As I get ready for bed I wanted to post one more time on the status of both Gustav and Hanna. As far as their status goes they are both still tropical storm. Gustav sustained winds are at 70 mph and its movement is west at 7 mph as it continues to batter the island of Jamaica.
Hanna is also a tropical storm, and getting stronger, with sustained winds at near 50 mph. I think the Pajamas Media “Weather Nerd” Brendan Loy summed up the NHC headline for really both storms from their 5 p.m. update, “we just don’t know what’s going to happen.”
The main reason I wanted to post was what really caught my attention this evening with both storms. Their apperance on satellite continues to grow more and more impressive. Gustav is beginning to look more and more like a hurricane with a rounder more symmetric look to it. Then Hanna had an explosion of convection near its circulation which the NHC noted on their discussion: “CONVECTION HAS REDEVELOPED WITH A VENGEANCE OVER OR NEAR THE CENTER CONTAINING CLOUD TOPS AS COLD AS -83C.” They also referred to this as a “bursting pattern” which tend to be short lived. We will have to see.
By the time I wake up in the morning, Gustav may have passed Jamaica and be a hurricane because it is forecasted to strengthen into a Hurricane in the next 24 hours. Then again I thought and felt it would have been a hurricane during the day Thursday. So far ever since its first run as a hurricane, almost every forecast has had a very VERY difficult time in forecasting intensity in the short term and I wonder how this will play out if these challenges continue in the long term.
Speaking of the long term and forecasts I need to give another hat-tip too the “Weather Nerd” Brendan Loy for brining my attention to Eric Berger’s post titled, “How much can we trust the 5 day forecast” I recommend reading it.
Stumble it!
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