question about invest

[Holly93]

why is a new disturbance called an invest? could someone point me to a dictionary or glossary....i've been wanting to ask this question since before Bonnie....ya'll don't laugh at newbies, right? i guess since i was in the eyewalls of Frances and Jeanne i get to be an oldbie now...i just need to learn the lingo!

[Hurricanehink]

An invest is an area of distrubed weather that has the potential to become an actual system. The NHC or JTWC issues these when they feel it is necessary, and when that happens, tropical models issue forecasts for the systems. 99.9999% of tropical systems are invests before storms. It goes from 90-99, be it 99L, E, C, W, A, B, S, or P.

[senorpepr]

Invest is an area that needs investigation or rather, an area of concern for development. It's title is given to systems that are more developed than your run-of-the-mill tropical wave, but not yet a tropical depression. These "invests" are given a 90-series number (90, 91, 92, ..., 99) so that tropical models can be run. Once the invest becomes a tropical depression, the title become such and the 90-series number becomes the next available number (for the Atlantic, that would be 16).

[cycloneye]

Post subject: 101 about what is an Invest

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Code:
The geographical boundaries for each region with their letter identifiers are:

Atlantic(L): North of the equator between N. America and Africa
East Pacific(E): North of the equator between 140W and N. America
Central Pacific(C): North of the equator between 180W and 140W longitude
West Pacific(W): North of the equator between 100E and 180E longitude
Indian Ocean:
(A) North of the equator between Africa and 77E longitude
(B) North of the equator between 77E and 100E longitude
Southern Hemisphere:
(P) South of the equator between 135E and S. America
(S) South of the equator between Africa and 135E longitude


Letter identifiers are assigned to the storm's basin of origin. If a storm passes over a basin boundary, the storm will maintain it's basin of origin letter identifier even though it has entered a new region. For example, storm "Alpha" originates in the Eastern Pacific and is assigned 01E. If it makes its way into the Central Pacific it will still maintain its number and name designation even though it is seen under the Central Pacific header.
The storm number can be an eighty series (80-89), ninety series (90-99), or a number between 1 and 50. Storms seen with a number between 80 and 89 are usually used for testing purposes only. Storms with numbers between 90 and 99 are areas that forecasters use to monitor suspect regions typically with disorganized large-scale convection that has a chance to develop into a more organized system such as a tropical depression. Storms with numbers between 1 and 50 are/were storms that reached tropical storm strength or higher.
The naming convention after the number/basin pair can be called INVEST, NONAME, or assigned name. All storms will start with an INVEST name. When the system becomes a tropical storm this name will change to either NONAME or assigned name. NONAME is assigned to storms which do not have an official assigned name yet. Assigned names are given to tropical storms according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Typically, storms that form in the Indian Ocean north of the equator will have NONAME. There are a few occasions where a tropical storm name will have an INVEST or a ONE, TWO,... following the number/basin pair. This name is only temporary and typically lasts for only a couple of hours. This is caused by the timing of the position updates generated by the Automated Tropical Cyclone Forecasting (ATCF) system and when forecasters determine that the system has become a tropical storm.



Here is a complete explanation about what is an invest.

[senorpepr]

Well then, I think we about covered it.

As an add-on to Luis's post (cycloneye), sometimes rare storms form where they don't have a basin letter assigned. Since the ATCF system needs a two-digit and one-letter ID for all storms, one is made up. Besides L, E, C, W, P, S, A, and B for the standard basins, M is used for the Mediterranean and T is used for the Southern Atlantic. That about covers it.

[Anonymous]

Last year, the South Atlantic hurricane/Brazille remained 01L although it had the Name Catalina but the name never showed up on the Navy NRL site. Guess there was controversey since the Brazillian hurricane 'experts' said it was not a hurricane so it wasnt official?

[senorpepr]

Last year, the South Atlantic hurricane/Brazille remained 01L although it had the Name Catalina but the name never showed up on the Navy NRL site. Guess there was controversey since the Brazillian hurricane 'experts' said it was not a hurricane so it wasnt official?

Well, the Brazil hurricane was something else. NRL, who wasn't prepared for such an event, originally put the system under Southern Hemisphere storms. Then they moved it to the Atlantic section, pre management. There computers wouldn't handle a T suffix, that's why it kept the number 01L. (they use a format such as AL162004 meaning the 16th storm for the Atlantic basin in the year 2004. AL is automatically converted to L for the three-character format: 16L. Since there isn't a long code for South Atlantic storms, they used AL012004 which was converted to 01L.) However, several other forecasting venues such as the UK Met Office used 01T. As for the name, officially it has no name. Brazilian media dubbed it as Catarina since that's where it hit. Other unofficial names where given to 01T. For all practical purposes, the storm is referred to as "Catarina" much like we used to label storms as "The Key Hurricane," etc.