Possibly Stupid Question???

[bucman1]

With all the talk about models, synoptics,history is it possible for a tropical cyclone to make its own path disregarding other weather influences??

[bob rulz]

What exactly do you mean?

Hurricanes are very unpredictable, yes, but they can't disregard the rules of meteorology, if that's what you're asking.

And there are no stupid questions here. That's what this forum is for.

[wjs3]

A good rule of thumb is that hurricanes are going to follow the steering current between about 200 and 800 MB.

Of course, this is only a rule of thumb...as you can see from CIMSS

http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/tropic/real- ... s-dlm.html

The steering currents are different for differing strengths of TC (read the pressures on the left and note how lower pressures--stronger storms--have different steering levels).

OK, but your question is whether a strong storm can steer itself. The answer is that large storms can have an effect on their environment that can move their path. For instance, one classic effect I've seen is when outflow from a hurricane acts to alter ridging to the north of a storm--making it stronger than forecast and holding the storm south.

There is also a parameter called beta--which has to do with potential vorticity and all kinds of other stuff like that which I try to remove from my memory--that is created by the storm itself and tries to bring the storm to the right (westward moving storm, northern hemisphere)...

Whew...OK?