ATL: IKE Discussion

[Air Force Met]

From Friday 5pm NHC Discussion:

ALL MODELS SUGGEST SOME SORT OF WEAKNESS IN THE RIDGE NEAR FLORIDA IN A
FEW DAYS BETWEEN A RIDGE OVER THE WESTERN ATLANTIC AND THE GULF OF
MEXICO. THIS WEAKNESS MAY ALLOW A WEST-NORTHWEST OR NORTHWEST TURN
OF THE HURRICANE.

As you see, things can change. Add in the average 250 mile of error for 5-days out...the whole Gulf is at risk.

You know...it would really help...if you are going to quote the NHC...to NOT take them out of context...

THIS IS EXPECTED TO CAUSE IKE TO TURN TEMPORARILY TO THE NORTHWEST
WITH A REDUCTION IN FORWARD SPEED. ALL MODELS FORECAST THE
SHORTWAVE TO BYPASS IKE TO THE NORTH...AND ARE NOW IN MUCH BETTER
AGREEMENT THAT IKE WILL TURN SLIGHTLY WESTWARD IN ABOUT 3 DAYS.

[gboudx]

From Friday 5pm NHC Discussion:

ALL MODELS SUGGEST SOME SORT OF WEAKNESS IN THE RIDGE NEAR FLORIDA IN A
FEW DAYS BETWEEN A RIDGE OVER THE WESTERN ATLANTIC AND THE GULF OF
MEXICO. THIS WEAKNESS MAY ALLOW A WEST-NORTHWEST OR NORTHWEST TURN
OF THE HURRICANE.

As you see, things can change. Add in the average 250 mile of error for 5-days out...the whole Gulf is at risk.

Jeff accounted for this on his conference call by saying it will stair-step(wobble) more to the NW as the western edge of the high slowly erodes. But then he said the Bermuda High would build back in and this is a 3-4 day timeframe from today.

[jasons2k]

Check the numbers...i put the 120 hour cumulative probabilities

Exactly. The 120 hr. numbers are low for Texas because that's exactly 5 days from now. Still in the GOM. They will come-up for Texas as time passes and the landfall time period falls within (not after) 120 hours.

[jinftl]

They have done a great job and they know enough to say this at 11am

...IT IS STILL MUCH TOO SOON TO KNOW WHAT PORTIONS OF THE GULF COAST
COULD BE IMPACTED BY IKE.

The cone points right now towards TX/LA. Landfall may be beyond the timreframe of the cone even. In 5 days..maybe even a week...it is absolutely right to be aware and do what you feel you need to prepare....but to state here that SE LA east will be ok is irresponsible, perhaps even dangerous.

During this time frame, I wanted to say that the National Hurricane Center has done a great job with forecast tracks. Things can and do change, but as of right now, they have done a great job with the blending of models.

[KWT]

Well Ike is back over water, I also doubt we will see any decent strengthening over water but what will occur I reckon is the system will stabalise over the water and inner core may well rewrap up again...

As for the gulf track, it is indeed just too early to know, I suspect Tx and LA are in the main danger zone however.

[Air Force Met]

The other Jeff, Dr. Masters of Wunderground, is leaning towards Louisiana, and since his ideas match my amateur ideas, I think his reasoning is sound.

Track forecast for Ike
The Florida Keys are probably off the hook. It now looks unlikely that Ike will bring hurricane force winds to the Keys. Ike continues to move due west, and the eye may pop out to the south of Cuba at times between now and Tuesday morning. It is unlikely that the eye will move far enough from the coast for significant strengthening to occur, though. Passage over Cuba has disrupted the eyewall enough that it would take at least 12 hours over water for the storm to reorganize, and Ike probably won't get that kind of time over water. Ike is expected to track west-northwest on Tuesday into the Gulf of Mexico, passing near or over Havana, Cuba. The expected track should bring tropical storm force winds of 50-70 mph to Key West and the Lower Keys on Tuesday afternoon.

The latest 06Z (2 am EDT) computer models no longer expect a turn northward towards the Florida Panhandle. As we've seen many times this hurricane season, the models were over-enthusiastic about the intensity of a trough of low pressure passing to the north. High pressure has been dominant over the eastern U.S. the past month, and the models have consistently been underpredicting the dominance of this high pressure. The current steering pattern, with high pressure entrenched over the eastern U.S., steering hurricanes into Florida and the Gulf Coast, is similar to the steering pattern of 2004 and 2005. This steering pattern has acted to steer six straight storms into the U.S., and is not expected to change significantly over the next two weeks, according to the latest long-range forecasts from the GFS model.

As Ike moves approaches within 300 miles of the Louisiana coast on Friday, there will be another trough of low pressure capable of turning the storm to the north. The GFS, GFDL, HWRF, NOGAPS, and Canadian models all predict that this trough will be strong enough to turn Ike northwards into central or western Louisiana. The UKMET and ECMWF models disagree, and think high pressure will dominate enough to force Ike westwards into Texas, between Corpus Christi and the Louisiana border. These two models have been trending too far south with Ike so far, so I would lean towards a landfall in western Louisiana at this point.

That last sentence is flat out wrong. They have been the lone guns showing tracks south of Cuba the last few days.

[jinftl]

thank you...you made my point for me...if you have to extraploate beyond the 120 hour forecast to get the landfall you want, that should raise a bit of a flag!

quote="jasons"]

Check the numbers...i put the 120 hour cumulative probabilities

Exactly. The 120 hr. numbers are low for Texas because that's exactly 5 days from now. Still in the GOM. They will come-up for Texas as time passes and the landfall time period falls within (not after) 120 hours.[/quote]

[HURAKAN]

Now the center is entirely over the water.

[Tireman4]

They have done a great job and they know enough to say this at 11am

...IT IS STILL MUCH TOO SOON TO KNOW WHAT PORTIONS OF THE GULF COAST
COULD BE IMPACTED BY IKE.

The cone points right now towards TX/LA. Landfall may be beyond the timreframe of the cone even. In 5 days..maybe even a week...it is absolutely right to be aware and do what you feel you need to prepare....but to state here that SE LA east is irresponsible, perhaps even dangerous.

During this time frame, I wanted to say that the National Hurricane Center has done a great job with forecast tracks. Things can and do change, but as of right now, they have done a great job with the blending of models.

Well you left out my edited portion. What I stated was that as of now, four months into the season, the NHC has done a good job. Not once did I ever state that no one should overlook this hurricane. Gosh darn, I am not as smart as most of you folk here. I dont have the capacity to forecast hurricanes. Ask me about the Federal Writers Project (New Deal Agency), then we can talk turkey. Everyone from Tampico to Tampa should watch this.

[bob rulz]

Hurricane Ike is now a Category 2, moves through Cuba. Texas is next?

Hurricane IKE has been downgraded to a Category 2 hurricane at this hour. IKE is rolling through Northern Cuba with winds of 100mph. I do expect it to get weaker as it stays over land the next 24-48 hours. Cuba is a long but NARROW country so IKE should be able to recover once it moves away from Cuba on Wednesday sometime. After that it heads into the open Gulf of Mexico.

Wow, give it up for the GFDL. It's been performing excellently this year for the most part.

Ike still doesn't want to turn northwest...it won't take much for him to start strengthening again. Inner core is still intact.

[Sabanic]

Folks arguing back and forth isn't going to change anything. Ike's going to do what things set up to allow him to do, but anyone that firmly believes 5-6 days out is written in stone when dealing with hurricanes is setting themself up for a fall.

We've all seen it change more times than not. Weather patterens change daily no matter what we think they are going to do. It's nature

[ROCK]

The other Jeff, Dr. Masters of Wunderground, is leaning towards Louisiana, and since his ideas match my amateur ideas, I think his reasoning is sound.

Track forecast for Ike
The Florida Keys are probably off the hook. It now looks unlikely that Ike will bring hurricane force winds to the Keys. Ike continues to move due west, and the eye may pop out to the south of Cuba at times between now and Tuesday morning. It is unlikely that the eye will move far enough from the coast for significant strengthening to occur, though. Passage over Cuba has disrupted the eyewall enough that it would take at least 12 hours over water for the storm to reorganize, and Ike probably won't get that kind of time over water. Ike is expected to track west-northwest on Tuesday into the Gulf of Mexico, passing near or over Havana, Cuba. The expected track should bring tropical storm force winds of 50-70 mph to Key West and the Lower Keys on Tuesday afternoon.

The latest 06Z (2 am EDT) computer models no longer expect a turn northward towards the Florida Panhandle. As we've seen many times this hurricane season, the models were over-enthusiastic about the intensity of a trough of low pressure passing to the north. High pressure has been dominant over the eastern U.S. the past month, and the models have consistently been underpredicting the dominance of this high pressure. The current steering pattern, with high pressure entrenched over the eastern U.S., steering hurricanes into Florida and the Gulf Coast, is similar to the steering pattern of 2004 and 2005. This steering pattern has acted to steer six straight storms into the U.S., and is not expected to change significantly over the next two weeks, according to the latest long-range forecasts from the GFS model.

As Ike moves approaches within 300 miles of the Louisiana coast on Friday, there will be another trough of low pressure capable of turning the storm to the north. The GFS, GFDL, HWRF, NOGAPS, and Canadian models all predict that this trough will be strong enough to turn Ike northwards into central or western Louisiana. The UKMET and ECMWF models disagree, and think high pressure will dominate enough to force Ike westwards into Texas, between Corpus Christi and the Louisiana border. These two models have been trending too far south with Ike so far, so I would lean towards a landfall in western Louisiana at this point.

Masters, was saying EC then FL a few blogs ago as well...... Though WLA does seemed to be a reasonable guess...

[HURAKAN]

First time I remember seeing the entire island of Cuba under Hurricane Warning.

[Texashawk]

Now the center is entirely over the water.

wow... that's a good looking core for having spent almost 12 hours over land...

[GoldenTriangle]

It would be interesting to listen in on those conference calls but I doubt it would change any decision made by me re evacuation.

Lots of people say to listen to NHC ...I don't ...I can remember in the past when our experienced ProMet had the fortitude to go against NHC and he was right. When push comes to shove we dummies make our decision based on the trust factor.

[Txdivermom]

[quote="vbhoutex
Seriously though, id evacuate Houston for a Category 3 storm just because of the fact that being without power in Houston would be just horrible.

The way i look at it, Houston would have so many downed trees, flooding on local streets, no power, id rather be in a comfortable hotel room in Dallas for 1 week than uncomfortable dark hot and humid living room here in Houston.

We are in Cypress (NW Houston) and plan on staying. We do have a generator and won't have flooding (even the Allison rain wasn't a problem for us...even though it was for many nearby), but I expect to be seriously miserable. We bought some stuff yesterday and will do a real run this evening or tomorrow morning. Much better to be prepared than to deal with not having things. The Rita evac problems were just CRAZY. It's impossible to imagine. I know that it's been tough in LA (parents in Baton Rouge and out from Shreveport who were both without power last week), but a city the size of Houston without power is really SCARY! Even with Rita that didn't happen, there was nothing at all on grocery shelves and no gas at all. We will PLAN!

[ROCK]

Now that you pointed that out AFM, Masters is mistaken....the EURO (which some people on here think I am in love with) has been showing this WGOM NWGOM solution for days.....run after run...from TX/LA border to Brownville....it is the trend setter and remains to be...EURO will be out after 12...Some of us have access before the 2:30 public release...lets see what it does with Ike this run...

[jinftl]

Amazing photo....look at how symmetric he is...the spirals are so well-shaped in all quadrants. Is there any shear at all in the are?

Now the center is entirely over the water.

wow... that's a good looking core for having spent almost 12 hours over land...

[HURAKAN]

Loop: http://rammb.cira.colostate.edu/ramsdis ... is_floater

West we go.

[jasons2k]

Folks arguing back and forth isn't going to change anything. Ike's going to do what things set up to allow him to do, but anyone that firmly believes 5-6 days out is written in stone when dealing with hurricanes is setting themself up for a fall.

We've all seen it change more times than not. Weather patterens change daily no matter what we think they are going to do. It's nature

FWIW I'm not trying to argue with anyone. I'm just trying to point out a few things such as using 120-hour probabilties when a storm is forecasted to still be over open water to justify where it might track is not using the data how it should be used. I'm also trying to point out (as some pro mets have also pointed out), the track is pretty straightforward. There is a steering ridge in place. Ike isn't going to plow straight into a ridge. I've been around long enough to know when a 5-day forecast could swing 500 miles or when it should pretty much hold. Yes, nothing is "set in stone" in the tropics, but thinking the track of Ike may swing 500 miles right from Houston to Mobile 'aint gonna happen at this point.