Upcoming week - August 15-21

[Andrew92]

The following post is NOT an official forecast and should not be used as such. It is just the opinion of the poster and may or may not be backed by sound meteorological data. It is NOT endorsed by any professional institution or storm2k.org. For official information, please refer to the NHC and NWS products.

Also as a word of advice: I have been out of town all weekend and am just now getting a chance to compose this. This prediction may have more errors, both meteorologically and grammatically, than normal for me. I am just not getting the chance to give anything more than what I have this upcoming week. I'll still do my best, but confidence is automatically going to be lower given my situation.

Evaluating last week

This past week I predicted no tropical development. Unfortunately, Franklin decided to come and quickly go late in the week, ruining that prediction. But then Gert had to come out on Sunday and make it even worse on me! Truth be told, I probably did about as well as could have been expected for this past week, but the damage is still there. I will be a bit generous and give myself a B- for this past week.

Will the surprises continue? What will Gert do? Let's take a look.

Current situation and models

Tropical Storm Gert is currently packing maximum sustained winds of 45 mph and approaching Bermuda from the southeast. It will soon turn north and northeast, heading out to sea, if the NHC track forecast is correct. This is corroborated by what all reliable models are saying. One thing to note though is the intensity portion. The NHC peaks Gert out at 65 mph on Tuesday morning, but the discussion indicates this is below the model guidance. Now, not to make excuses, but I have had no chance to look at what the models are saying so I'm going to speculate that a couple of them are showing a potential minimal hurricane around that time. That said, by that point Gert would be safely heading northeast away from Bermuda, never to threaten there again. Gert is then forecast to rapidly dissipate and/or become extratropical by Wednesday night or Thursday.

Elsewhere, there is a lot of stable air out in the tropics which should continue to hinder much development other than perhaps the occasional surprise tropical storm that there seems to be weekly.

Recent history

Since 1960, storms near Gert's general location with a similar intensity during this upcoming week have included:

Dolly in 1968
Candice in 1976
A subtropical storm in 1984
Arlene in 1987

That's a pretty small sample size of only four, but I found one thing in common. None of these reached their peak intensity close to where Gert is. In Dolly's case, she had two peaks, one before Bermuda, and one after as a hurricane. Candice, the subtropical storm, and Arlene also all peaked after passing Bermuda and out to sea. Also, only the subtropical storm failed to gather hurricane force winds at some point in its life!

So what does this all tell us?

Gert may have a slim shot at becoming a minimal hurricane before the shear picks up on Tuesday. Also, a lot of the storms of 2011 are taking advantage of what they have to work with, the hurricanes just haven't come yet. I mean, Arlene got stronger than expected, as did Bret and Cindy. Don couldn't get off the ground, but its wave went from disorganized to a named storm seemingly overnight. Emily tried, but came up short. And where did Franklin come from? Yeah, I think it's very much possible the NHC may be being a tad conservative on Gert's intensity.

The Prediction

Again, I apologize for the seeming shortened version for this week, but that's pretty much what happens when you don't get the chance to really analyze the situation during the weekend. But here goes with Gert: I predict Gert to skirt past Bermuda on Monday with maximum sustained winds reaching 60-65 mph, and become a bit stronger than what the NHC is saying. I am going to predict a strong tropical storm to borderline hurricane, with maximum sustained winds reaching as high as 70-80 mph on Tuesday morning. That day, as Gert heads northeast, shear will pick up and Gert will start to weaken rapidly. Gert will be a moderate tropical storm on Tuesday night with maximum sustained winds of 50-65 mph, then a minimal storm for much of Wednesday before weakening to a tropical depression that night, and then dissipating in the overnight hours leading to Thursday. Confidence is 60%.

Elsewhere, I predict no tropical cyclone activity this upcoming week. Confidence is 50%.

Next week's will be much better prepared as all of my other ones always are. Having a weekend away from analyzing the situation is not an excuse for anything, but I still tried my best to get this out. Hopefully there aren't too many grammatical errors or typos either as I didn't even get to use Word before posting this!

-Andrew92

[Andrew92]

Mmm hmmm, no more repeats of last weekend for a while..... looking like an F this week.

-Andrew92

[TBCaneFreak]

Not having a good year...An F is optimistic...you gave yourself a c- a few weeks ago, and thats why they dont let you give your own grade...maybe a d was better deserved. Hey, but its still an interesting read...No one has fired the NHC yet and they are wrong by an average of 300 mi at 5 days

[Andrew92]

Yeah C- was potentially generous. It has been a tough year, though that's what happens when all these crazy systems develop that no models whatsoever are seeing. I'm talking storms like Cindy, Franklin, and Gert. I did see Emily coming, and I had a general idea on the track but the intensity was a whole other matter. Definitely an F this week, though I'll still do the formal evaluation after the 11 PM advisory is out.

What a positive thought coming into the toughest week yet huh?!

-Andrew92

[JtSmarts]

It's been a strange season. Looking forward to your thoughts on Irene's eventual path and intensity.

[Andrew92]

OK, let's put this last week to bed.

I’m not going to mince words. No more of last weekend and not getting to analyze the models at all. The Gert prediction was only OK at best as it didn’t get quite as strong as I thought and it weakened faster than predicted, though the track was right on at least. Elsewhere I predicted no tropical development. Well, thanks both Harvey and Irene for totally messing that up. I also didn’t see Invests 98L and 99L, though mere Invests have no bearing on that area. Still, this past week’s grade is a nice solid F.

A very tough week coming up, there will be red text in this upcoming week's prediction. It will be up in just a few minutes.

-Andrew92