Brazil weather forecasters not worried.......

[dixiebreeze]

27 Mar 2004 03:17:11 GMT
First-ever hurricane forms in South Atlantic

(Adds comments from Brazil)

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON/RIO DE JANEIRO, March 26 (Reuters) - The first hurricane ever reported in the south Atlantic swirled off the coast of Brazil on Friday, and forecasters said it could make landfall in the South American country during the weekend.

Although it was far outside their usual territory, forecasters at the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami were helping the Brazilian Weather Service to track the unprecedented system.

"There's problems that happen when hurricanes occur in areas that we've never seen before," said hurricane center meteorologist Eric Blake.

He said the storm was a Category 1 hurricane -- the least powerful on forecasters' five-level scale -- with winds somewhere between 74 and 95 miles per hour (119 and 153 kph).

"It's about 225 miles (362 km) east-southeast of the Brazilian coast and it's moving westward at about 7 miles per hour (11 kph)," he said.

Blake said some of the forecasting computer models showed the storm turning away from the coast before making landfall, but he said it was too soon to say if that would happen.

"It has an eye and thunderstorms around the center, and we're looking at the possibility of (landfall in) southeast Brazil sometime tomorrow or the next day," he said.

However, Brazil's state Weather Forecasting and Climatic Studies Center (CPTEC) played down the U.S. hurricane classification.

"Our information shows that it is not a hurricane. We still classify it as a tropical cyclone," Virginia Nogueira, a duty meteorologist, told Reuters.

"The forecast is that it will come closer to the coast, provoking rains in the southern states of Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul, and strong winds, but not causing anything very unusual," she said.

Ports in southern Brazil said earlier no preparations were being made for the storm and work continued as usual.

A hurricane has never previously been reported in the south Atlantic. Blake said there have been "questionable" tropical weather systems tracked in the area before, but none had developed into a hurricane.

"This one's broken all the rules," he said. (Additional reporting by Andrei Khalip in Rio de Janeiro)


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[southerngale]

hmmm

They should listen to our experienced forecasters and make preparations. That's just plain dumb.

[dixiebreeze]

I agree SGale, guess they're not taking it seriously since it's such a rare phenomen.

[Derek Ortt]

They may need some real met classes as they have obviously flunked met 101. I wonder what "info" they have

[Derecho]

As much as people would love this thing to end up massively destructive so they can go "Nyah Nyah Nyah" to the Brazilians, it's overwhelmingly likely the Brazilians will turn out to be right.

Despite the eye I think there's a decent chance the max winds are sub-hurricane strength (not unheard of for strong TSes to have eyes, though it is rare.)

And it is a reasonable distance offshore. As of 0Z, I don't think there are any models showing it landfalling as an organized system.

Remember, in the S Hemisphere, the recurve direction is SOUTH. And the coast of South America runs NE-to-SW. Will be hard to get a hit. The natural tendency of the storm will be to keep going South.

And the reason there hardly ever are any of these is shear, and given that any landfall would be likely to take a while, it's probably going to get blown apart at some point; and due to its small size, when it happens it may well be instantaneous.

[Derek Ortt]

What shearing mechanism is there? Only shear I see is northerly and that is east of the storm and the UH remains

However, the popluation centers are well to the north of where I was thinking yesterday, so that is some great news, even though this has turned back more to the west