Archive for the ‘Hurricane’ Category

The clearing line is progressing southward slowly this morning…..a sign of lesser rain chances in our future.  The best chance of a shower today will lie south of I-20 with better chances of anything scattered south of I-85.  Most of that will be thanks to a stalled out boundary that is drifting southward and some indirect effects of ex-hurricane Alex that slammed into Mexico last evening.

This is an image of Alex shortly before landfall off of the Brownsville NEXRAD site.  The pressure bottomed out at 947mb with maximum ESTIMATED sustained winds of 105 mph.  I tend to believe that this actually may have been a major hurricane (category 3) at landfall with a pressure that low.  The post storm NHC investigation will hopefully prove that.  This is the second strongest June hurricane EVER in the Atlantic basin. 

Alex looks to be strengthening this morning as visible satellite imagery shows deepening thunderstorm tops around the center of circulation.  A pressure drop to 959mb was indicated by Air Force Reconnaissance aircraft just before the 7am advisory this morning.  Alex currently has maximum sustained winds of 80mph and is moving NW @ 7mph as of the latest 10am CDT advisory.  This storm still has several hours over water and will affect portions of southern Texas even if the center makes landfall south of the border.  A Hurricane Warning is in effect from Baffin Bay, TX south to the mouth of the Rio Grande.  We expect Alex to strengthen to a category two hurricane later today.  Alex still has the potential to become a major hurricane before it makes landfall sometime late tonight or early tomorrow.

Given the image above, I wouldn’t be shocked to see Alex form over the next day or so.  The system is beginning to get a nice CDO (central dense overcast) overtop a mid level and potential low level circulation.  The thunderstorm flare-up is more condensed than the last couple of days and conditions are becoming more favorable for organized tropical development.  The system has been labeled Invest-93L.

The latest forecast model tracks are scary….given the oil spill crisis in the Gulf of Mexico along with the boiling hot water and weak shear forecast ahead of this developing system.  We don’t see this becoming a "major" US hit, but that can certainly change in a hurry given the potential conditions.  Track models are varying big time so I won’t go into specifics at this point on a potential forecast path, but we will get more into those possibilities later this weekend.

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Ida came on shore this morning as a minimal tropical storm at Dauphin Island. We intercepted this system and the outer bands were the real story. Myself, Eric Parker, and meteorologist David Neal traveled the Alabama and Florida coastline in search of some dramatic video and locations to do live shots. Areas included in the video include: Alabama Point; Fort Morgan, AL; Orange Beach, AL; Pensacola, FL; and Perdido Key, FL.

I will post a full recap of the events and a timeline of locations and conditions felt later today. Now, time to get ready to trek back toward home.