ATL GUSTAV: Tropical Depression - Discussion

[tgenius]

The NHC was clearly caught off-guard by the rapid development this morning. I don't buy that first track for a second. Moving at 2.5 kts at the end is a big hedge because they don't know where to put it. GFS still shows a strong ridge building to its north over the next few days. That argues for a track just north of Jamaica Wednesday morning and then west (or south of west) to the Yucatan. There are no indications of a trof in the eastern Gulf that would allow for a turn there on the 06Z GFS and so far not on the 12Z GFS. In fact, the 12Z GFS now sees the storm for the first time and indicates a west track from near Jamaica, probably toward the Yucatan but it's not all in yet.

I like the sound of that.. don't want my Labor Day weekend ruined!

[CYCLONE MIKE]

deja vu!

CYCLONE MIKE arguing for a westward track... gatorcane arguing for an eastward track...

gc won round 1...

who will win round 2???

Noles, It was a tie. She did end up coming west at the end. In fact old center was right on top of us yesterday. Anyway not pulling for it to move west(don't want it to) already lost two days of work due to a weak depression. Just stating some opinion as why it could eventually come back west.

[Sanibel]

GFS still shows a strong ridge building to its north over the next few days.

If GFS is correct trash can any right outliers or even possibly Florida.

[jlauderdal]

Dare I say it? An area central on the convection appears to have cleared out - lets hope its dry air and not the E word already.

Welcome to the discussion, lol.

nice to see another broward resident, you can count on us to keep some sanity in play here

[cpdaman]

IMO storm appears to be going WNW and the last frame will probably just be a north wobble

CIMSS steering flow shows a weakness further west which i think this may feel around midnite but what do i know

GFS ridge building gives me more piece of mind in fl

[mattpetre]

The NHC was clearly caught off-guard by the rapid development this morning. I don't buy that first track for a second. Moving at 2.5 kts at the end is a big hedge because they don't know where to put it. GFS still shows a strong ridge building to its north over the next few days. That argues for a track just north of Jamaica Wednesday morning and then west (or south of west) to the Yucatan. There are no indications of a trof in the eastern Gulf that would allow for a turn there on the 06Z GFS and so far not on the 12Z GFS. In fact, the 12Z GFS now sees the storm for the first time and indicates a west track from near Jamaica, probably toward the Yucatan but it's not all in yet.

wxman57, I almost always have faith in your forecasts, but this is one of the rare times that I think we actually agree on path to a larger extent. I just don't see this doing a dive into the Bahamas into what little weakness is there. I believe intensification is actually going to pull this storm more westwardly perhaps even a direct landfall on Jamaica? Well, let's just see how long my incredibly unproffesional and sometimes off the wall predictions can hold in line with yours. This is definately going to be a case where one of two camps is correct (although with Fay there was much early speculation that it would go N. of all the big islands; and that was just quickly forgotten when it slammed PR and Hisp.)

[jlauderdal]

And right on cue... WSVN has Tracking TD7 on front and center of webpage... if it becomes TS by 5 or even hurricane.. watch out.

if they bring out phil ferro tomorrow morning we are in trouble, he was terrible during fay

[Noles2006]

deja vu!

CYCLONE MIKE arguing for a westward track... gatorcane arguing for an eastward track...

gc won round 1...

who will win round 2???

Noles, It was a tie. She did end up coming west at the end. In fact old center was right on top of us yesterday. Anyway not pulling for it to move west(don't want it to) already lost two days of work due to a weak depression. Just stating some opinion as why it could eventually come back west.

I guess you both were correct now that I think about it!

[gtsmith]

why does the NOAA site have images up to two hours older than the GHCC site? The latest image I get in a NOAA loop is 13:45UTC (even though the site says 30 minute updates), on the GHCC site their loops are up to 15:40UTC.

[bob rulz]

I think that if they are going to send out recon, we may as well wait for their data before declaring it as such. That's more conservative and we don't need the NHC to "hype" any storms. They are at least being responsible because it is their job to do so.

I agree that they shouldn't be irresponsible, but I don't think it would be irresponsible to declare this a tropical storm. I don't think anybody's ever seen a tropical depression that looks like that.

[Wx_Warrior]

And if you believe GFS, it's still nothing 90hrs out.

[tgenius]

The bigger concern I think that we have is the uncertainty of the models (surprise surprise) but it appears IF this is a SFLA event there will be at least decent notice (5+ days)

[Sanibel]

Plane should be there in an hour. In time to warn Haiti or whoever needs warning.

[cpdaman]

The posts in this forum are NOT official forecast and should not be used as such. They are just the opinion of the poster and may or may not be backed by sound meteorological data. They are NOT endorsed by any professional institution or storm2k.org. For official information, please refer to the NHC and NWS products

I do think the BAMS and the models that take it more WNW are missing the fact this depression is rapidly intensifying and tapping into the deeper steering currents --- so I do think a more NW or even at times NNW movement will happen today......

quote]

gator where do you see the deep steering currents moving NW or even NNW near TD 7

http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/tropic/real- ... 8dlm2.html

this is the only thing i see w/ more NW flow but this is too shallow (700-850)

http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/tropic/real- ... 8dlm1.html

[ConvergenceZone]

The NHC was clearly caught off-guard by the rapid development this morning. I don't buy that first track for a second. Moving at 2.5 kts at the end is a big hedge because they don't know where to put it. GFS still shows a strong ridge building to its north over the next few days. That argues for a track just north of Jamaica Wednesday morning and then west (or south of west) to the Yucatan. There are no indications of a trof in the eastern Gulf that would allow for a turn there on the 06Z GFS and so far not on the 12Z GFS. In fact, the 12Z GFS now sees the storm for the first time and indicates a west track from near Jamaica, probably toward the Yucatan but it's not all in yet.

wow, so it's looking more and more like this may not affect the USA at all??? That's great news!!!

[ericinmia]

GFS still shows a strong ridge building to its north over the next few days.

If GFS is correct trash can any right outliers or even possibly Florida.

Amateur opinion here:

I am a little weary beacuse the GFS has been having problems with the strength and depth of ridges. I am going to try and not outthink the genius' and just watch the models, watch the obs, watch the pro mets, and follow the NHC "with a slight tweak of my own opinion"

[hiflyer]

And right on cue... WSVN has Tracking TD7 on front and center of webpage... if it becomes TS by 5 or even hurricane.. watch out.

if they bring out phil ferro tomorrow morning we are in trouble, he was terrible during fay

Not any worse than the one that just did the top of the hour intro for the news at WSVN.....no cone...just a line marching right at SoFla and that it will be in the Straits by Saturday coming to SoFla....no question.

[AdvAutoBob]

Still too early to tell... I'm not believing ANY models until recon gets some hard data for them to chew on

That being said, that LAST thing Florida needs is more rain

[ronjon]

Seems more likely to follow GFDL & HWRF tracks which closely mirror the statistical CLPER path now. If GFS is building in ridging, then that also argues for a more W-NW path. The only models bringing TD 7 strongly northward are NOGAPs (a terrible performance on Fay) and the Euro - However, the Euro on its earlier runs had TD 7 running up south of Cuba on a FAY like track.

[Derek Ortt]

I'm not buying the Yucatan track

6Z GFDL has this in the E Bahamas. It has a coherent enough vortex to be influenced by the weakness to the north