ATL: IKE Discussion

[KWT]

Yep Hurakan still look near due west, maybe a touch north of west but still going to spend some time in the waters.

Anyway note the convection has developed in that dry slot and the convection further away has died off as the 'energy' focuses in on the center core again, I suspect Ike willbe rewrapping pretty readily right now, and whilst the inflow will drag in drier air from Cuba, Ike should stay steady and maybe even strengthen slightly.

[TampaFl]

Ridge still holding strong. When will the wnw/nw turn occur? Looking @ this map does not appear to be any time soon. Map time stamp 1200UTC

[caneman]

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.

500 no. Over 300 yep. Has happened many, many, many times to us on the West coast and I'm sure everywhere. No track is straight forward at 5 days. In my opinion. Heck, it is suprising as heck to me how strong the high pressure is. At this point you can't rule out it treking on over to Mexico. This is a season of very odd things.

[Frank2]

Look how much has changed since Friday - on Friday, everyone here in the office was covering everything with plastic trash bags, in case the windows shattered when Ike made landfall sometime today, so, as Max Mayfield correctly said, the models do change from run to run, so, let's see what happens...

Frank

P.S. I spoke to the NHC this morning (admin-wise), and, yes, they were busy...

[jlauderdal]

whats the official landfall total so far? We have at least two more.

[Sabanic]

whats the official landfall total so far? We have at least two more.

What do you mean j?

[El Nino]

Maybe we should issue a hurricane watch for Central America at this rythm ?! WNW motion still has not begun !

[cycloneye]

12:02 PM EDT:

[jinftl]

do we have 3:

Turks & Caicos
Bahamas (Mayaguana)
Cuba

whats the official landfall total so far? We have at least two more.

[Tireman4]

In case anyone needs this:

http://www.hcoem.org/HCMap.aspx?P=Evacuation

[jinftl]

maybe he will find his way to the panama canal and wobble through that to become a pac storm

Maybe we should issue a hurricane watch for Central America at this rythm ?! WNW motion still has not begun !

maybe Hawaii should start paying attention as well

[KWT]

Seems like given the motion should continue west/north of west it seems quite possible Ike will stay over water now till western Cuba.

Has big implications for the future strength forecast of Ike, now got to be ready for a major hurricane a good bit quicker then was forecasted it seems, probably won't take long once its got past western cuba.

[HURAKAN]

The convection is not impressive at all.

[KWT]

No its not Hurakan but then again its spent a good 12hrs overland so thats to be expected, I think give it 6hrs over water and with a tight inner core and good structure still that convection will steadily deepen.

[jlauderdal]

whats the official landfall total so far? We have at least two more.

What do you mean j?

how many times has the general made landfall, i know cuba for one and i think turks one

[VeniceInlet]

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.

I don't want to argue this point, but I do want to explain something: Computer technology has evolved so much even in just the past few years that what may have happened a couple of years ago is really no longer relevant. Computing power has increased so much and is continuing to do so, and therefore, every year, the amount of data that they're able to analyze on a timely basis grows and grows. As a result, the track forecasts have and will only get more and more accurate each year. This year and last, NHC seems to be doing a great job with the short term forecasts, and at some point when the technology is there, I'm confident they'll be able to extend the accuracy of their forecasting ability to a greater period of time than just three days. What is hard for most people to comprehend is the sheer amount of data that has to go into these systems to provide any kind of dependable result, and how long it takes to process these massive amounts of data on a timely basis. Many of us like to complain, but the reality is that we're very lucky we even have the hurricane forecasts we do today. We really can't say that what happened a few years ago when they missed this or that track is even in the same ballpark as what they are able to do today.

[jinftl]

when gustav emerged from cuba, didn't he encounter some shear in the overall environment...which may have contributed him to not re-strrengthening as much as first feared.

What is the upper air environment around cuba and se gulf? 85-90 degree bathwater all over his nearest water tracks.

Seems like given the motion should continue west/north of west it seems quite possible Ike will stay over water now till western Cuba.

Has big implications for the future strength forecast of Ike, now got to be ready for a major hurricane a good bit quicker then was forecasted it seems, probably won't take long once its got past western cuba.

[haml8]

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...

I noticed that, seems that Jeff was behind on his blog. Did anyone catch that the NHC called out the guidance on the EURO was more within their reasoning and Jeff seemed to dismiss it as to far south? Or did I not read that right?

[jinftl]

true, but the public's expectations as to the accuracy of forecasts, even those made a few days out is has increased faster than the technology. We want to know the city to get hit...5 days out..not just the region. Being in a hurricane warning area is not specific enough for alot of people....i.e, charlety hit punta gorda and the cry was it was going for tampa. both were in hurricane warnings.

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.

I don't want to argue this point, but I do want to explain something: Computer technology has evolved so much even in just the past few years that what may have happened a couple of years ago is really no longer relevant. Computing power has increased so much and is continuing to do so, and therefore, every year, the amount of data that they're able to analyze on a timely basis grows and grows. As a result, the track forecasts have and will only get more and more accurate each year. This year and last, NHC seems to be doing a great job with the short term forecasts, and at some point when the technology is there, I'm confident they'll be able to extend the accuracy of their forecasting ability to a greater period of time than just three days. What is hard for most people to comprehend is the sheer amount of data that has to go into these systems to provide any kind of dependable result, and how long it takes to process these massive amounts of data on a timely basis. Many of us like to complain, but the reality is that we're very lucky we even have the hurricane forecasts we do today. We really can't say that what happened a few years ago when they missed this or that track is even in the same ballpark as what they are able to do today.

[jlauderdal]

do we have 3:

Turks & Caicos
Bahamas (Mayaguana)
Cuba

whats the official landfall total so far? We have at least two more.

i won 250 bucks in the office going with a 4 bagger for gus, everyone else went three, tiebreakers go to cumulative miles from landfall prediction, it isnt a competition for the weak thats for sure, lol