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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43.2n42.8w had been re-evaluated&altered to 43.3n42.8w*
43.3n42.8w's MinimumPressure had been re-evaluated&altered from 990millibars to 987millibars
Derived from (NHC) ATCF data for TropicalStormChris for 22June12pmGMT:
Its vector* had changed from NNEast at 14.7mph(23.7km/h) to ENEast at 15.5mph(25km/h)
MaxSusWinds had decreased from 50knots(58mph)93km/h to 45knots(52mph)83km/h
And MinimumPressure had increased from 987millibars to 989millibars
For those who like to visually track TS.Chris's path... YSV is Saglek,Labrador
YYQ is Sydney,NovaScotia :: YYT SaintJohns,Newfoundland :: AGM is Tasilag,Greenland
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 AGM-dumbell is the endpoint of the 22June12amGMT straightline projection connected to its nearest airport
The YSV-dumbell is the endpoint of the 22June6amGMT straightline projection connected to its nearest airport
On 22June12pmGMT, TS.Chris was headed toward passage over NewHaven,NovaScotia in ~1day21hours from now
Copy&paste yyt, snn-52.849n9.449w, hfn-63.371n13.43w, agm-65.002n39.9w, ysv-60.154n64.411w, yqy, 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-43.3n42.8w, 43.3n42.8w-44.4n43.7w, 44.4n43.7w-44.8n45.5w, 44.4n43.7w-46.88n60.346w into the GreatCircleMapper for more information
The previous mapping for comparison.
* Through recalculation using the correct position, the vector has been corrected. BUT...
...to maintain historicity with previous mappings, the straightline projections&endpoints have not.
This is why Gulf storms (or pending ones) are the most nerve wracking ones because of the relatively short lead time once they get going and potential intensity issues if the sheer drops or they hit a warm pool or eddy on the way in.
With that in mind, here is the current position of the big warm pool in the Gulf; this may come in handy later.
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Hey there AtHome...I am in southeast Texas..not putting much faith in any models this early in the game myself
Hopefully it will 40 years between majors as it was for Betsy and K.
Vast Defenses Now Shielding New Orleans
By JOHN SCHWARTZ
Published: June 14, 2012
Construction last month on the Seabrook floodgate complex in New Orleans. The overall defense system includes the biggest pumping station on the planet.
NEW ORLEANS %u2014 Finally, there is a wall around this city.
Nearly seven years after flood waters from Hurricane Katrina gushed over New Orleans, $14.5 billion worth of civil works designed to block such surges is now in place a 133-mile chain of levees, flood walls, gates and pumps too vast to take in at once, except perhaps from space.
Individual components of the system can be appreciated from a less celestial elevation. At the new Seabrook floodgate complex, climb up three steep ladders, open a trap door, and step out into the blazing sunlight atop a 54-foot tower that was not here just two years ago. From there one looks out over a $165 million barrier across the shipping canal that links Lake Pontchartrain, the Mississippi River and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway.
Two lift gates, 50 feet across, can be lowered to block the waters of Lake Pontchartrain. A navigation gate 95 feet wide, whose curved sides weigh 220 tons apiece, can be swung gently but mightily into place. When open which will be most of the time the gates will allow easy boat traffic.
When a storm threatens, however, they will seal off the canal from the kind of surge that devastated the Lower Ninth Ward in Katrina.
Yet all that seems puny in comparison to the two-mile Great Wall that can seal off the channel from Lake Borgne to the east, or the billion-dollar west closure complex, which features the biggest pumping station on the planet.
Now, hurricane season has returned, as it does each June. Whatever storms might approach New Orleans this year or in the future, they will encounter a vastly upgraded ring of protection. The question is whether it will be enough.
When Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, the city's hurricane protection system became a symbol of America's haphazard approach to critical infrastructure. The patchwork of walls and levees built over the course of 40 years was still far from complete when the storm came, and even the Army Corps of Engineers admitted that this was a system in name only. Flood walls collapsed, and earthen levees built from sandy, dredged soils melted away.
What has emerged since could come to symbolize the opposite: a vast civil works project that gives every appearance of strength and permanence. No other American city has anything like it. This is the best system the greater New Orleans area has ever had said Col. Edward R. Fleming, the commander of the New Orleans district of the corps.
Marc Walraven, a district head in the Dutch ministry of transport, public works and water management, recently toured the defenses. While 100 percent safety is impossible, he said, and challenges in operations and maintenance can be expected as the corps passes the facilities over to local management in the coming year, the constructions that have been built are in my opinion adequate to defend New Orleans.
Tim Doody, the president of the levee board that oversees Orleans and St. Bernard Parishes, disagrees. While the construction appears to be strong, he said, the level of protection authorized by Congress for the corps to build is woefully inadequate.
The new system was designed and constructed to provide what is informally known as 100-year protection, which means it was built to prevent the kind of flooding that has a 1 percent chance of occurring in any given year. That standard is used by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to determine whether homeowners and businesses must buy flood insurance to qualify for federally regulated or insured mortgages.
But New Orleans has seen storms far more damaging than the 100-year standard. Katrina is generally considered to have been a 400-year storm, and rising seas and more numerous hurricanes predicted in many climate-change models suggest harsher conditions to come.
It's what the country will pay for; it's what FEMA insures for,%u201D Mr. Doody said. But our thought and belief is that we all need to be behind protection thats greater than that.
Still, corps officials insist, the new system has been designed with far greater strength and resiliency than anything that went before it. While a major storm could lead to street flooding something New Orleans, much of which is below sea level, sees even with heavy rainfall the kind of catastrophic, explosive wall of water resulting from the failure of sections of flood wall and the dissolution of poorly-built levees that devastated so much of the city after Katrina should not occur again, they say.
I am about a block from Gulf Blvd so the Gulf is just across the street from there.
UPDATE...
LOW PRESSURE WAS LOCATED JUST NORTH OF THE YUCATAN PENINSULA WITH
A TROUGH EXTENDING EAST INTO THE FLORIDA KEYS. THE LOW WILL MOVE
SLOWLY NORTH TODAY INTO TONIGHT PULLING THE TROUGH NORTHWARD INTO
SOUTH FLORIDA. THIS WILL CONTINUE TO ALLOW FOR THE DEEP TROPICAL
MOISTURE TO WORK INTO THE CWA FROM THE SOUTH TODAY INTO TONIGHT
ALONG WITH THE PWAT INCREASING FROM 2.1 INCHES THIS MORNING TO 2.3
INCHES BY TONIGHT.
THE LATEST HIGH RESOLUTION RAPID REFRESH (HRRR) IS ALSO SHOWING
SHOWER AND THUNDERSTORM ACTIVITY DEVELOPING OVER THE SOUTHERN
AREAS LATE THIS MORNING THEN SPREADING NORTHWARD OVER REST OF THE
CWA THIS AFTERNOON. THEREFORE...THE POPS WILL BE RAISED TODAY TO 70
PERCENT NORTH TO 80 PERCENT SOUTH ALONG WITH HEAVY RAINFALL
POSSIBLE OVER THE CWA FOR THIS AFTERNOON.
THE POPS WILL ALSO BE RAISED TONIGHT TO 70 TO 80 PERCENT OVER THE
CWA...DUE TO THE DEEP TROPICAL MOISTURE IN PLACE ALONG WITH THE
TROUGH OVER THE CWA SLOWLY MOVING NORTHWARD.
The recent models shown here on WU say 95% FL now... and those are center initialized models using a CoC that looks too far west from where it wants to relocate now.
Just cut that number in half and we're good.
One buoy failing to find max winds doesn't mean a thing.
Ever heard of a false negative?
The strongest band might have missed the buoy by a mile or ten, and sometimes that's all it takes with a TC, especially near the eye wall, because you can have no wind in the eye, or you can have a lull between the outer part of the eye wall and the first band outwards.
60kts winds probably means the buoy was in the first rain bad outside the eye wall, instead of the actual eye wall.
And no, you can't trust the satellite for exact positioning above about 30N due to foreshortening caused by the Earth's curvature.
25!
How would that change the track?
sure screw the cmc euro and Nogaps throw em out the window lol
Possibly in some of the stronger thunderstorms, but sustained winds closer to the center are no more than 30mph as ATCF suggests.
It is a further south location. so i would say increase texas chances as the timing of the trough dip would be off and have a weaker effect.
Good I'm wishcasting this mess away from my area.
It's going to hit Texas!
..click image for Loop
Hey Paul!
For one, those are large scale models not 'storm' center initialized ones. Further, out of those three u listed, the EURO is the only one worth a serious mention. CMC and NOGAPS are for entertainment purposes only.
No not at all this. The key here is its further east so it will feel the influence of the trough more.
yeap thanks its starting to get a nice round look now not as longgated as this am trying to come together
I see the circulation that is going to TX. Now I'm trying to see the other circulation that's going to FL start noticably spinning, but there's too much convection in the way.
you mean over your house?
I don't want it!!
AMEN
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