WxWatcher007

Contender in the long range for the US. Not necessarily New England lol

Although the operationals still have somewhat limited use, the fact that they all basically agree that this runs into the Greater Antilles and still finds a way to intensify in the southwest Atlantic is interesting. Ensembles more or less endorse that idea too. I do think we're past the point where this one fizzles even with land interaction, unless it runs over both Haiti/DR and the length of Cuba. This looks like a TS to me right now. At the moment I think it's going to be just organized enough to survive a day of land interaction but not so organized as to run entirely north of the islands. Not quite an analog, but I can see an Isaias type situation where it's middling along until it gets clear of the islands and begins to turn northward. Tomorrow's recon data for the system itself and the environment ahead will be very helpful. Shear is present and probably caps this before the Antilles, but dry air hasn't slowed this one down much. That alone has me starting to believe this one could be a contender in the long range.

This looks like a TS to me right now. Very nice convection near the LLC.

Far too soon to say. We're just going to be watching this through the weekend to see how the overall steering pattern shakes out.

I’m not so sure land interaction kills this one unless it’s meandering over the mountains, which looks unlikely at this point.

Hard pass. 70 and sunny is better on 9/30.

Often it is but the caveat here is that guidance often has an easier time generally picking out the larger scale steering patterns. We saw that with Earl to an extent. The devil is in the details.

Sorry—for comparison’s sake.

…But the ridge orientation is nowhere close to the GFS.

Unlike the GFS, there’s not as much of a weakness on the 12z Euro, which puts this much closer to the Bahamas in a week.

It introduces a weakness off the coast that allows for an escape route. Could be real but if it’s not the ridge is a big player. Too early to know at this point.

I’m not going to lie, I’d love to see our boring period end with a bang. September cane or October nuke.

It’ll be 1,000 miles east of Bermuda next run lol.

Phil frolicking all the way to Quebec City on that run

lol gfs

As soon as that weakness closed and that big ridge popped over the top it was trouble for somebody. Not worth much but we take the eye candy on a miserable day in the office

Not that it matters that much right now but both the GFS and Canadian look strange to me for different reasons. Setting the Canadian aside because of its track record, if anything close to that ridge on the GFS pops that’s trouble. The weakness the GFS briefly produces before the ridging takes over late next week pulls TD 7 more northward than it’d otherwise be if that weakness doesn’t materialize. Edit: but even then you see in subsequent hours that the escape OTS path quickly closes. It’s interesting, but again, far out.

Totally agree. I think this needs to be coherent enough to reorganize fairly soon after potential land interaction, but not so much that it’s decimated by the islands or, if we’re being honest, it gets too poleward to become a US threat. I am a little surprised it spun up into a depression in this environment but persistence is persistent until it’s not.

It has been a struggle this year lol

The thing that matters right now is organization and survival in a marginal to hostile environment. Zero concerns about track currently IMO.

The last 18 hours or so have been pretty impressive in a marginal environment. This has overperformed thus far. That’s a rough track for a LLC though if it played out like that. Now that we have a well defined center I’ll be watching the next few model cycles to see if that changes track reasoning. Agree with others that this one likely has a cap in intensification potential through the five day forecast period due to dry air and shear.

TD 7 coming at 11am. Nice to see an overperformer for once.

Reposting from the MA thread. Let's talk Invest 96L, which I highlighted as the Atlantic Lemon a week ago. While the guidance has waffled the last week over development odds for this one, in the last 18 hours 96L has made a sizable move toward development in advance of reaching the Lesser Antilles. This invest has been buoyed by a large moisture envelope that to date has kept dry air from significantly disrupting convective activity. While convection did collapse yesterday, this wave has not had the look of virtually every other wave crossing the tropical Atlantic this season. That said, there remains reason to be skeptical. Even in the visible image above you see issues. On the NW side you can see arc clouds shooting outward, a clear sign of dry air. To the SW, you see wind shear as the cloud tops ahead get blown away. The shear analysis from this morning shows 96L threading the needle. I don't think this one is going to fizzle out at this point, but the above does tell me that this still has the potential to sputter as it tries to find its footing organizationally. That has implications downstream as land interaction will be key to both track and intensity. The image below is busy but important. This is an overlay of 00z EPS and GEFS ensemble tracks with water vapor. Once again, despite a large moisture envelope, the ever present dry air is...well...present. It wouldn't take much IMO to hold this one back, and that's basically what the guidance shows. There's a clear consensus, at least in this model cycle, that it remains relatively weak and heads toward the northern part of the Antilles. Places like Puerto Rico should watch this closely in case this becomes the first system of the year in the tropical Atlantic to overperform a little, which it has done so far. So while it has certainly made progress that may allow it to become a player in the medium to longer range, the environment is still marginal to hostile, and it has some work to do organizationally. We need to see if this organizational trend continues. If it does, that significantly increases the odds that it develops before the Antilles. I don't think it's really worth talking long range track right now, but this early I think all options are on the table.