New Orleans

Last time I posted I made mention that the models were showing more of a hit to Louisiana even though weather services were still taking the storm into Florida.  I also mentioned that there must be something I wasn't seeing that kept the professionals from moving the track.  Well sure enough the track moved yesterday over towards Louisiana.  And now we can say with certainty that New Orleans is about to take on a lot of water.

See normally I don't put a lot of stock into what I see for many reasons.  For one, and probably the biggest, I have access to what I can assume is about 1% of the maps, charts and models that the pros do.  There are so many things that are not accessible by the public that trying to make a forecast is incredibly hard.  However there are a lot of models out there that can give you a general idea.  Part two of my reasoning is I have little experience and about zero educational background other than having a general interest.  And of course, I spend roughly an hour putting this together looking at runs. 

But now that Isaac officially seems to have a target area, let's focus on that.  Here are my concerns having not seen a single thing about the storm since this morning but looking at all my maps and junk. 

• This system is moving slow and is quite large.  I could give a rats ass about intensity.  When you are talking about an area as low in elevation as parts of the gulf coast are, there are going to be problems.
•  The storm surge is going to be an issue as this thing continues to churn water up towards places like Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.  Have to remember that storm surge is one of is not the most dangerous parts of a storm.  Add in low elevation and again, problems.
•  Isaac is moving at a snails pace.  Somebody is going to get a boat load of rain.  I will throw it out there now.  Somebody gets in the range of 22-25 inches of rain.  Probably in Mississippi.
•  New Orleans is at this point almost a direct target.  Winds should top out in the 80 mph range.  Not good for a large city.
•  The northeast quadrant of the storm is generally where you see the worst of the weather and damage.  We would place that area somewhere between New Orleans and Gulfport, Mississippi.  Basically in some of the hardest hit areas from Katrina. 

Clearly this storm is no Katrina but the fact that it is another hurricane hitting a vulnerable spot practically 7 years to the day of the infamous storm will surely draw minor comparisons.  Put it this way.  Nothing good ever comes from taking the brunt of a hurricane.


And now for the not-so-important forecast for the big game.  If anything I can at least say the temps haven't been swinging back and forth.  Still looks like a mild day.  I haven't closed the book on getting any rain but I would be surprised at this point.

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Storm Watch

To say the long range forecast model is accurate would be a massive stretch.  You might as well throw out anything predicted yesterday and probably what I am writing now.  But I have checked more models out and have some new information on the storm.

The track has continually progressed west.  The Keys look to take somewhat of a direct hit from Isaac.  If there is a consolation the storm won't be very strong or organized at that point.  However there will be a lot of rain and persistent 40-50 mph winds is bound to cause problems including any storm surge. 

The more I see the tracks of three different models tend to agree that the west coast of Florida misses out on most of this.  Even the rainfall and wind would be on the lesser side of things.  The panhandle is a different story.  If I am picking a place now to be on guard it would be Pensacola.  The storm when it hits will be significantly stronger than it is now.

Who knows where it will actually hit.  The Canadian and Global runs show a hit closer to Louisiana and the Naval run is right around Alabama.  All the tracks I've seen from weather services don't indicate a hit for places that far west.  So I will assume there is something else steering it towards the Pensacola area.

If you go by these runs there is no way the storm would get to this area by Saturday.  But this stuff changes every 12 hours.  If the runs that have it trending west are wrong, the storm would arrive earlier than suggest for us.  Wouldn't mind some clouds or rain since the temps continue to look warmer than I would prefer.  I said I would take the over on the temp and I'm keeping with that one. 

Almost forgot.  Screwing around looking at the maps yesterday I noticed something important at least to me.  A county in Montana had a winter weather advisory.  Can cross that one off the list of signs that winter is approaching.

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Worth A Look

Really wanted to skip the blog due to lack of time tonight but the model run is too interesting not to show.  Instead I will bullet point the changes.

• Major track change (in my opinion) for Isaac.  The storm still brushes south Florida then heads into the gulf.  The storm gets a chance to intensify before making landfall along the Mississippi-Alabama border.
• The further push west also means a later in the week landfall.  As of now the model has it coming onshore on Wednesday.  
• Even after landfall the storm keeps a northwest trajectory before being picked up in the jet stream moving the storm in our direction

 What does that mean for us?  Take a look at this image of the current forecast for the morning of September 1st.

Well what do we have here?  Is this likely to happen?  No.  Couple things I see that would make this picture above not very likely.  The first is I don't see the storm moving as far west as the model does once it comes on land.  Secondly, there continues to appear to be high pressure either over our area or at least close by which could help to block any movement.  Third, I think the jet will pick it up and move it quicker than the current model suggests so that even if we would be impacted it would be before the weekend.

The fun of long range models.  And I only used one for all of this jargon.  

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Getting Tricky

As we approach a shorter time frame we can start to see patterns develop.  In the same token, things can change rather quickly and often when you look beyond the 5 to 7 day period.  Case in point is the upcoming tropical storm in the south Atlantic.

The more reliable European and Global models show the same path that they've been showing the past few days.  If anything the Global took it slightly west still hitting southern Florida but not as a hurricane.  Instead it takes the storm up the western Florida coast, strengthening to what appears to be a weak hurricane and then making landfall along the panhandle.

Again a completely different scenario plays out from what ran yesterday.  The storm quickly rides a dipping jet stream up the eastern coast.  No stationary rain.  No hanging out in the south.  It would ride it quickly enough the storm would be gone by mid next week.  And thanks to high pressure hanging out over our region, the current run shows no rain.

Images will be posted next time.  As for kickoff weather, more of the same.  No rain showing up but with the storm showing signs of making a turn up the coast I would at least pay attention.  I was very surprised to see what I would consider cool air to come down from Canada for the middle portion of next week.  Surprised mainly because that is the complete opposite of what was shown before. 

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