ahead of Ike were enough to inundate portions of the highway. Once we crossed St. Louis Bay and reached Waveland, the surge was even higher- flooding many low-lying homes and closing many roads. It was an ominous sign of things to come and we knew it. We traveled onward and reached Galveston by early evening. Our plan was to work with CNN again and they helped us with accomodations and other logistics. We had with us enough equipment to spread out across Galveston Island and record the event like never before. I had scoped out some potential locations back in 2007 to place a remote camera unit should a bad hurricane ever threaten the area. Little did I know that I would be putting that info to use so soon. After spending some time along the sea wall talking with people, Mike and I drove westward beyond the safety of the wall to plot out where we would put our camera units. Enough people had evacuated so that traffic was not much of an issue. We reached the bay side, made some notes about where the first unit would go on Friday morning and then went over to the Gulf side. This is where things became quite concerning. As we pulled down the street towards the beach access walk way, we saw water in the cul-de-sac. We jumped out of the Tahoe and realized immediately that the Gulf had already eaten away the dunes and was lapping up against the stairs and back sides of homes- more than 24 hours before Ike would make landfall. None the less, we took notes on this second location and then went back to the hotel for some sleep. That would not happen yet- in just a matter of a few hours, the water level rose enough to allow the waves to begin crashing up and over the sea wall. We shot some video, updated the website with this information and finally turned in for the night. Just after sunrise on Septemeber 12, we awoke with a different world outside. The waves from the Gulf were blasting like geysers all along the sea wall. Thousands of people along the roughly 10 mile wall were gawking in utter amazement. This was perhaps a defining moment for some as these very scenes, minus the sea wall of course, were repeated in 1900 as the great hurricane of that day approached. Little did we know that our two locations for placing the remote cameras were already cut off with storm surge. We had to improvise and chose Bermuda Beach, at the corner of Pabst and John Reynolds, to place the camera for the west end of Galveston Island. Time was running out- the surge was already well past the first row of houses. Yet, people were still milling around as if to dare the hurricane to force them to leave their homes. We set the camera up, began streaming it to the site here, as well as to CNN, and went back to the eastern end of the island. Our next camera was set up right across from the 1900 Hurricane Monument that so many photos were taken of during Ike. We placed the camera unit in a shopping center across from the monument. If there was going to be a devastating surge from the Gulf, this camera would catch it from start to finish. So far, everything was working perfectly. Our next task was to get the wind tower operational. We chose Galveston College on a grassy knoll (no comments please) that seemed like it was designed for our use. It stood above the ground by several feet and gave us confidence that the surge would not reach it enough to harm the equipment. Even though we store our laptops, batteries, etc. inside of water-tight Storm Cases, we learned from Katrina, the hard way, that air-tight also means buoyant- not a good thing. So we try to avoid the surge if at all possible and elevate our Storm Case units. The cameras and the instruments can get submerged and will continue to work. We had a great location and the meteorological equipment was up and running in about 30 minutes. There was also a camera attached to the tower as well, just as we did in New Iberia during Gustav. We were now spread out from Bermuda Beach to mid-Galveston and back a few blocks from the Gulf with our remote sensing equipment. All of this was done with out a single rain drop affecting us. Yet, all around us, water was rising and closing in, inches per hour. After getting the wind tower functional, we made our way towards downtown to place a camera near the Bay. This plan was abruptly interrupted at 17th and Broadway where we encountered that same Bay that we wanted to document with a remote camera. We were shocked. The Galveston Bay had risen so much that it was now all the way to Broadway- roughly splitting the island in half. This was very concerning to say the least and we knew it would be difficult to find a location to place the camera unit without it being potentially washed away. Since we were not sure how high the water would eventually get, we decided it was best to not risk losing a camera unit. It was also only a few hours until dark now and a bulk of the hurricane conditions would occur at night- another reason not to risk a unit near downtown. We instead decided to place it along the Gulf side at 14th Street and avenue N 1/2. Its view of the enormous waves crashing against and over the sea wall was incredible. Hundreds of people were watching the streaming video live on this site while millions more were witnessing it via the various CNN networks. Mike and I were proud of this accomplishment- to have so much technology spread out over quite a large area. Our final goal was to get our last remote camera unit in to the hotel- the 11th floor of the San Luis Resort. With nightfall only 90 minutes away, we managed to get the 150 pound remaining camera unit in to the elevator and up to the 11th floor of the resort hotel and our room. We immediately placed the camera on the balcony and streamed a live shot from the room. The swells were rolling in, one after another and the Gulf was almost level with the sea wall. For anyone who had not left the west end or the Bolivar Peninsula, their time had run out and their fate was sealed. Darkness crept in and after shooting some hand held video along the sea wall, we holed up inside the hotel and awaited Ike's arrival. Throughout the night, the wind increased and blasted the hotel. Our windows and doors rattled as an unnatural screaming and howling filled the air. We documented what we could but eventually had to evacuate the 11th floor and head down stairs to the convention rooms area where a temporary EOC was set up for Galveston. At around 2am local time, the center of Ike made landfall and we ventured out in to the calmness of the night. The Gulf of Mexico was just barely able to top the sea wall and spill in to the parking lot of the San Luis Resort. We streamed live video of the eye from the Chevy Tahoe and actually did a great Q&A session with our subscribers- something that we will never forget. To use the Internet like this in the eye of a hurricane and be able to communicate not only via email, but also with live video/audio with people all over the world- was simply amazing. We soon had to retreat back inside the hotel and wait for the hurricane to pass. After a few more hours, dawn broke and we were able to head out across a battered Galveston to survey the damage. It was apparent that Ike had not devastated the Gulf side of Galveston. There most certainly was damage, but not the kind of damage that would reveal itself in areas such as Crystal Beach and Gilchrist. We could not get to the west end and retrieve our camera. The flooding was too severe there at this point. We simply had to wait and allow the surge to drain away. It took two days but we finally were able to make it to Bermuda Beach and gather our equipment. We had no trouble collecting the other gear elsewhere on Galveston. As it turns out, the wind tower recorded no hurricane force winds at all. Neither did the Tahoe. We got close with some readings in the low 70s but that's it. This is consistent with other instruments placed out on Galveston by other teams of scientists. Some recorded winds of hurricane force, many did not. Ike had a different kind of wind field than I have ever seen and you had to be in the right place at the right time to feel strong winds. The bigger story was obviously surge. We now know that storm surge penetrated some 30 miles inland across Texas through bays and rivers. A good deal of the Bolivar Peninsula is gone now as far as human existence. Galveston was spared the full wrath from the Gulf but Galveston Bay inundated a great deal of the city from the north. Recovery and rebuilding is still underway and will be a chore for years to come. I returned to the region a month after Ike and documented the effects from Port Arthur on to Galveston and points in between. I thought I had seen it all after Katrina. Even though the totality of the surge devastation was greater in Mississippi, the extent of the flooding from Ike was of no comparison. As far as I could see in areas of southeast Texas was nothing but flattened, dead vegetation- the result of surge inundation. Thousands of dead animals rotted and filled the air with a terrible odor. There is perhaps a chance that people remain inside some of the debris piles not yet reached. It is a sad situation for many- overshadowed by other concerns in our country. For Mike and I, the mission provided us with a wealth of data in both numbers and visual. Using the footage from the remote cameras, we can study the storm surge in Bermuda Beach and the motion of the clouds and smoke from the many fires that broke out on Galveston. Our data from the wind tower shows clearly the passage of the eye directly over that location. But with all of this data comes a real toll on the lives of the people who still have to deal with Ike. We do not wish for the misery that comes with these hurricanes but when the opportunity to study their effects presents itself, we need to take full advantage and do what we can to learn about how they behave and shape our lives. The use of modern technology has allowed us to get closer than ever before to even the most powerful hurricanes- in many cases with out us having to be as exposed to the dangers. Ike was an historic event that would have received more attention if not for the other issues facing the country. We will continue to study the data that we collected and put it to use to help others better prepare in the future. There is no single better education than experience. If we can teach others by our own experiences, then we can make a difference. I have placed a few links to some of our video and data below. Thanks for reading this rather long re-cap of Ike. Remember- the rest of the season's mission accounts can be found in our archives, also linked below. Strong wind blasts the San Luis Resort with an eerie howl Wind trace from our 5-meter tower at Galveston College Pressure trace from our 5-meter tower at Galveston College Temperature and dewpoint trace from our 5-meter tower at Galveston College UPDATED: 8:30 am EST, January 29, 2009 EFFORTS IN DATA COLLECTION SUCCESSFUL IN 2008 HURRICANES- NOT JUST IN NUMBERS Our work in 2008 to collect data was our most comprehensive and successful yet. Mike, Jesse and I tackled TS Cristobal, TS Fay, hurricane Gustav, TS Hanna, hurricane Ike and an attempt at hurricane Kyle. Our colleague from the Cyclone Research Group, Tim Millar, also had excellent field work results. All this week, I will take a look back at our missions and what we accomplished, the data we collected- in both numbers and in video. I firmly believe that visual data is as important at understanding hurricanes as the measurements taken by meteorological instruments. During the 2008 season, we succeeded at both. Hurricane Gustav- September 1, Louisiana Almost three years to the day of the anniversary of Katrina's historic landfall along the central Gulf Coast, another powerful hurricane threatened the region. Gustav looked destined to be another potential disaster for New Orleans and resulted in an evacuation larger than what took place for Katrina. Those lessons learned were very evident as Mike Watkins and I set out for the Big Easy on August 30. We took with us an unprecedented amount of equipment to set up and utilize to study the hurricane using remotely operated cameras and weather instruments. The plan was to begin in New Orleans and go from there. We arrived in the empty city early in the morning of August 31 after traveling from Atlanta where we had worked with CNN at their headquarters for special coverage of Gustav. We were quite fortunate to be invited to work closely with the CNN teams on the ground in Louisiana and thus had our hotel and other logistical needs met. This gave us an opportunity to focus entirely on the mission at hand- and not worry about where we would sleep, eat or get gasoline- which was hard to find. By the mid-morning hours of August 31, Mike and I were out and about scouting locations for the remote camera units and our 5-meter wind tower. We chose Artillery Park for one of the units which would provide a nice view of the Mississippi River from one camera (each of our Storm Case units has two cameras attached) and the St. Louis Cathedral from the other camera. We would set them up after dark. From downtown New Orleans, we made our way over to the lake front and found a great location in Kenner to place the second remote camera unit. It too would have a pair of views- one facing east, the other west- right along the levee on the south shore of the lake. Since it looked like Gustav would not make a direct hit in New Orleans, we knew we would have to tavel west to intercept it the next day- September 1. After a nice nap during the evening of Sunday night, August 31, Mike and I packed up some provisions and took off in to the night to set up the equipment as planned. Everything went perfect. We had the first camera unit up and running along the Mississippi water front and it was recording and streaming live to CNN and to this site. We then made our way over to Kenner during an increasing wind and rain. We could see power flashes throughout the city but the most incredible aspect of the mission to this point was the absence of people. If you saw I Am Legend last year then you know how empty New York City was for that movie. New Orleans was almost exactly like that. We saw not one single person anywhere once we left downtown where the media, police and National Guard were staged. It was eerie to say the least but a great sign that people took Gustav seriously. We arrived in Kenner, deployed the camera unit and departed the area in less than 30 minutes. At this point, the rain and wind were really picking up and the power was failing across the area. We had to get west of New Orleans towards Morgan City or New Iberia in order to out run the rain and wind and set up the third camera and the wind tower. It was a piece of cake. We took Hwy 90 west and made it to New Iberia under party cloudy skies and no rain. We set up the tower and put a camera on it in no time at all. It is rare for things to work this well but perhaps the time and effort put in to rehearsing such events was finally paying off. We now had cameras spread out from New Orleans to Kenner to New Iberia with our wind tower set up as well. In addition, we used the Tahoe's instruments and live streaming video to broadcast real-time data to our subscribers. Gustav made landfall near Grand Isle and headed in our direction. Mike and I remained on the outskirts of New Iberia an the open parking lot of the Lowe's store there. It was a great location to take wind readings, shoot some hand held video and keep the web site updated as often as we could. It turns out that the brunt of Gustav missed our area and thus we recorded wind speeds of less than hurricane force. However, the rain was the heaviest I have ever seen in any hurricane and what was left of the western eye wall was nothing short of complete white out conditions. I remember Jesse Bass calling us to tell us the streaming video from the Tahoe was out of focus as it looked like we were in Niagra Falls. I told him it was working fine- and that the conditions are exactly as he described! For about 10 minutes, we could not see 10 feet in the rain and spray. It looked more like a blizzard than a hurricane. Even with this ferocity, the winds were only in the 70s for gusts. Damage was light where we were but far more extensive in places like Baton Rouge, Morgan City and Houma. It all comes down to location and where the wind maxima are. New Iberia fared well considering the situation. By late afternoon, we collected all of the equipment and made our way back in to New Orleans. There were some issues with overtopping of the levees but nothing horrific like 2005. In Mississippi, our two weather stations that are permanent fixtures in Bay St. Louis and Pascagoula performed well during their first real test since being set up in 2006. At the Bay-Waveland Middle School site, the 10-meter tower topped with an RM Young anemometer recorded peak winds of 44 mph sustained with a gust to 61 mph. This is almost as high as what we recorded with our 5-meter tower in New Iberia. Mississippi was within the right-front quadrant of Gustav and thus an on-shore flow. There was a moderate storm surge and we really missed out on documenting that as it happened. Perhaps down the road we can have more crew, more funding and more equipment to spread even farther out than we did. As it stands, the Gustav mission was our most successful in terms of placing equipment over a fairly wide swath- considering it was just the two of us. Our Gustav mission is covered in detail on our 2008 DVD and includes time lapse footage from our remote camera units. Even though the surge from Lake Ponchartrain was not as severe as it could have been, our camera systems worked flawlessly and proved that we really can be in several places at once- even if by virtual reality. I have placed a video clip below for those who have not seen it. Our camera in New Iberia captured a hotel sign crashing down in about 70 mph winds. Check it out via the link below. Tomorrow I will discuss Ike- the pinnacle of our success to date. Sign crashing down in New Iberia, LA during hurricane Gustav UPDATED: 10:00 am EST, January 27, 2009 EFFORTS IN DATA COLLECTION SUCCESSFUL IN 2008 HURRICANES- NOT JUST IN NUMBERS Our work in 2008 to collect data was our most comprehensive and successful yet. Mike, Jesse and I tackled TS Cristobal, TS Fay, hurricane Gustav, TS Hanna, hurricane Ike and an attempt at hurricane Kyle. Our colleague from the Cyclone Research Group, Tim Millar, also had excellent field work results. All this week, I will take a look back at our missions and what we accomplished, the data we collected- in both numbers and in video. I firmly believe that visual data is as important at understanding hurricanes as the measurements taken by meteorological instruments. During the 2008 season, we succeeded at both. Hurricane Dolly- July 23, Matamoros, Mexico Several factors played in to us not being in south Texas for hurricane Dolly. One issue was the coast. With gas prices at the time nearing $4.00 a gallon, it seemed tough to make the call to drive from Wilmington, NC to Brownsville, TX for Dolly. Also, there was considerable uncertainty as to whether or not the "D" storm, soon to be hurricane, would even affect Texas. We decided not to go. However, our friend Tim Millar was already on his way to Cancun to position one of research vehicles for the season's peak. As fate would have it, Tim was just about to Texas when Dolly came calling. All he had to do was continue south along his planned route and Dolly would pass right over him. Talk about luck. Tim set up south of Brownsville on July 22/23 and took some excellent observations. His highest wind reading was 119 mph in a brief gust with sustained winds nearly 100 mph! Dolly was intensifying as it made landfall and thus had a more noticeable wind field with frequent punches of strong downbursts of wind. Tim's data was cited within the National Hurricane Center's adviosries as well as their post-season analysis of Dolly. It is worth noting too that we had Tim on live with us on a special audio broadcast on the morning of July 23. We talked with Tim for almost an hour on three different occasions that day. It was great to have the real-time updates coming from Tim in an area completely void of meteorological data. I wish we could have been there but we can't do it all- so having Tim correspond with us was a great benefit to everyone tuned in to this site that day. We would meet up again with Tim just a few weeks later as mentioned below... TS Fay- August 18-21, Florida Peninsula Fay had the potential of being a dangerous hurricane as it moved out of the Greater Antilles during the third week of August. Computer models suggested over and over that the "F" storm could become a powerful hurricane and move up the west coast of Florida- possibly affecting Tampa. Memories of Charley were brough to the forefront and people were very anxious for several days. In the end, Fay was dealt enough of a punch from Cuba that it could not get its inner core organized enough to live up to its full potential and made landfall as a strong tropical storm near Marco Island, FL. Jesse Bass, Mike Watkins and I worked together on this mission in a familiar area- Collier county. We set up our anemometer atop the Embarq building (formerly Sprint) in Everglades City. The wind instrument was roughly 30 feet above the ground and did well during the passage of Fay. We measured a peak sustained wind of 31 mph with a gust to 49 mph. While this is certainly not very strong, it is important to note that Fay began to intensify just after the center passed Everglades City. Our colleague, Tim Millar, record gusts in to the high 80s while inland (near Moore Haven) later in the morning of August 19. The pressure in Fay continued to drop after landfall although we recorded a minimum reading of about 997 millibars at its closest approach to the weather station. Jesse and I tracked Fay across southern Florida and took wind readings many times near Lake Okeechobee and then again near Yeehaw Junction- west of Vero Beach. We recorded many readings in the 50s for gusts. By late Wednesday, August 20, Fay was over the Atlantic again but not by much. Jesse and I continued the marathon mission along the east coast of Florida from Daytona Beach north to St. Augustine. We recorded numerous wind readings in the 50s during the night of August 20 and in to the low 60s by the morning of the 21st. As Fay slowly crept on shore, we remained within the northern quadrant and recorded our highest peak gust of 72 mph near Rattlesnake Island. The air pressure was in the low 990s, not strong enough to classify Fay as a hurricane at this point but it may have briefly become a hurricane while over the swamps of SW Florida on August 19. We will have to see what the NHC says about that in their post-season analysis. Fay was another very successful mission for us in which everything worked as it should have. We signed on dozens of new Premium Services subscribers and provided them, mostly Floridians, with round-the-clock live information, video streams and data reports during the mission. We also made many new friends along the way. It would be a little more than a week later that the real meat of the season would take shape as Gustav came roaring out of the Caribbean towards the central Gulf Coast- an area that could ill-afford another hurricane. I will discuss the Gustav mission tomorrow. Read a more detailed report, with pictures included, from Jesse Bass' website UPDATED: 9:00 am EST, January 26, 2009 EFFORTS IN DATA COLLECTION SUCCESSFUL IN 2008 HURRICANES- NOT JUST IN NUMBERS Our work in 2008 to collect data was our most comprehensive and successful yet. Mike, Jesse and I tackled TS Cristobal, TS Fay, hurricane Gustav, TS Hanna, hurricane Ike and an attempt at hurricane Kyle. Our colleague from the Cyclone Research Group, Tim Millar, also had excellent field work results. All this week, I will take a look back at our missions and what we accomplished, the data we collected- in both numbers and in video. I firmly believe that visual data is as important at understanding hurricanes as the measurements taken by meteorological instruments. During the 2008 season, we succeeded at both. TS Cristobal- July 19-20, Cape Hatteras, NC Jesse Bass and I met up at the Coast Guard station in Hatteras to set up our wind tower for TS Cristobal. The storm was not much of a threat to the region but it was an opportunity to get our gear out and get things started for the season. We also wanted to try out our new ground anchors from American Earth Anchors. For years, we had wrestled with how to properly guy wire our aluminum towers to keep them sturdy during high winds. This new solution seemed to be perfect and Cristobal gave us a chance to test drive the new hardware. With winds only in the 30s and not much in the way of rain, it was fairly easy to get things up and running. The anchors worked well considering we had set everything up in the middle of the night. Todd Ferebee, our intern who is a meteorology student now at NC State, also joined us and learned the ropes of our new equipment. We recorded sustained winds (1 minute average) of 24 mph with a gust to 33 mph. The lowest pressure measured by our barometer was quite high at 1017 millibars. Needless to say, Cristobal was not much of an issue for the region- which was great news for the people who live and vacation in the region. We packed up and went home late on Sunday, July 20. The downside to this mission was that it cost time and money and ultimately prevented us from going to south Texas for hurricane Dolly- a decision that had to made Monday morning, July 21. Even then, I think was too late to safely get ourselves to Brownsville from Wilmington, NC. However, as I will discuss tomorrow, Tim Millar was the man of the scene by pure luck and he managed to record some excellent data from Mexico. As the week progresses, I will also discuss Fay, Gustav, Hanna, Ike and Kyle. A photo of the wind tower, the cargo trailer and the Chevy Tahoe with Jesse Bass in Cape Hatteras, NC for TS Cristobal in July, 2008 UPDATED: 2:00 pm EST, January 11, 2009 LET'S TALK ABOUT OUR PREMIUM SERVICES FOR 2009 First- a look back In 2005, we launched an area of our website that requires a subscription fee to access. It centered around our ability to stream live video of our hurricane field missions- not only from our vehicles but also from our innovative remote camera units that we place out in hurricanes. Since 2005, many changes have taken place both for us and for the country as a whole- especially these last two years. We now rely on our members more than ever before much like public radio does for its existence. Last year, we upgraded our line of premium products to include 30 frame satellite and radar loops, a message board for members only, advanced tracking maps that plot tropical cyclone positions on a variety of satellite loops, radar loops and sea surface temperature maps. We also developed a way for our members to track us as we travel to and from our hurricane and tropical storm missions- all while streaming high-quality live video, complete with audio. For those who signed up with us or continued their subscriptions from the year before, 2008 was an incredible experience. We had field missions for TS Cristobal, TS Fay, hurricane Gustav, TS Hanna, hurricane Ike and hurricane Kyle. Many members took full advantage of the unique nature of our live stream from the Chevy Tahoe and interacted with us throughout entire missions. Mike, Jesse and I could rely on these folks to be tuned in, listening, watching, helping us out with information on gas prices, hotel exits, highway conditions and general banter. There is nothing else like it that I can think of. Our customers, we like to think of them as clients, can be there with us virtually and be a part of our experience. We don't just turn the stream on and close ourselves out- no way. We invite you right in there with us. In fact, during the eye of hurricane Ike, we did a Q&A session with our subscribers where by they could email us questions and we would do our best to answer them LIVE as we sat in the Tahoe in the middle of the hurricane's eye on Galveston Island. For the people who were part of it- it's an experience that they will never forget- nor will we. In addition to the live feed from the Tahoe, we also deployed several of our remote camera units during hurricanes Gustav and Ike. They all worked flawlessly and provided our members with hours of high-quality streaming video from multiple locations during each hurricane. Ike was the pinnacle of last year's accomplishments as our cameras streamed stunning video of the storm surge pounding Galveston Island. Our work even caught the attention of CNN and they used several of our feeds during their coverage of Gustav and Ike. It was a great testament to our years of working on this idea of placing remotely operated camera systems throughout a hurricane. Plans for 2009 So where do we go from here? The answer is easy- we will provide even more live content than ever before. Starting on Monday, June 1, I will produce a live hurricane outlook video stream that our members can watch to get the latest info on goings on in the tropics. There are plenty of these types of videos available on TV and the Internet, most are free of charge. What will make this different is the attention to explaining what I am talking about in as much detail as possible. I will also look in to the future each day by way of the global computer models. We can look at forecast conditions five, seven and even 10 days out to try and determine which areas will bear watching. This will help folks understand how the season evolves as we track conditions such as the MJO and other intra-seasonal variables that lead to periods of bursts of activity- as well as periods of "there is nothing going on out there". I will also use the outlook to detail our possible field missions as they come up throughout the season. I want our members to be on top of the very latest info, not only on the tropics but our plans to intercept storms and hurricanes as well. The video outlook will "air" at 11am ET, Monday-Friday starting June 1. In the case of a weekend threat to land areas or other "breaking news" in the tropics, I will produce a special edition. And, when we are on our missions, the outlook will simply be a part of our live video feed from the vehicle- you'll know everything the exact instant that we do. It doesn't get any better than that! I believe this feature will be very popular for our members. No worries, if you can't watch live for what ever reason, each day's outlook will be archived immediately after broadcast for unlimited viewing later. We will also continue with our 30 frame satellite and radar loops as well as our enhanced tracking maps and message board. The overall idea is to use the live streaming video as our tent-pole that has the support of the remaining products. In essence, we provide our members with unique tools to track potential tropical storm and hurricane threats and then we take them there LIVE with our field missions. In return, they support our work through their subscription to these services. We do not charge a lot of money- only $24.95 for the entire year. This covers everything mentioned above. Of course, none of the regular features that we have always offered on the main part of the site will ever be included in the Premium Services area. That is to say, our commentary, web cam, live weather data and preparedness info will always be available to the public at no cost. Our members help to make that possible and we all appreciate it very much. If you are interested in becoming a subscriber to our Premium Serives area, just click the info link in the green box in the upper right corner. For those of you who were with us since day one or who have joined in the last couple of years, thank you! We have come a long way and pioneered some amazing technologies to make this work. We look forward to more cutting-edge work in 2009, no matter what the season brings us. UPDATED: 4:15 pm EST, January 6, 2009 NEW RADAR SYSTEM IN FLORIDA TO HELP MILLIONS WHEN THE NEXT HURRICANE HITS If you live anywhere along the coast where hurricanes are a threat, then you know the importance of radar. No one has a better radar system now than does BayNews9 in Pinellas Park, Florida. In fact, there is no other radar like it in the world. Quoting from their website: Klystron 9 is the most advanced, most powerful, highest resolution broadcast weather radar in the world. Our revolutionary technology leads the way in providing you with the most accurate weather forecasts in the Bay area. I talked with BayNews9 chief meteorologist Mike Clay via email today and he tells me that in regards to tropical cyclones, "we hope to be able to see deeper into tropical systems, see the eye or center better, and penetrate through tropical rain-bands." This will help to better prepare Floridians for the effects of tropical storms and hurricanes more so than ever before. In addition to the benefits of better "seeing" during tropical cyclone events, Clay gives a great description of the day to day uses of the one-of-a-kind Klystron: "Klystron 9 gets it’s name because it is the first and only TV station radar to use a stable and powerful Klystron tube. We didn’t want to call it Doppler because it is so much more and goes beyond Doppler. Klystron 9 is not only a Doppler radar but also has Dual Polarization and Pulse Compression technology. We have a new radome with less signal lose and higher wind resistance. Our new radome also removes water from the surface more efficiently to cut down on rain attenuation due to heavy tropical rains here. Our range for reflectivity is 300 miles ( just like other radars) but we are already seeing rainfall better than our old radar and other similar radars in Florida. Our Doppler range has gone from 50 miles to 150 miles, so we get live wind velocity data for our whole area and well into the Gulf." I think it is fair to say that the folks at Baron Services, who built the radar, as well as the entire weather team at BayNews9, will have an extraordinary opportunity to not only inform and warn the public with this tool, but also to learn more than ever before about the weather that affects Florida- even on a daily basis, much less during extreme conditions such as a hurricane. To learn more about this exciting innovation that has come to the Tampa Bay area, click the link below. Click to visit BayNews9's website and learn more about the Klystron9