ATL : EX TOMAS - Discussion

[CourierPR]

I feel extremely bad 4 haiti. My goodness a td causing 2000 deaths. I cant imagine what a potential upper end cat 2 or 3 would do.

Several days of afternoon thunderstorms would cause major problems for Haiti.

[andrewsurvivor]

Of note and sorry if this belongs on another thread, however, should this materialize we as s2k members can help by driving funds and awareness to the region. Being in online marketing, I can offer my personal assistance by getting messages out to large masses of people. Let's get ready to lend a helping hand where we can and hope we won't have to implement them.

[snowcane180]

And then the earthquake! How many deaths did that cause? Out of all the places that see earthquakes, what are the chances haiti gets hit? And a strong one at that. The U.s has only been hit by baby quakes this year.

[cycloneye]

Discussion by Crownweather Services: http://www.crownweather.com/?page_id=325

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 including storm2k.org. For Official Information please refer to the NHC and NWS products.

Air Force Reconnaissance aircraft have found Tomas has strengthened overnight and has 100 mph sustained winds this morning, making it a Category 2 hurricane. Data from the aircraft, however, revealed that the hurricane is leaning to the northeast the higher you go in altitude. This means that there is some southwesterly wind shear affecting Tomas. The hurricane intensity guidance all forecast some additional strengthening today into tonight, however from Monday through Wednesday, any strengthening will stop and in fact there may be some weakening of the hurricane during this time period. The reason for this is because southwesterly wind shear of 20 to 25 knots will affect the hurricane and I personally think the north coast of Venezuela will impact the hurricane in some way, especially with the southwesterly wind shear. The LGEM intensity model, in fact, weakens Tomas from a 105 mph hurricane later today to a 80 mph hurricane by Wednesday morning. Starting on Wednesday and continuing through Friday, the wind shear values are forecast to decrease and strengthening seems quite possible during this time period. It should be noted that the LGEM intensity model forecasts Tomas to strengthen from a 80 mph hurricane on Wednesday morning to a 100 to 105 mph hurricane by Friday morning.

Tomas is tracking west-northwest at a forward speed of 8 to 9 mph this morning and the hurricane is located to the south of a trough of low pressure located over the southwest North Atlantic. This trough of low pressure is forecast to lift out and be replaced by a ridge of high pressure in the next day or two. This will cause Tomas to turn to the west from Monday through early Wednesday. In fact, some of the global model guidance like the GFS, European and UKMET models forecast a west-southwest track during Tuesday. After that, this ridge of high pressure is forecast to break down as a large and deep trough of low pressure moves into the eastern United States. This will cause Tomas to slow down in forward speed and turn much more to the northwest by Thursday.

It needs to be emphasized that there is a very large model spread for the forecast position during Thursday and Friday. The reason why is that the model guidance cannot agree on what way Tomas will interact with this trough of low pressure. The track guidance forecasts a recurve that could cause a landfall anywhere between Jamaica and Puerto Rico. The majority of the latest model guidance, however, forecasts a scenario that would take Tomas right over Haiti, which if this happens would be extremely and exceptionally bad!!

A landfall by a major hurricane into Haiti would be a worst case scenario for that country. There is little or no shelter and over a million people live in tents due to the earthquake from January. In addition, there is a widespread Cholera outbreak going on right now in that country. So, a hit by a major hurricane would be downright catastrophic. Even a landfall by a tropical storm or a Category 1 hurricane would be disastrous for Haiti due to the heavy rainfall and mudslides. I truly fear that the combination of poor living conditions, mountainous terrain which aggravates the mudslide/flooding potential and the potential for a strong hurricane coming ashore in Haiti could cause a very high death toll.

All interests, including residents in Haiti, those of you with family in Haiti, and relief workers that are in Haiti, should start thinking seriously now on what preventive actions to take for this hurricane. The timeline for a potential landfall by Tomas onto the country of Haiti looks to be anywhere between Thursday and Saturday depending on how Tomas interacts with the trough of low pressure over the eastern United States.

It should be noted that a track further west towards Jamaica or further east to Puerto Rico are both viable possibilities. In fact, the latest HWRF model forecasts that Tomas will not make it past 70 West Longitude and forecasts that Tomas will eventually track northeastward right into Puerto Rico on Friday morning.

So, all interests in the Caribbean, especially those of you in Jamaica, eastern Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico should keep extremely close watch on the progress of Hurricane Tomas. As I have already mentioned, those of you with interests in Haiti should seriously start thinking now on what preventive actions are needed to prepare for Hurricane Tomas.

[KWT]

Thats a good post from crownweather there, everywhere from PR through to probably E/C Cuba need to keep an eye on it but for now its sadly true that Haiti is at least at highest risk and given the fragility of the country even a glancing blow could be real bad...

[snowcane180]

I dont think its gonna make landfall or affect haiti.I think Jamaica should be worried. Haiti should prepare anyway like they did when igor was 280 something miles northeast of them.

[crownweather]

Something occurred to me looking at all of the guidance surrounding Tomas this morning. The track of Super Typhoon Megi from earlier this month.

Track of Megi:


Track of Tomas:


Megi was initially steered by a building ridge of high pressure which caused a west-southwest and even a southwest track before it turned northward about 10 degrees longitude further west. So, if we follow teleconnections to what is going on with Tomas; if the hurricane turns due west or even west-southwest around let's say 67 West Longitude, that turn to the north like what Megi did would potentially occur around 75 West Longitude.

I guess I just found the track of Megi interesting in comparing it to Tomas.

[CourierPR]

Aha, the teleconnection!

[Gustywind]

Strong showers last night in Guadeloupe with nice gusts near Huc location (Basse-Terre) and Saint Claude given our journalists. Numerous poweroutages were reported too in these same locations. I've endured a small poweroutage (and temporally troubles with my internet 4hours) early this morning but all is ok in my location. Weather is always grey and sad, with brief but strong line of showers with occasionnal gustywinds. An improvement is expected this afternoon, let's hope that but no report of damages for the moment in Guadeloupe and that's the good news. We're always in yellow alert.

[KWT]

There certainly are similarities with that track and I know some people really favour looking at tracks from the WPAC to give some sort of hint of what may happen downstream...

For now the best match still appears to be Hazel from 1954, Tomas is gaining a little more latitude but in terms of current strength and expected track its a pretty close match, nothing else really stands out as a comprasion to this at this time of the year...

Outflow boundaries from Tomas outer bands sparking off convection over PR right now.

[gatorcane]

Looks like the euro is nailing the intensity forecast. The gfs already had a very strong system at this point.

I wonder if it degenerates back to a tropical storm in the next day or so. Euro eventually dissipates Tomas in the caribbean

[cycloneye]

That is a good catch to compare but hopefully,it doesn't come to fructition.

[cycloneye]

Some members are comparing Tomas with Hazel in 1954.Here it is.

[Battlebrick]

Scary similarities here.

Edit: LOL at the above post.. posted nearly exact same time.

[KWT]

Looks like the euro is nailing the intensity forecast. The gfs already had a very strong system at this point.

I wonder if it degenerates back to a tropical storm in the next day or so. Euro eventually dissipates Tomas in the caribbean

Alot of the models do weaken it down to TS strength, its quite possible that occurs BUT most models show a much better set-up aloft for Tomas once it starts to move northwards and shear eases off.

THe ECM however is not nailing strength at least recently even if it has spotted the possible weakening trend, it was nowhere near showing what it got to this morning, the ECM weren't even in the general ballpark apart from maybe yesterdays 12z run and even that was a solid 7-10mbs too high still...

As I said yesterday night there is westerly shear and both myself and the obviously superior NHC stated this would probably at the very least halt strengthening.

[HURAKAN]

Latest

[snowcane180]

So this thing is going to make landfall in the U.S and travel up to canada

[KWT]

I'm not sure its weakening too rapidly looking at those images there Hurakan, I suspect recon finds 70-75kts when it goes in there later providing the presentation doesn't worsen any more till then. Still may well weaken down to a TS at some point as shear does look a little strong at the moment.

[Battlebrick]

So this thing is going to make landfall in the U.S and travel up to canada

It won't even get close to the US.. unless something drastic happens in the long run to have a shot at the east coast. But most likely no.

[snowcane180]

Tomas looks terrible and i think its probably met its peak intensity