Hurricane Ernesto - Cat. 1

[HurricaneHunter914]

I have a question. The slower Ernesto moves, the more time it has to strengthen over water right?

[kenl01]

Excellent news - its down to 50mph. Nothing could be better !

[marcane_1973]

If i was Mark Sudduth I would not even waste my time with this weakling.

[brunota2003]

If i was Mark Sudduth I would not even waste my time with this weakling.

Have you noticed it hasnt hit Florida yet? there is still lots of time for this to get past Cuba and into the Gulf where it can strengthen pretty fast if it wants to...who says that 3 days from now that it is still this "weakling"?
EDIT: Have you seen what sustained winds of 50 MPH can do to an area? I have and it definetly is NOT pretty, Ophelia here had 45ish MPH sustained winds and we had all kinds of damage, at least two houses here had tarps on their roofs, including one who had an oak tree go through their roof. Most people had no power for 1 or 2 days, we were one of the very few who didnt lose power, however an oak tree about 200 yards up the road fell through the cable line and then proceeded to take out a fence. So even "Weak" systems can cause havoc and some interesting video depending on where you are...just my $0.02

[rockyman]

If i was Mark Sudduth I would not even waste my time with this weakling.

I'm sure glad that some mets "wasted their time" back in 1979 when Frederic weakened to a depression over Cuba...then devastated the Mobile area a couple days later

[caneman]

If i was Mark Sudduth I would not even waste my time with this weakling.

I have seen repeatedly these nonsense posts from you. Care to back it up with anything? Here, I'll help you out. Charley Cat. 1 to 4 in a short stretch of the SE Gulf.

[Cape Verde]

This storm has defied all our predictions and expectations. It's not even in the NHC cone from yesterday.

So, it fooled us.

It's what makes tropical systems so interesting and so controversial. Even the experts can't get it right all the time. They don't claim to.

We get weather probabilities. It's the best we can do. Maybe a thousand years from now they'll laugh at our primitive methods of weather forecasting.

Or maybe a Hurricane Ernesto will screw with them, too.

[SWFLA_CANE]

If i was Mark Sudduth I would not even waste my time with this weakling.

I have seen repeatedly these nonsense posts from you. Care to back it up with anything? Here, I'll help you out. Charley Cat. 1 to 4 in a short stretch of the SE Gulf.

and keep in mind Charley was moving a lot faster then Ernie is thus giving it even more time to strengthen over water.

[Trugunzn]

The problm is it cant decide where to place the center. The center move about 3 or 4 times and that really can screw up the forcast

[johngaltfla]

If i was Mark Sudduth I would not even waste my time with this weakling.

I have seen repeatedly these nonsense posts from you. Care to back it up with anything? Here, I'll help you out. Charley Cat. 1 to 4 in a short stretch of the SE Gulf.

Amen. I finished boarding up at 1000, took a nap, woke up at 1400 to a Cat 4 heading towards me. Then it turned at the last minute.

If anyone here thinks that these storms are worth ignoring, mail me all your cash now. This is not a game. We could have a lot of lives at stake in Western Florida and believe me, this region (north of Punta Gorda) is not ready for a major storm.

[pcwick]

Its not necessary to speculate about the elevation of Cuba's mountains.

highest point in Cuba: Pico Turquino 2,005 m (6578.08 feet)

[Matt-hurricanewatcher]

Charley made landfall in cuba as a cat3. A very organized system moving about twice as fast as this is. Also it went over the smallest part of cuba. Did not waste its time unlike dennis. But remember dennis was nearly a cat5 when it made landfall over cuba. But ever a day over land it was hardly a hurricane. But it got organized again. This system on the other hand is small in weak. Its got two choices if it wents to survive. Go north into the strait then north of Cuba, or south like Dennis. In try to make it to the flat part.

[Opal storm]

The problm is it cant decide where to place the center. The center move about 3 or 4 times and that really can screw up the forcast

I agree.I think that's one of the biggest reasons why this has been so difficult.

[Trugunzn]

wonder whats its doing. Hope its not relocating center.

[Blown Away]

Is the center under that small ball of convection on N side of peninsula?

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/east/carb/wv-l.jpg

[Evil Jeremy]

by the 11PM update we should know where the new center is now.

[johngaltfla]

Watch the Gitmo radar; Center should be visisble after 2300 or at least by 0500...

http://www.nlmoc.navy.mil/products/anim ... &gtype=JPG

[Wthrman13]

The problm is it cant decide where to place the center. The center move about 3 or 4 times and that really can screw up the forcast

I agree.I think that's one of the biggest reasons why this has been so difficult.

In the end, that very well could be a big part of the difficulty with the forecast of this particular storm. The global models generally do not have the resolution to resolve the inner core structure of a tropical cyclone very well, if at all. The best they can do is to get a general idea of the outer "envelope" of the circulation. Most of the time, this is good enough, since the larger circulation as a whole is what responds to steering currents, and not so much the inner core itself. In other words, you can have two different hurricanes of approximately the same size, but with vastly different inner core structures and intensities, but if plopped down into the same steering pattern, they will generally move in the same direction and at the same speed. However, there are times when inner core processes can have a significantly stronger impact on the track of a storm than normally is the case, and for whatever reason (possible land interactions, the fact that the circulation is rather small, etc.) this appears to be the case with Ernesto. There have been a lot of changes and fluctuations in both the center location and strength the last couple of days, and this has played havok on the track forecast, to a large part because the models (even the GFDL) don't handle these sorts of things very well.

[Blown Away]

Is the center under that small ball of convection on N side of peninsula?

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/east/carb/wv-l.jpg

[tallywx]

http://static.flickr.com/66/207940415_f5a4e3ccda_o.jpg

Photo of the "Sierra Maestra" mountains along that entire south-facing flank of Cuba.

Certainly not insignificant terrain by any stretch. That will undoubtedly disrupt the circulation to a greater extent than Dennis or Charley. The question is...how much?