AutoPenalti wrote:Shell Mound wrote:toad strangler wrote:
Wow, please explain that one. These storms don't follow a script. Frances and Jeanne landfalled within TWO miles of each other and just TWO weeks apart in 2004. NOTHING since then.
Climatologically, hurricane landfalls are rare, and two (major?) hurricanes hitting the same area (Keys) within three years would be even rarer. But I could be wrong.
It would be unlikely
but not impossible. 2004 would like to have a word in that case.
This is certainly true, but even with strong ridging in place, long-tracking systems of African—that is, AEW-related—origin that develop in the MDR are more likely than not to curve at
some point, whether offshore or over/near land. The EPS, like the ICON, has been consistently suggesting at least a temporary weakness in six or seven days, given that a shortwave is shown to be lifting out at that time in advance of the next one, while ridging attempts to “bridge” in its wake. So if 98L were over/near South Florida at that time, it would be very close to the western edge of the Western Atlantic Ridge (WAR), and would be nearing a gap between the expanding Sonoran heat ridge and the WAR. Combined with the climatological salience I mentioned, this might imply that 98L would assume a west-northwestward track toward the south-central Bahamas and the Miami area, avoiding the Keys and the Greater Antilles to the north, and then curve northwestward and northward toward Tampa Bay and the Big Bend (Cedar Key). So maybe the evolution will run as follows: south-central Bahamas → Miami (landfall) → Tampa Bay → Cedar Key. Perhaps the trajectory will be somewhat similar to that of the
1949 Palm Beach hurricane, except that the initial landfall will be farther south, in the Miami area. We shall see.