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Tropical Storm Francine Discussion Number 4 NWS National Hurricane Center Miami FL AL062024 1000 AM CDT Mon Sep 09 2024 The structure of the system on satellite imagery has improved this morning, with a large circular region of cold convection between -70 to -85 near the estimated center. An Air-Force Reconnaissance Aircraft is sampling the system this morning and earlier found a cyclonic wind shift from southeasterly to northwesterly flow near the center of the mass of deep convection. This data provides enough evidence that a well-defined circulation now exists, and thus PTC Six has become Tropical Storm Francine with sustained winds of 45 kt this advisory. The estimated motion is still tricky given the center only recently formed but is estimated still off to the north-northwest at 340/4 kt. The system is expected to gradually turn northward and then north-northeastward as it moves between a mid-level ridge centered over Cuba and a broad mid- to upper-level trough located to its northwest over Texas. The guidance this cycle has shifted a little eastward and faster, and the NHC track forecast was once again nudged in that direction. The current track splits the difference between HCCA and TVCN and still shows Francine moving ashore of Louisiana sometime on Wednesday evening. There remains a decent amount of track uncertainty with the GEFS and EPS ensembles showing along-track spread implying some speed differences near landfall. While the system is now a tropical storm, the inner core wind field per reconnaissance observations is still broad and in the organizing stage, and initial intensification will be gradual. However, after an inner-core becomes established, and assuming the cyclone's vertical structure becomes aligned, a period of more significant intensification is possible while storm is embedded in a low shear, high mid-level moisture, and over very warm 30-31 C sea-surface temperatures. The SHIPS rapid intensification (RI) indices are pretty elevated, and a period of RI could also occur between 24-48 h. For now, the NHC intensity forecast will not explicitly forecast RI, but is higher than the previous cycle and shows a 75 kt peak in 48 h, in good agreement with the intensity consensus aids. After that period, southwesterly vertical wind shear quickly increases from 10 kt to more than 30 kt and the intensity could plateau as it approaches the northwestern U.S. Gulf coastline, though the system is forecast to remain a hurricane at landfall. The NHC intensity forecast continues to be in good agreement with the consensus aids, but is a bit under the HAFS-A/B and COAMPS-TC models. FORECAST POSITIONS AND MAX WINDS INIT 09/1500Z 23.0N 94.9W 45 KT 50 MPH 12H 10/0000Z 24.0N 95.4W 50 KT 60 MPH 24H 10/1200Z 24.9N 95.7W 55 KT 65 MPH 36H 11/0000Z 26.3N 95.0W 65 KT 75 MPH 48H 11/1200Z 28.0N 93.5W 75 KT 85 MPH 60H 12/0000Z 29.7N 92.2W 75 KT 85 MPH...ON THE COAST 72H 12/1200Z 32.4N 90.7W 35 KT 40 MPH...INLAND 96H 13/1200Z 36.2N 89.6W 25 KT 30 MPH...POST-TROPICAL 120H 14/1200Z 37.5N 88.8W 20 KT 25 MPH...POST-TROPICAL $$ Forecaster Papin

WTNT31 KNHC 091455TCPAT1BULLETINTropical Storm Francine Advisory Number 4NWS National Hurricane Center Miami FL AL0620241000 AM CDT Mon Sep 09 2024...DISTURBANCE BECOMES TROPICAL STORM FRANCINE......EXPECTED TO INTENSIFY WITH STORM SURGE AND HURRICANE WATCHESISSUED FOR THE LOUISIANA COAST...SUMMARY OF 1000 AM CDT...1500 UTC...INFORMATION-----------------------------------------------LOCATION...23.0N 94.9WABOUT 245 MI...395 KM SE OF MOUTH OF THE RIO GRANDEABOUT 480 MI...770 KM SSW OF CAMERON LOUISIANAMAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...50 MPH...85 KM/HPRESENT MOVEMENT...NNW OR 340 DEGREES AT 5 MPH...7 KM/HMINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...1002 MB...29.59 INCHESWATCHES AND WARNINGS--------------------CHANGES WITH THIS ADVISORY:A Storm Surge Watch has been issued from east of High Island, Texas, eastward to the Mississippi/Alabama Border, including Vermilion Bay, Lake Maurepas, and Lake Pontchartrain. A Hurricane Watch has been issued from Cameron eastward to GrandIsle in Louisiana.A Tropical Storm Watch has been issued east of High Island, Texas, to Cameron, Louisiana, and from Grand Isle, Louisiana, to the Mouth of the Pearl River including Lake Pontchartrain and Lake Maurepas.

Per this Francine is about to be designated: AL, 06, 2024090912, , BEST, 0, 227N, 947W, 45, 1002, TS, 34, NEQ, 40, 100, 140, 140, 1008, 180, 70, 0, 0, L, 0, , 0, 0, FRANCINE, S, 0, , 0, 0, 0, 0, genesis-num, 014,

0Z Euro: not quite as strong as 12Z with 983 (vs 979) mb at LA landfall; like 12Z goes to Memphis area at 997 mb

0Z UKMET: lowest SLP (993) slightly higher than 12Z; similar landfall location and slightly earlier (late afternoon Wed 9/11); goes a little E of Memphis (slightly E of 12Z); then NE into KY: NEW TROPICAL CYCLONE FORECAST TO DEVELOP AFTER 12 HOURS FORECAST POSITION AT T+ 12 : 22.3N 93.8W LEAD CENTRAL MAXIMUM WIND VERIFYING TIME TIME POSITION PRESSURE (MB) SPEED (KNOTS) -------------- ---- -------- ------------- ------------- 1200UTC 09.09.2024 12 22.3N 93.8W 1004 35 0000UTC 10.09.2024 24 23.8N 94.9W 1003 34 1200UTC 10.09.2024 36 24.8N 95.2W 1000 37 0000UTC 11.09.2024 48 26.4N 94.0W 996 37 1200UTC 11.09.2024 60 28.5N 93.0W 993 45 0000UTC 12.09.2024 72 30.3N 90.9W 993 33 1200UTC 12.09.2024 84 32.8N 90.4W 995 24 0000UTC 13.09.2024 96 35.0N 90.0W 997 23 1200UTC 13.09.2024 108 35.6N 89.3W 1003 13 0000UTC 14.09.2024 120 36.7N 87.7W 1008 14 1200UTC 14.09.2024 132 CEASED TRACKING

But PT6 would already be the 3rd H landfall on the US if it landfalls as an H and only at the halfway point. The record is 6 for entire season. When you get to 5-6, there are only a relative few seasons with that many. Just getting 3 puts it above average for the entire season.

Ironically considering how this season so far has appeared to many: IF this were to hit the US as a H and based on the model consensus timing, it would be the earliest 3rd H hit on the CONUS since way back in 2005! Only 10 of 173 years since 1851 (6%) would have had an earlier 3rd H hit with only 2 of those during the internet era. They are 2005, 2004, 1985, 1934, 1933, 1916, 1893, 1886, 1879, and 1871. So, in this way at least, not at all a quiet season so far. Edit: Oops, I somehow left off 2020, which had its 3rd US H landfall on LA on 8/27 from Ida. So, it hasn’t been since 2005. Revises it from 10 to 11 of the 173 years (still 6%) with #3 before the expected upcoming LA landfall.

12Z Euro: much stronger, quicker, and further E at landfall than prior runs with 978 mb H at late Wed evening C LA landfall, similar location/timing to 12Z UKMET. It then like the UK turns NNE up/near the Miss River.

After having had no measurable rain for 2.5 weeks, I’ve gotten at least the better part of 1” over the last few days and it’s still raining. Been raining all day so far. Will update with final total later. Along with todays rain are cool temperatures of only low 70s. Ocean temps have cooled nicely from mid 80s a week ago to upper 70s/low 80s now. Autumn is on the way! Final total for 9/5-8: ~1.5”, first rains since 8/20.

12Z UKMET: similar C LA landfall location/timing (PM of 9/11) to 0Z run but stronger at 990 mb vs 996 mb (winds of 40 knots too light imo but that’s a model bias this far out). Also, this run then goes NNE up Miss River to Memphis instead of NE to far E TN: TROPICAL STORM 91L ANALYSED POSITION : 20.2N 93.8W ATCF IDENTIFIER : AL912024 LEAD CENTRAL MAXIMUM WIND VERIFYING TIME TIME POSITION PRESSURE (MB) SPEED (KNOTS) -------------- ---- -------- ------------- ------------- 1200UTC 08.09.2024 0 20.2N 93.8W 1004 37 0000UTC 09.09.2024 12 20.4N 93.9W 1003 36 1200UTC 09.09.2024 24 21.8N 94.2W 1003 40 0000UTC 10.09.2024 36 23.1N 94.9W 1002 39 1200UTC 10.09.2024 48 24.7N 95.8W 999 40 0000UTC 11.09.2024 60 25.6N 95.3W 995 35 1200UTC 11.09.2024 72 27.7N 93.6W 990 49 0000UTC 12.09.2024 84 29.8N 91.2W 990 40 1200UTC 12.09.2024 96 32.7N 90.8W 992 27 0000UTC 13.09.2024 108 35.0N 90.2W 995 22 1200UTC 13.09.2024 120 36.3N 89.5W 1002 16 0000UTC 14.09.2024 132 37.4N 88.8W 1007 19 1200UTC 14.09.2024 144 CEASED TRACKING

Indeed, taken at face value (yes I realize that’s a huge risk due to major unreliability and a tendency of recent years’ progs to be cold biased from what I can recall), this would mean a significantly colder NE than last winter. For example, it has NYC at only +2 vs +5 last winter, a large difference. For the SE, this map has a major +5+ torch, which would be much warmer than last year’s mainly NN to +3. Ouch but I’ve been expecting a warm winter here. That’s why I keep thinking about 2025-6 so much lol. It also has the SE mainly drier than normal. That’s common for especially the deep SE in a Niña. Totally expecting that but not worried about drought here right now. *Corrected for typo….cold not warm biased

0Z UKMET: TS landfall Wed (9/11) evening C LA; moves NE to far E TN, where it dissipates Fri night (9/13-4) NEW TROPICAL CYCLONE FORECAST TO DEVELOP AFTER 36 HOURS FORECAST POSITION AT T+ 36 : 20.5N 94.4W LEAD CENTRAL MAXIMUM WIND VERIFYING TIME TIME POSITION PRESSURE (MB) SPEED (KNOTS) -------------- ---- -------- ------------- ------------- 1200UTC 09.09.2024 36 20.5N 94.4W 1005 40 0000UTC 10.09.2024 48 21.8N 93.5W 1006 36 1200UTC 10.09.2024 60 23.1N 95.0W 1005 31 0000UTC 11.09.2024 72 24.7N 94.0W 1001 30 1200UTC 11.09.2024 84 26.9N 93.3W 998 38 0000UTC 12.09.2024 96 29.2N 91.6W 996 36 1200UTC 12.09.2024 108 31.8N 89.6W 999 32 0000UTC 13.09.2024 120 32.9N 88.8W 1002 20 1200UTC 13.09.2024 132 34.4N 87.9W 1006 16 0000UTC 14.09.2024 144 36.6N 84.0W 1008 14 1200UTC 14.09.2024 156 CEASED TRACKING ———————————- 0Z Euro: landfall W LA at 1001 mb TS on Thu 9/12; significantly weaker than 12Z but much stronger than yesterday’s 0Z, which had very little ——— TS landfall in LA at is my best guess as of now

This (Nov-Mar actually) is a nationwide torch? 1. Only torch is in S corridor like where I am (yippee lol although so I’ve been expecting it). 2. The NE is only ~+2, which is only modestly AN. Also, that would be ~3 colder than last winter. Midwest is NN, much colder than last winter. 3. He’s already doing his typical “monkey-wrenching” when he doesn’t go cold to keep his customers interested. For example, he’s already emphasizing cold Dec as well as things that can go “wrong” with his forecast. So, take the emphasis off the +2 and place it on a BN Dec. while also leaving the door wide open in clients’ minds of a colder revision. 4. His warmest initial forecast (+3 in NYC for example) of last 10 years was in 2020-1. But in Nov, that was revised significantly colder to NN. All of these years’ maps are on the internet via googling. That’s how I know.

Followup: CPC Aug NAO came in at +0.63, about where I expected it. So, despite that other version of Aug NAO being at a record high for that version (over +3), this one was only moderately positive. https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/pna/norm.nao.monthly.b5001.current.ascii.table

Other than the Gulf/Caribbean in the immediate future, I think that the most interesting AEW isn’t even in your list: one not coming off Africa til ~9/10. Looking at ensembles/ops, that’s the one leading to these operational (GFS/Euro/ICON/CMC) E MDR TCs. I don’t recall seeing one that active right off Africa on ensembles/operationals in at least quite awhile. And note that this is coming off Africa at about the same latitude as recent ones. Not further south. And yet it still may turn into something. Looking back at history for AEWs that developed in the E Atlantic near or just after Sept 10th, these were 3 of the worst. -Hugo (1989) -Gloria (1985) -Long Island Express (1938) I’m by no means saying a track anything like that would likely occur as many that develop early also recurve early. Rather I am saying that 9/10 still isn’t at all too late for a long-tracked CV storm, especially with cold neutral/weak Niña. Hope not but that’s a fact.

I suggest you put him/her on ignore if you don’t like the posts to keep from getting frustrated. It isn’t worth getting into a battle and disrupting the thread.

Here in the SE, 1957-8 was a top notch winter with very cold in Jan/Feb. along with a pretty rare 1” of snow way down here (in mid-Feb)! Savannah actually had a very rare 3 wintry precip events in JF, two of which were traces. ATL had a major winter storm in Feb. A near perfect El Niño for the Deep South! Maybe again in 2025-6??

I nominate @salbers to start the Invest 90L thread for two reasons: 1) I don’t want to. 2) salbers has been right on top of this and thus deserves the honor. If salbers doesn’t want to, I’d then nominate the ICON to start the thread.

That is ~-0.7 ONI low point, which compares to -0.3 last month and -0.1 two months back, but was similar to what the May and March runs were suggesting. It looks like it is correcting its typical warm bias and perhaps is also responding to the recent 3.4 drops and the new +SOI. The implied RONI based on my recent analysis of RONI minus ONI is that it would probably dip to ~-1.0 to -1.2 (moderate Nina) if the ONI were to actually dip to -0.7.

The idea is that high solar, which itself apparently contributes to atmospheric stability, may very well be a major contributing factor, not the sole factor. Was this stability forecasted? Anyone know? And can stability caused by high solar even be predicted by wx models?

Confirmation that NW GOM low is now Invest 90L: https://ftp.nhc.noaa.gov/atcf/btk/bal902024.dat

For the first time like the GFS/CMC, the Euro (12Z) has this NW Gulf low (1011 mb now). It then drifts S (similarly to ICON/UK/others) while getting stronger. It doesn’t reach peak strength til Saturday, when it gets down to 1003 mb at 27N. Keep in mind that the Euro like the GFS/CMC is playing catch-up. Rumor (i.e., unconfirmed) from an outside source is that this is now Invest 90L. ICON has been amazing with this although the 12Z Euro may have been the main deciding factor.

As you know I’ve been hoping to see actual research papers backing up the idea of a connection of very high sunspot numbers and the recent quiet in the Atlantic basin to supplement my own analysis of the actual numbers and your confidence. Fortunately, I just became aware of a good number of papers thanks to @jconsorwritten dating back to 2008 suggesting a partial negative correlation between sunspots and hurricane activity. The idea is (as we’ve already suspected) that when the sun has an increasing level of sunspots, the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere immediately get warmer (more of a rise than lower down) thus increasing atmospheric stability in a general sense. Of course proving this relationship isn’t easy due to other variables. But the authors discuss this and seem to have done well taking these other variables into account. (I was first made aware of a possible direct connection only last week by Joe D’Aleo and seconded by Bastardi.) The August SSN of 215 is the highest of the active era for any August. And August had only two NS (even though both were hurricanes). Furthermore, since Ernesto it has been exceedingly quiet relative to climo. In light of the following papers, this is probably a major contributor to the quiet: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1029/2008GL034431 https://myweb.fsu.edu/jelsner/PDF/Research/HodgesElsner2010.pdf http://myweb.fsu.edu/jelsner/temp/PDF/Research/ElsnerJaggerHodges2010.pdf https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.5402/2012/517962 https://sci-hub.ru/10.1016/j.jastp.2009.09.012 https://ephyslab.uvigo.es/publica/documents/file_358JASTP_2015.pdf @snowman19 Edit: though not as high as most of August, sunspots are still quite high with an avg of 184 so far this month. The dailies will be worthwhile to monitor throughout the month to see whether a significant drop occurs: 2024 09 01 2024.668 180 16.2 26 33 2024 09 02 2024.671 197 19.4 24 31 2024 09 03 2024.673 180 22.4 19 22 2024 09 04 2024.676 179 29.7 19 23 2024 09 05 2024.679 180 13.7 13 16

Fwiw, I added ENSO as per Webb’s table: 1874-75: 2nd coldest weak Nina 1875-76: 19th warmest neutral 1876-77: 19th coldest weak Nino 1877-78: 16th warmest Super Nino 1878-79: 14th coldest cold neutral 1879-80: 12th warmest weak Niña 1880-81: 13th coldest weak Nino 1881-82: 1st warmest. neutral

Regarding NW Gulf: Latest UKMET (12Z) now has TCG at hour 6, much sooner than the hour 60 of the 0Z run. It then drifts S through the weekend: NEW TROPICAL CYCLONE FORECAST TO DEVELOP AFTER 6 HOURS FORECAST POSITION AT T+ 6 : 27.9N 95.1W LEAD CENTRAL MAXIMUM WIND VERIFYING TIME TIME POSITION PRESSURE (MB) SPEED (KNOTS) -------------- ---- -------- ------------- ------------- 0000UTC 06.09.2024 12 28.1N 94.9W 1008 23 1200UTC 06.09.2024 24 28.3N 94.3W 1006 27 0000UTC 07.09.2024 36 27.7N 94.3W 1005 34 1200UTC 07.09.2024 48 25.3N 94.5W 1004 32 0000UTC 08.09.2024 60 24.2N 93.9W 1003 35 1200UTC 08.09.2024 72 CEASED TRACKING