RP: Florida System, Model Hype on NOLA Hit
UPDATE: I was just unwittedly quoted as saying "when underneath a Tropical Weather System such as this, one must always watch out for the possibility of unusually severe weather including heavy rain and isolated tornadoes" in this news article. I sqy, that's darn good advice.
The most impressive buoy data out of this storm was really yesterday from SPGF1, east of Florida. Pressure fell to 29.78 while wind spiked to 44 mph, gusts to 48 mph -- Tropical Storm strength.
Rainfall has been mainly confined to the Southeast coast, but some areas in northern Florida had seen over 3 inches as of 8 AM, according to the NWS Gauge-Adjusted Doppler-Precip Site:
The model tracks have shifted slightly westward with the latest morning update. By the way, pay no attention to the straight S or SW track on the Model Spread graphics today. The storm is currently tagged as moving in that direction and that is the "linear" model that assumes it will continue moving in that direction -- not really a model at all.
ORIGINAL POST:
Here are a few screenshots from AccuWeather.com RadarPlus (our interactive radar application for consumers) showing the Florida system:
It's pretty clear that the system has a surface circulation at this time, but the system is not truly tropical yet because it started from an upper-level low pressure system. I would not be surprised to hear The NHC [JessePedia] declare this as a Subtropical Storm later this morning.
A small Model Spread [JessePedia] has run (there will be more later) indicating that most models believe the storm will hit land near New Orleans or Mobile, AL. But at what strength? Time for me to give you a super-secret map that's normally only available from our GIS Pro Business Site:
The dots indicate the strength and it looks like all models believe it will be a Tropical Depression or Tropical Storm at landfall. According to the Minerals Management Service, some oil rigs and platforms have already been evacuated.
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