Floydbuster

It's still amazing how far Lee made it considering it developed so far east and became so intense. All the way off Maine is pretty far west for a Cape Verde hurricane.

Still would watch the waves that progress west towards the Caribbean. I remember Hurricane Iris in October 2001 came from a heavily sheared wave in the eastern and central Atlantic that eventually made it into the Caribbean Sea.

Video Update on Lee https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fiR9IOZnBE For how bad Lee looks on satellite, recon still shows this is a very powerful hurricane. Easy 100 mph and large.

Many do, but some show a much closer Bahamas approach than Lee ever came to. And now the 12Z GFS has a New England landfall in the long-range. Definitely something to watch regardless.

The long-range GFS has a 1996 scenario with Hurricane Lee taking a track similar to Hurricane Edouard '96 and a new system slamming into North Carolina as the worst strike since Hurricane Fran '96. This season just feels so much like '96, especially with that constant wave train.

Don't be surprised to see another storm or two off Africa before the Cape Verde season turns off.

Video Update on Lee

The weakening of Lee reminds me a lot of Hurricane Frances in 2004, when it was unexpectedly undercut by shear.

I agree. I don't think Dorian gets the respect it deserves.

Interesting that the NHC takes Lee up to 180 mph in 12 hours, I actually got the feeling it might be peaking out tonight before possible future deepening again over the weekend.

Wasn't there discussion after Irma that people put way too much stock into the SFMR?

That infrared loop looks extremely similar to Hurricane Rita in September 2005, when Rita explosively deepened in the Gulf of Mexico.

Invest 96L looks great, my guess is this may be "Margot" already if their is a circulation underneath that bursting convection.

I didn't mean to trigger anyone the other day with my post about climate change alarmists. In 2005, 2007, and 2008, I had the privilege of speaking to the late great Dr. William Gray from Colorado State University. He empathized that hurricanes are controlled by things such as the thermohaline circulation, which has an impact on the AMO and hurricane activity. He was adamant about climate change not playing any role, or at least not enough of a role for us to take our eye off using funds towards tools to forecast hurricanes instead of combating climate change. I guess I've spent the last 15 years trying to take Dr. Gray's advice to heart, given that he was the gold-standard as the lead hurricane forecaster for decades. (If you spoke to Einstein about theoretical physics, would you take his word or the word of someone on Twitter who likely has some kind of agenda?) So I get frustrated when I see people using every developing hurricane as a weapon for any kind of "I told you so" agenda with regards to climate change. Once you hear the facts from someone like Dr. William Gray, I find it difficult for anyone to convince me otherwise.

The 18Z GFS had a 944 mb hurricane near the Turks and Caicos at 366 hrs, and it's not Lee.

Continued west motion and a center formation in the near-term could have huge impacts for the U.S. Virgin Islands on determining how close this system may get.

Wow did the ensembles really have Irma that far north? I didn't remember that at all.

Anything is possible but everyone seems pretty definitive early on so they may be on to something. Perhaps I should join the bandwagon. I guess I just didn't think the long-range models showed a convincing enough set-up for a system to be quickly swept to sea without at the very least slowing down near the Bahamas.

There are some on Twitter who are laughing at those concerned about this system. I know it's a long way out and of course we don't even have a depression yet, but I wouldn't be laughing. I actually have a bit more concern about this system potentially moving further west than the typical out to sea track. There are some indications the western Atlantic ridging may begin to rebuild around the time it would be near the Bahamas. Still a long time to watch, though.

Time goes so fast that even though it feels like the islands just got slammed by Irma and Maria, that was already six years ago, a similar time frame from between Hugo 1989 and Luis 1995.

I have a suspicion this one could make it very far west, and potentially be a threat to the Virgin Islands.

TD-11 has strengthened into Tropical Storm Jose. That means August gave us 6 tropical storms, 2 hurricanes, and 2 major Category 4 hurricanes. Pretty impressive.

Idalia reminded me a lot of Hurricane Dennis in 2005. Very small core, weakening at landfall in the Florida panhandle. In fact, Dennis made landfall with 115 mph winds (lowered from 120 mph operationally) and a pressure of 946 mb. I think Idalia may have been more in the 115-120 mph range at landfall, rather than the operational assessment of 125 mph. The pressure also rose to around 949 mb, similar to Dennis, and the surge was nasty and similar, but Dennis hit a more populated area of the Florida panhandle than Idalia struck.