2025 Tropical Tracking Thread

[bncho]

59 minutes ago, JenkinsJinkies said:

Again, we’re getting a Feb 19-20 redux. This is the “throw us a bone” run and 0z will be even further south and east than 12z was.

there's no february 19-20 redux dude. we're not talking about a blizzard, we're talking about a hurricane.

[WxWatcher007]

Some evening analysis

4 minutes ago, WxWatcher007 said:

Although the convection is weak and disorganized, recon is now showing a much more well defined circulation, which if it holds will allow for gradual organization. 

Note how much tighter the circulation is in the image above, compared to some of the recon images posted earlier. You can also see a pocket of slightly stronger winds on the far eastern side of the system. Below you can see how the circulation is becoming better organized. Slowly. 

Convection is weak, but there has been some firing of stronger thunderstorms near the center. 

Shear has remained an issue through the day, but analysis shows that the shear may be abating, especially near the center. 

TD9 is in one of the best thermal environments in the entire Atlantic, so if it can start generating deep convection over its tightening center it should gradually intensify. 

While I am posting the SHIPS here, there looks to have been a bit of an uptick from hurricane guidance in overall intensity over the coming days. That's something we'll need to pay attention to, with the caveat that the trough and possible dry air will continue to lurk and will likely put a cap on intensity. 

 

Now for the track. There is increasing confidence that future Imelda will in fact turn away from the SE coast, but there is still a lot of uncertainty on how close the center gets to the coast and critically, the speed of the turn. Most guidance now turns the system away from the coast and accelerates it east into an Humberto created weakness. 

But within this evolving track forecast there are two diverging camps. The first, and most numerous, is one that easily follows Humberto out to sea. The second, which is led by the Euro and Euro AI to an extent, turns the system more slowly and allows a ridge to build over the top and close the escape route. The result is Imelda being turned back toward the coast. 

There aren't a lot of members that are held back, but the ones that do are pretty strong. 

So while it very well may be the case that this does turn and accelerate out to sea, there's still uncertainty. Remember, the models struggled with this inside of 100 hours. I'm not sure we should be locking in anything 5+ days out yet. Additional recon and finally having a well defined center should help with both track and intensity guidance. 

Finally, just because this is likely to stay offshore initially, that doesn't mean no impacts. TS force winds, coastal flooding, and flash flooding are still squarely hazards for coastal FL, GA, and the Carolinas. Just slight track changes could make the flood threat more impactful along the coast. 

 

[Weather Will]

What a complete fold by the EURO models.  Hail the new ICON/ Canadian Kings!!!  In all seriousness, I will not fall for the EURO snow storm looks this winter when the other models show nothing....

[CAPE]

8 minutes ago, Weather Will said:

What a complete fold by the EURO models.  Hail the new ICON/ Canadian Kings!!!  In all seriousness, I will not fall for the EURO snow storm looks this winter when the other models show nothing....

lol you will be all over it- posting snow maps every model cycle.

[WxWatcher007]

The Euro has been just another model for a long time now. Even though this turn was part of the envelope of possibilities, what’s particularly jarring was the Euro/GFS and their ensembles choosing the wrong path together inside 100 hours. That’s noteworthy imo. The AI models seem to have schooled the legacy guidance on this one. 

[Terpeast]

5 hours ago, WxWatcher007 said:

The Euro has been just another model for a long time now. Even though this turn was part of the envelope of possibilities, what’s particularly jarring was the Euro/GFS and their ensembles choosing the wrong path together inside 100 hours. That’s noteworthy imo. The AI models seem to have schooled the legacy guidance on this one. 

The AI models still have a long way to go, but they have been particularly good at predicting tropical cyclone tracks. 

[WxWatcher007]

23 minutes ago, Terpeast said:

The AI models still have a long way to go, but they have been particularly good at predicting tropical cyclone tracks. 

They have certainly earned my respect this season. 

[Weather Will]

5 minutes ago, WxWatcher007 said:

They have certainly earned my respect this season. 

Didn't the EURO AI have several runs run up the coast before caving to the ICON/Canadian?

[WxWatcher007]

26 minutes ago, Weather Will said:

Didn't the EURO AI have several runs run up the coast before caving to the ICON/Canadian?

Yes

[WxWatcher007]

Should've posted this yesterday but it actually makes more sense today as Imelda is on an intensification trend. Imelda adds to the list and should become a hurricane. Outside shot at a major. The peak season forecast is still up in the air, but with activity still expected on the models and in the areas I highlighted, I like where I sit. 

Peak Season Forecast (Aug 20-Oct 20)
Named Storms: 10 (4)
Hurricanes: 6 (2)
Major Hurricanes: 3 (2)

Fernand, Gabrielle (MH), Humberto (MH), Imelda

[87storms]

They have certainly earned my respect this season. 

Still kinda learning about AI, but after creating a few neural nets and slogging through understanding activation functions, gradient descent, loss functions, etc, it makes sense why these models (whatever architecture they’re using) could perform well on handling all the dimensions and chaos involved. It’s pure math and stats under the hood. The challenge will be dealing with the black box nature of deep learning algorithms, though I know explainable AI is becoming a thing. Computational cost is another topic as well.