Gulf of Mexico disturbance may develop; Chris a hurricane; record Duluth flooding
An area of low pressure and heavy thunderstorms entering the Southern Gulf of Mexico is bringing sporadic heavy rains to Western Cuba and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, and winds of 20 - 25 mph to surrounding ocean areas. This disturbance will need to be watched for development as it drifts slowly northward at about 5 mph into the Central Gulf of Mexico by Saturday. The disturbance is poorly organized, and has only a modest area of heavy thunderstorms. Wind shear is a moderate to high 15 - 25 knots over the region. Ocean temperatures are 81 - 83°F in the Western Caribbean and Southern Gulf of Mexico, which is about 1°F above average, and plenty warm to support formation of a tropical storm.
Figure 1. Morning satellite image of the tropical disturbance entering the Southern Gulf of Mexico.
Forecast for Gulf of Mexico disturbance
Wind shear is predicted to remain in the moderate to high range through Friday. Water vapor satellite loops show a region of dry air over the Northern Gulf of Mexico; this dry air is probably too far away to significantly interfere with development. I expect we will see an increase in the disturbance's heavy thunderstorm activity today as a result of less interference from dry air. By Saturday, our two top models, the European model (ECMWF) and GFS, predict that wind shear could fall to the moderate range, 10 - 20 knots, which would potentially allow the disturbance to approach tropical depression status by Sunday. A trough of low pressure pushing off of the U.S. East Coast will be capable of grabbing the disturbance and accelerating it to the northeast on Sunday, as predicted by the GFS model, which takes the disturbance across Florida on Sunday, and into the waters off the coast of South Carolina by Monday. The GFS does not develop the disturbance while it is in the Gulf of Mexico, but suggests it could develop into a tropical or subtropical depression off the coast of South Carolina Monday or Tuesday. The latest ECMWF model run (00 UTC) predicts that this through will not be strong enough to pull the disturbance northeastwards across Florida, and the disturbance will instead linger in the Gulf of Mexico for many days, giving it time to develop into a tropical depression next week. The UKMET and NOGAPS models predict a more westward drift, with the disturbance affecting the Mexico/Texas border region 6 - 7 days from now. At this point, we can't rule out any location in the Gulf being affected by this system, though the Gulf coast of Florida has the highest probability of seeing impacts. NHC is giving the disturbance a 30% chance of developing into a tropical depression by Saturday morning. This is a reasonable forecast, and the odds will probably rise by Friday, and I give the disturbance a 50% chance of developing into a tropical depression by Monday morning.
Figure 2. Morning satellite image of Hurricane Chris.
Chris reaches hurricane strength; not a threat to land
Hurricane Chris has managed to intensify and form an eye-like feature surrounded by intense thunderstorms with very cold tops, despite the fact the storm is over cool waters of 22°C. NHC puts Chris at hurricane strength with 75 mph winds making it the first hurricane of the 2012 hurricane season. Chris attained hurricane strength unusually far to the north (41.1°N) for a June storm; only Hurricane One of 1893 was a June hurricane at a more northernly point (44°N) than Chris. Chris is headed northeastwards, out to sea, and will not trouble any land areas. Only twice before, in 1887 and 1959, has the third storm of the season formed earlier than June 20. Formation of three tropical storms so early in the year is not necessarily a harbinger of an active season; 1959 was close to average, with 12 named storms, 7 hurricanes, and 2 intense hurricanes (average is 11 named storms, 6 hurricanes, and 2 intense hurricanes.) Unusual levels of early season activity in the Caribbean and between Africa and the Lesser Antilles usually portends a very active hurricane season, but this year's storms have not formed in this region. Alberto, Beryl, and Chris all formed off the U.S. East Coast.
Figure 3. The St. Louis river upstream from Duluth, Minnesota reached its highest flood height on record this morning, 6.1' above flood stage. The river rose over ten feet in 24 hours. Image credit: NOAA.
Record flooding in Duluth, Minnesota
Flood waters have crested in Duluth, Minnesota this Thursday morning, and are slowly falling, in the wake of the city's all-time record 24-hour rainstorm. A series of "training" thunderstorms that followed the same path passed over a wide swath of Northern Minnesota between noon Tuesday and noon Wednesday, dropping 7.20" of rain on the city. According to wunderground's weather historian Christopher C. Burt, this far surpasses the previous 24-hour record rainfall for Duluth, the 5.79" that fell on August 22 - 23, 1978. Two rivers in the Duluth area, the Nemadji and St. Louis, hit their highest flood heights on record Thursday morning, causing destructive flooding. Sadly, major flooding occurred at the Duluth zoo, washing a seal into a neighboring street, and killing at least eleven zoo animals.
Jeff Masters
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It's DMIN, what else did you expect?
Its vector had changed from NNEast at 18.3mph(29.5km/h) to North at 15mph(24.2km/h)
MaxSusWinds had decreased from 60knots(69mph)111km/h to 55knots(63mph)102km/h
And MinimumPressure had held steady at 990millibars
For those who like to visually track TS.Chris's path...
YYT SaintJohns,Newfoundland :: AGM Tasilag,Greenland :: HFN Hofn,Iceland :: SNN Shannon,Ireland
The Westernmost dot on the kinked line is where Invest95L became TropicalStormChris.
The Easternmost dot on the kinked line is where TS.Chris became HurricaneChris
The next dot NNEast on the connected line-segment is where H.Chris became TS.Chris again
The Southernmost dot on the longest line is TS.Chris's most recent position.
The longest line-segment is a straightline-projection through TS.Chris's 2 most recent positions to the coastline.
The SNN-blob is the endpoint of the 21June12pmGMT straightline projection connected to its nearest airport
The HFN-dumbbell is the endpoint of the 21June6pmGMT straightline projection at the point of its closest approach to Iceland connected to its nearest airport
On 22June12amGMT, TS.Chris was headed toward passage 78miles(126kilometres) WSWest of Tasiilaq in ~4days2hours from now
Copy&paste yyt, sma-36.44n25.0178w, cvu-39.65n31.114w, lrt-47.51n3.153w, snn-52.849n9.449w, hfn-63.371n13.43w, 39.5n58.0w- 38.9n56.7w- 38.3n54.7w- 38.1n52.3w- 38.2n50.2w- 38.6n47.5w- 39.4n45.6w- 40.5n43.9w, 40.5n43.9w-41.9n42.9w, 41.9n42.9w-43.2n42.8w, 41.9n42.9w-65.002n39.9w, agm-65.002n39.9w into the GreatCircleMapper for more information
The previous mapping for comparison.
You're an adult?
When did this happen?
You're just jealous you're still a minor. Now go to sleep.
Subtropical entities seem to have become more common the last few years anyway, which would make sense considering the magnitude of the fronts we've had since '09.
Not only that, but c'mon, it's too early to predict the end of the race...
I can understand that, but this will be the first model run with the true 96L center fix, so I'm interested to see how the models handle it.
You are a young buck...24 here.
We'll see it would have to be worth it meaning a significant system (60mph+) affecting very close to us. The main question is how far north will the trough pull it before it gets pushed west...
Can I call you an old man?
Don't those run at like 1 am central or something?
I thought DMIN was during the day and DMAX was at night. The system blew up today and is now fizzling. Isn't that the opposite?
I didn't expect it to get totally blown to pieces like this, that's for sure.
It's not time for me to go to bed yet. You go to bed grandpa!
Interesting spread being generated tonight in the models and why they mention the entire US Gulf Coast.
It started fizzling after sunset, which is when oceanic convection is at its weakest.
According to this, a tropical cyclone could form in southern Arkansas....
I'm game.
Ha! XD
Sure...I feel like one anyway most of the time. Lol.
So it should start to re-fire later tonight?
Hey, stop arguing like 24 and 21 year olds. So immature!
Link
There is literally no reason why it shouldn't.
I'm in if I'm still awake. A big if though. :P
yeah I know the model was run on chris itself but it captured the atmospheric conditions so apparently its seeing the trough to pull the storm to the NE..just an observation only..but all models do and will change..just noting one of the runs thats all
its the way it works it cycles up and down in what i like to call convective cycles
each cycle if a true cyclone will be stronger each time than the one before it tomorrow is an important day
I'll be here waiting for the midnight run here.
Depending on launch costs, I figure you can make between a 300% and 400% profit on Platinum and Rhodium alone, if you have a well designed cargo capsule. It doesn't need to be to "space station" standards to support human landers or high tech gear. It sort of just acts as a cargo capsule to be retrieved, and you could load it with like 100 tons of metals and drop it all at once, or better yet, make the drop capsules from the asteroids "worthless" aggregate materials; silicates, iron and titanium oxides, alumina,etc, in order to shield the more valuable cargo, and that way you never pay the launch cost of the cargo ship, and the metals of the ship itself can be salvaged as well. It's like a big aluminum or iron can filled with Gold, Platinum, and Rhodium...
Really, once you have a functioning refinery on an asteroid capable of building it's own cargo capsules, the profit margins are nearly unlimited, because you never need to launch anything again, except maybe workers or electronics or machine components too hard to make in space...
Oh?
I don't suppose DestinJeff has been seen this season?
I laughed at this comment for some reason.
Focus of thunderstorm activity moved to land areas when land's diurnal maximum came around. As we move through the night, the thunderstorm activity will refocus over the water as diurnal max over water approaches. These weak systems are very susceptible to diurnal influences, especially close to land masses.
Well, there's some anti-TX bias. Is it hard-coded into the models or something 'don't bother initializing towards TX. They have yuckky Highs and stuff.'
Love new stuff, hopefully it's a go.
I laughed at your face.
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