Alex Slowly Gains Strength
Hello, it's Dr. Rob Carver substituting for Jeff on the late shift.
As of the 0100 EDT advisory, Alex is 475 miles SE of Brownsville TX moving NNW at 8 mph. The advisory wind speed is 65 mph with a minimum central pressure of 985 mb. The most recent vortex fix was at 1225EDT with an unchanged pressure reading. Alex is expected to take a turn to the NW and make landfall just south of Brownsville late Wednesday night/early Thursday morning. The government of Mexico has issued a hurricane warning from the mouth of the Rio Grande south to La Cruz. NHC has hoisted the hurricane warning flag from the Rio Grande north to Baffin Bay. A tropical storm warning extends from Baffin Bay to Port O'Connor. Alex is expected to expand in size so it will be much larger than Hurricane Dolly, which was the last storm to affect the region in 2008.
Hurricane Local Statements are now being issued by the Brownsville and Corpus Christi NWS offices. These statements provide a detailed look at how Alex will affect the region and summarize how local emergency management is responding to the situation.
Alex has three different ways to negatively impact the Rio Grande Valley: storm surge, heavy rains, and strong winds.
Risk of Storm Surge
NHC is forecasting a storm surge of 3-5 feet along the coast north of where Alex makes landfall. The exact details of the surge's extent depend on where Alex makes landfall and how big it gets while it is over the open water. I've include a plot of the statistical storm surge forecast product. Unless Alex refuses to make it's left turn, I don't think there's a chance of storm surge north of Port O'Connor.
Plot of experimental storm surge forecast.
Threat from Rain
NHC thinks 5 to 10 inches of rain over southern Texas/northern Mexico is possible when Alex makes landfall. This is why the Brownsville office thinks the primary threat from Alex will be inland flooding in areas with poor drainage.
Alex has a history of producing torrential amounts of rain as shown by this estimate of rainfall during Alex's passage over the Yucatan Peninsula.
Satellite-derived rainfall estimates for June 27, 2010 using data from the Climate Prediction Center.
Threat from Wind
Alex is currently forecast to reach hurricane status. There will likely be hurricane force winds along the coast where Alex makes landfall. The current hurricane wind probabilities show that Brownsville has a 77% chance of experiencing tropical storm force winds and a 18% chance of experiencing hurricane force winds. Corpus Christi has a 44 % chance of tropical storm winds and a 4% chance of hurricane force winds. There is also the possibility of tornadoes forming in outer rainbands as Alex makes landfall.
The Curious Incident of the Hurricane Dynamical Models
One thing that strikes me as odd about Alex is that neither the GFDL nor the HWRF have been intensifying the storm into a hurricane in the past few model runs. This is intriguing because Alex is already a strong tropical storm. It will bear watching to see if GFDL/HWRF continue this pattern for future storms.
Next Update
Jeff will post an entry sometime this morning, and I'll have another entry late Tuesday night.
Reader Comments
Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 — Blog Index
atmoaggie, here's half of what you were looking for inre water column mixing
in the photic and disphotic levels (upper 200metres/656feet) of the neritic zone.
TropicalStormAlex heading toward BayCity,Texas landfall in 4days16hours
(Straightline projection using its last 2 positions. Take with HUGE grain of salt)
Copy&paste TAM, MOB, PBI, SAL, 20.3N91.7W, 20.5N91.8W-28.7N88.4W, 21.0N91.6W-28.7N88.4W, 21.4N91.8W-28.7N88.4W, 21.0N91.6W-21.4N91.8W, 21.4N91.8W-28.7N95.7W into the GreatCircleMapper.
The shortest red line shows the heading between the last two positions. Below the map shows:
TSAlex had a heading of 334.9degrees (~3degrees north of NorthNorthWest), while
traveling a distance of 30miles (~48kilometres) over 6hours at a speed of 5mph (~8kph);
TSAlex's distance from DeepwaterHorizon* decreased by 21miles from 567miles to 546miles;
the previous closure rate was 6mph, and at the current closure rate of 3.5mph,
TSAlex remains ~156hours away from the DeepwaterHorizon.
At 120hours away, personnel evacuations & shutdown procedures for ship evacuations begin.
(See the bottom of blog1521post705 for more info, & blog1521post3353 before obvious corrections)
* Which I've been marking as 28.7N88.4W
:D
Awesome late night update for the night owls ^^
Carolina, Puerto Rico
80 °F / 27 °C
Thunderstorm
I thought thunderstorms had thunder in them LOL!
XD
Well that sucks, unless you had enough rain already.
And thunder with no water is a fire hazard. :S
So here I figure out that a couple of you guys are friends with Dr. Steven Lyons on Facebook...which makes no sense to me lol. How can you guys know him personally? KoritheMan, if you're still here, you're one of them.
Thanks DR. for update, Great job.
I see official Track NHC and ADT position and its moving still north. So probably Alex go some miles north of oficcial forecast. South of Texas.
With google maps oficial forecast pass Throug 91º52' W and ADT position is 91º42' W.
Here's the latest imagery of Alex. I'm heading off for the night. Hopefully NASA GHCC will behave tomorrow and give me some images to work with instead of giving the same images over and over again. >.>
Hey xcool! Morning
Do you think Alex can land in Texas?
They have the 0z and 12z runs of the model here (western portion of screen).
I did see it thanks. I should have remembered the UKMET was on there...just never used that site for it I guess.
Cya.
I can't speak for others, but I don't know him personally. I don't know half the people on my friends list personally. lol
Lol....but surely he doesn't just accept friend requests from any fan that adds him? I would add him if I didn't feel like it would be weird to do so.
6:45Z image IR.
He actually does, near as I can tell.
I was thinking about this last night.
Yeah, here is the next trof off the West Coast. You can see the ridge in between it and the trof currently over the Central and Eastern US:
Dry air isn't a problem for Alex. In fact, this is about the most moisture you'll ever see in the GOM and Caribbean at one time. This is crazy:
Also, that upper-level low east of Florida needs to be watched. There is a lot of moisture associated with it and if it starts firing convection, it could eventually work its way down to the surface in a few days. And yes, that is ex-94L.
Nope.
Link
Link
Link
I think perhaps that might just be some sort of incredible error on their part. Specifically, they might be having trouble with the heat transfer, what with the approaching trough poised to pull up tropical moisture from Alex and all.
Viewing: 1 - 51
Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 — Blog Index