Tropical Trouble for the U.S?

Brian Neudorff @ 10:00 pm September 3rd, 2007 · 1 Comment

(Welcome to all the visitors from Brian Griffiths’ Blog, Brendan Loy’s Blog, & Pajamas Media. I have a new update on this disturbance)

As all eyes have been watching Felix, I have kept one eye on the disturbance off the southeastern coast of the United States. It is now tropical wave (99L) or invest 99L. AccuWeather.com senior meteorologist Joe Bastardi first brought my attention to this storm late last week on his daily blog on the AccuWeather.com Professional Site which I blogged about on Sunday. It now looks like this area really needs to be watched…

Checking the models Monday night they really begin to develop this storm. First here is the GFS… Click here for the latest animation of the GFS.

(images from 18Z run of GFS on 070903)

Early Thursday morning, the GFS takes the storm out east away from the coast…

Three days later on Sunday it brings it back closer to the Carolinas.

Early Monday Morning…

By Monday afternoon this is getting closer to the Mid Atlantic and New England. Now I am not saying this is going to happen. These models are a week or more out so accuracy is very low, but none the less we have to keep our eyes on this. It could easily stay out to see or on the other side make landfall in the U.S. if it actually becomes a tropical storm or hurricane.

To me the confidence seems to be a little high because the models are now beginning to see this storm, and as I stated yesterday, similarities between this disturbance (99L) currently off the Georgia coast, and the large-scale meteorological conditions surrounding it are similar to the development of previous storms like Carol (1954), Bob (1991), Diana (1984), Belle (1976) and Gaston (2004).

Even the GFDL starts to develop a pretty impressive storm by Saturday a little ahead of the GFS. Click for an animation of the GFDL on invest 99L

Keep in mind there are a lot of other weather factors that will eventually steer this system and help or hinder its development. I am just bringing this to peoples attention now.