WxWatcher007

High of 88.9°

The high is important, but to @FXWX’s point, the door doesn’t really open without a GL negative or cutoff trough. That’s the key. A far less likely way would be to eliminate the troughing and get two ridges—one over the CONUS and a big WAR and steer future Lee around the periphery of the WAR. Seems unlikely though.

Aside from the track conversation, just look at this presentation. I know some of you don’t care unless it’s pushing cat 5 or threatening your backyard, but this is poised to be a beast.

That shallow convection was the first thing I noticed on IR. It’s definitely exhibiting a strong presentation for a wave. Won’t be long until this is a TC…and absolutely taking off.

Troughing galore still on the Euro—just a giant broom sweeping this out. Earlier caveats on operational models remain.

Central Tropical Atlantic (AL95): Satellite imagery indicates that an area of low pressure has formed from the tropical wave centered about 700 miles west-southwest of the Cabo Verde Islands. The low-level circulation has become better defined since yesterday, with increasing organization in the shower and thunderstorm activity. Environmental conditions are forecast to be conducive for further development, and this system is expected to become a tropical depression or a tropical storm in a day or two. Additional strengthening is likely late this week while the system moves westward to west-northwestward at 15 to 20 mph over the central and western portions of the tropical Atlantic. For additional information on this system, including gale warnings, see High Seas Forecasts issued by the National Weather Service. * Formation chance through 48 hours...high...90 percent. * Formation chance through 7 days...high...near 100 percent.

The GFS has been horrific recently in the tropics. Euro not much better. Until we start seeing ticks on the ensembles the operationals should be taken with a bucket of salt. This is still 10 days out with steering pattern focus at least 5 days out.

Also, it’s still ten days out at least! A long way to go with this one, where you’d hope we have a better sense of the troughing and ridge in about 5 days.

You see that and it looks so uncertain wrt the extent and orientation of that mid-latitude troughing. I do think the setup lends itself to 1) OTS 2) NC points north scrape/hit 3) Nova Scotia scrape/hit. I think a land impact is made much less likely given the higher chance that this doesn’t drive further west into the Bahamas before a turn, at least as currently modeled.

Yeah…let’s leave the morality debates and wishcasting elsewhere and focus on the meteorology here, please. On topic, those op runs that failed to do much with this a few days ago are a distant memory. It really does look like all elements are aligning for a significant hurricane, and for the folks in the Antilles this increases confidence that 95L gains latitude enough to clear the area.

Intensity guidance has this thing really taking off in just a couple days. Like I said in the tropical subforum OP, this is as good a signal for a long track major hurricane I've seen in a while.

I laughed when I typed that. That's not how we do business around here.

Hits are definitely outliers at this point, though I still caution everyone to stay away from locking anything in this far out, even as OTS remains favored currently. Looking at 95L this morning, it's continuing to organize. Certainly on track to become a TC by midweek despite some shear.

The annual up the Bay track

Dulles did me in

OTS still favored given the ensembles, perhaps even heavily, but it’s still too early to lock in any one solution—especially since we don’t have a well defined center yet. The op runs don’t mean anything right now, and color me skeptical on the ensembles being right in picking out the exact orientation, strength, and timing of troughing 7-10 days out. It’s really ok to be patient and watch things play out.

Absolutely. I’ll roll the dice on a pig ridge.

Speaking of the pattern, it’s intriguing. Give me a strong enough ridge to get this to the central, or better, northwest Bahamas, and I’ll take my chances with troughing.

That solution would require perfect timing, but everyone should be watching the strength of this Atlantic ridge. This is not a slam dunk OTS pattern IMO, even if that solution is still favored at this time, and if it’s a threat to the US I think it’s an EC threat rather than buzzsaw through Florida threat.

On a trip I took to GA to spend my birthday with family I abruptly told them I needed to go to Florida to chase Hurricane Elsa. I didn’t go to Buffalo for their epic blizzard was because it was the first Christmas after my dad passed.

It may very well remain no threat to land, but this is a very important reminder, visualized:

Not our area but big flooding around Vegas.