Good morning. It has been a while since I have posted but with the winter season approaching the frequency will pick up. In today's discussion we will be focusing on Hurricane Ian which is expected to impact the Tampa area mid week.
Current national hurricane center forecast is below...
Over the past few days, the question has been how far east this track can make it. The European model has been leading the charge here with its consistent track towards Tampa. The American GFS model which was as far west as Louisiana the other day is now more in line with the European. This makes sense to me.
Here is the current wind speed projection of the European along with landfall over Tampa...
At this time it appears this can hit as a Cat 3, maybe a Cat 4 hurricane which would be pretty severe.
In terms of track, I really do not see this going more west, if anything this storm can hit a little further south of Tampa with trends the next few days. I base this on how the hurricane will be influenced by a trough of low pressure off the Atlantic coast. This trough will work to pull the storm more east. The GFS model was not handling this trough properly when it had the storm more west originally...
The above image shows the European ensemble system which looks good to me. The GFS was way too progressive with the trough allowing storm to move more west, a clear error.
So we have a lot to track next few days. My gut says this hits just south of Tampa. If it does hit Tampa head on, then it would really be a problem as the water would pile up in the bay as storm pushes in.
More to come, stay tuned.
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