Currently Irma is a very powerful hurricane with winds at 130 knots. You can see a well defined eye...
The National Hurricane Center has this for their updated cone...
The big concern here is that the Bahamas and Cuba can take a hard hit from this next weekend. From there come the spread in models widens. However, the GFS ensemble actually sums up the model spread well..
You can see solutions ranging from a hit to the islands then a sharp right turn up the coast to a storm that heads west more then heads up into FL or the eastern Gulf states. How this storm travels will all depend on the pressure placement in the atmosphere to steer the storm....
Looking at the upper atmosphere in the models, recent trends have been to allow this storm to move more west southwest due to a stronger nose to an Atlantic high pressure system seen below..
From there the spread in models really widens. The approaching trough to the north in blue is key here. Will that trough hang back enough to help guide the storm due north near the east coast, or will it move out faster and allow the blocking ridge behind it to steer the storm more west into Fl or the Gulf then north. Image below shows this...
At this time I favor this trough seen above with the blue X moves out quicker and this storm heads more west through Bahamas, eastern Cuba, then potentially up into eastern FL/SE coast.
I will have a video later tonight breaking all of this down.
Hey Willy, as you know, the mid-day GFS/CMC/Euro runs are showing a lot of agreement on a track just east of the Florida coast, finally going inland in South Carolina. Given Irma's strength, that could do a lot of coastal damage. Of course, there will still be wiggling in the runs over the upcoming week. The GFS seems to have a second storm that tracks up the east coast around the 19-20th. That could yet be science fiction, like all those wintertime blizzards that the GFS promises on day 14 or 15. But nonetheless, looks as if this could be quite a hurricane season. Jim G
ReplyDeleteHey Jim- I still favor the more eastern side of the track spread. I think the leftover trough in the SE will be a little more aggressive than modeled and help the storm make a sharper turn. Granted, that Atlantic HP system is really have a big influence currently and we will have to see how west and south this gets before that interaction with the remnant trough occurs. I agree, the GFS outside of 180 hrs is complete fantasy land just like in the winter. Regardless, this is a monster of a storm and will keep us all busy over the next week!
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