Isabel missed the First bus folks

[John]

Noted some interesting features with the latest WV imagery this evening, The trough along the East coast is beginning to wash out as the Ridge to the North of Isabel continues building SW. Although Isabel is undergoing a weakening faze she is still releasing quite a bit of heat into the Ridge as it continues moving West in tandem with the Cyclone. IMO as the upper low begins to collapse it will have less of an impact on the Hurricanes heading, because Isabel was moving so slow the last few day's she is missing her bus. Isabel appears to be moving closer to 270-280 / 14. right now, and before im asked.... Yes I am looking at loops every 15 minutes and am not questioning the WNW heading that she has taken most of the day. The synoptic data gathered by the NOAA P-3 AIRCRAFT tonight will be extremely important once incorporated into the NCEP Global Models, I fear they are going to find a strengthening Westward moving Ridge.
For now the way I see it is the MID-Level ridge North of the Hurricane should keeps it on a general Westward track.
John

[cycloneye]

But wont miss the second one.

[Josephine96]

Good Points John and the way I see it.. I agree with you.. West- West Northwest track for several days.. Florida is nowhere near out of the woods yet at least Central or North aren't...

Plus.. despite how slow she's moving.. she is picking up a little speed. By the way I noticed something from earlier tonight.. she only went from 22.6 to 23.0 North {a 0.4 difference} but she went from 62.6 to 63.7 west { a 1.1 difference} sounds like a west movement still dominates most of her track..

[dixiebreeze]

John, the NHC 11 p.m. discussion certainly agrees that Isabel will miss the first trough (see my post). I'm certainly not sure the second one will have much effect, especially if she remains a very strong 'cane. Good analysis as always.

[Josephine96]

Yes it was good analysis by both you and NHC dixie.. by the way.. Do I make good posts? lol.. I'm just curious of your opinion

[John]

It appeared to me, you were all over the WNW movement all day. I read the board while in the office on my own Lap top, You thought like all the others this was the move, now im not going to bring up all the day's posts, as I respect you greatly. But don't be so quick to jump on the trough that is already expelling most of it's energy into the NE tonight. The line is drawn from pros to amateurs like yourself, only you don't here the pros saying anything about the trough, land fall ex. ... until the proper data is collected. Just a foot note, any Professional Meteorologist that claims to be here should know better than tell anybody there state is not going to be impacted. We know little still about Hurricanes, but we do know they do strange things.
John

[wxman57]

I don't believe that Isabel has missed any opportunity to turn yet. There was no northward turn expected today, just the gadual change to the current WNW movement vs. due west. The first trof is lifting out, but a stronger trough is moving rapidly eastward across the lower MS Valley to take its place. Isbel is nearing the southwest periphery of the ridge to the north, and that ridge shouldn't move west any. So we should see a very gradual change in Isabel's path over the next 24 hours, more and more north vs. west, then a sharper northwest movement as the second trof arrives. If you look at the WV and IR loops, you can see the outflow streaming NNW into the mid Atlantic coast ahead of the first trof. Here, you can see the outflow being drawn NNW on this 500mb streamline analysis:

http://home.houston.rr.com/wx/isabel39.gif

Upper-level winds (200mb) are also blowing from south to north ahead of Isabel:

http://home.houston.rr.com/wx/isabel40.gif

There is no evidence that the ridge north of Isabel will move west any further, so I just don't buy a WNW movement to Florida. But let's see if the NOAA G-IV aircraft can assist with tonight's model runs. I'm getting e-mails from the crew regularly.

[John]

The last post was directed toward cycloneyes response, But she wont miss the next one.
John

[Anonymous]

wxman how updated are those upper level winds? It seems the area has shrunk quite a bit now.

[Anonymous]

Apparently the ETA model, with all of the Gulfstream jet data, is picking up on something totally different then what wxman57 has been dicussing.

I think by tomorrow, things will get quite interesting, to say the least.

[dixiebreeze]

Agree with that Big EZ

[Anonymous]

ETA vs. every other global model with a northerly movement?....not going to happen.

[njbeachwx]

but the gfs is picking up the same data and at 72 hours it is staying the course. wnw

[wxman57]

Here's a water vapor shot I just saved with streamlines drawn on it.

http://home.houston.rr.com/wx/tropicswv.gif

You can clearly see why the models are all in agreement with a track toward the mid Atlantic coast. Winds at the mid and upper levels are blowing from Florida EAST out into the Atlantic, with no sign of a change. Unless Isabel develops its own propulsion system it will have a hard time getting to Florida.

As for the ETA, I wouldn't follow it much. It's about as bad as a model can be for tropical forecasting. Even LBAR is better.

I would strongly suggest that everyone here read Gary Gray's EXCELLENT analysis and forecast over at Millennium Weather:

http://www.millenniumweather.com/tropical/discuss.html

Gary's now adjusted his track farther up the coast - from NC to now in the Delmarva area.