NHC expects Epsilon next week in Atlantic.....

[dixiebreeze]

This excerpt from the 2 a.m. NHC Tropical Discussion:

ATLANTIC OCEAN...
SCATTERED STRATOCUMULUS CLOUDS DOT ALMOST THE ENTIRE AREA N OF
20N W OF 40W WITH BROKEN HIGH CLOUDS N OF 28N W OF BERMUDA.
OTHER HIGH CLOUDS N OF 26N BETWEEN 52W-60W ARE OCCURRING AHEAD
OF AN UPPER LOW DROPPING INTO THE AREA NEAR 33N58W. THIS UPPER
LOW SHOULD MOVE SEWARD AND INTERACT WITH A WEAK TROUGH LOCATED
NW OF DELTA... AND FORM INTO AN EXTRATROPICAL LOW. COMPUTER
MODELS ARE SUGGESTING THAT AROUND TUE... SOME TRANSITION TO A
SUBTROPICAL CYCLONE MIGHT OCCUR OVER MARGINAL SST'S. IF THIS
OCCURS THE NAME WOULD BE EPSILON. HOWEVER MODELS ARE NOT
CONSISTENT ON WHETHER THE SYSTEM WILL EVENTUALLY ACQUIRE SOME
SUBTROPICAL (OR EVEN TROPICAL) CHARACTERISTICS. BLOCKING AT
HIGH LATITUDES SEEMS TO FAVOR ANOTHER SUBTROPICAL CYCLONE EFFORT
THOUGH.

[Dr. Jonah Rainwater]

With the NHC, the mere fact that they're bringing up the possibility of a tropical storm says something about how confident they are in that forecast. I do hope it becomes fully tropical though, if it does form. Named subtropical storms irritate me to no end...

[dixiebreeze]

I was surprised, too, it was nentioned this far in advance.

[quandary]

Hard to say that the NHC expects it though.

[dixiebreeze]

I notice they haven't mentioned it since that earlier discussion.

[WindRunner]

Upon further review of the 12Z models, a low either has formed (UKMET, GFDL) or will form in 6 hrs (NOGAPS, CMC, GFS) and all have it as a moderately deep warm core system, and the GFS is the only one evolving it into a cold-core system in about 5 days. CMC and UKMET both take it into the 990mb range in the future, where the GFDL disappates it in 30 hrs. Not much certainty in intensity, but tropical, or at least subtropical, it appears it will be.