Why Was Ernesto Weak?

[Frank2]

I don't have access to the information, but, are you sure - the attachment states the El Nino period of 1991-1994, which would also include the great Mississippi River flood of 1993, which was also said to be induced by an El Nino...

Frank

[ObsessedMiami]

I have a question regarding Ernesto:

One of the old axioms about tropical systems si that the NorthEast quadrant is the "dirty" side of the storm abd the western half the "clean" side. Miami Mets were harping on this again as a reason why the flood watch was in effect for Miami and Broward. But Ernesto's heaviest rains were on the Southwestern side of the storm. Why was that? I would think more moisture was available from the Florida Straits, unless he got mositure from the Everglades?

[Sanibel]

I think the approaching front forced moisture in from the tropics as it was sucked up the southerly flow in front of the trough.

Our highest winds from Ernesto were from the west (only 20-25mph).

[cpdaman]

the single biggest reason ernesto was weak in florida came down to it's movement just around 5 pm monday afternoon. if ernie felt the effects of the ridge about 30 miles later than his track off to the WNW would have occurred after he cleared the north east cuban coast giving him 30 hours over water, which would have done 2 fold.

1. this would have been about 12 hours LESS over land which is LLC would have been in much better condition when it left the coast compared to when it did at 5 am tuesay beat up and battered. so not only would he have been in better condition leaving the coast earlier, but he would have had more time to develop about 3o hours compared with 18


2 i beleve if ernie left the coast 5pm monday nite( or within the hour thereafter if it maintained its nw heading (instead of its wnw parallel the coast thing) we would have been dealing with at least a category 1 hurricane in florida and perhaps a major cat 3.

p.s thank u cuba , and thank u ridge( the timing in which he felt it was almost too ironic) u saved S FL

[gatorcane]

Ernesto was weak because he

1) interacted with land longer than expected over Cuba
2) a ULL moving west from the Bahamas towards southern Florida entrenched dry air into Ernesto (thank yet another ULL folks, 2006 is the season of ULLs)

There is no other explanation.

[Sanibel]

2006 negative atmospheric (don't ask me to explain what exactly that is comprised of).

[wxmann_91]

If Ernesto had not jogged north, it would've went into the Western Caribbean and become a very formidable hurricane.

If Ernesto had not jogged west over Cuba, it could've ramped up to a major as it made landfall in NC since it would've stayed over water longer.

If Ernesto had stayed over water for 12-24 more hours, either coming out earlier from FL, or staying longer before hitting NC, it would've been a Cat 2 at landfall. The inner core was clearly consolidating well as it was making NC landfall.