UPDATE 3:40 PM, 8/28: Westward track shift with Isaac would mean less chance of direct effects in Southwest Virginia
UPDATE 3:40 PM: Isaac has been a hurricane — barely, with 75 mph winds — since midday. It will come ashore this evening or early Wednesday likely as a minimal hurricane … but that will still bring hours of wind comparable to our June 29 derecho for those in the eyewall. All indications remain that Isaac’s remnants will track well west of our region Showers and storms this afternoon and evening will be spotty with a passing cold front END UPDATE
UPDATE 7:30 AM, 8/28: Isaac still hasn’t gained his hurricane stripes this morning, rated as a strong tropical storm with 70 mph winds as of this update. That could change at some point today, but as you can see from the satellite photo at left, Isaac’s structure is far from textbook. There is an obvious eye-like structure, but it’s open on the north side. Isaac has been sucking in a bit too much dry air to develop a full eyewall structure that would enable rapid development. There is still time before it runs into Louisiana later today, and even as a strong tropical storm/minimal hurricane, storm surge and some wind damage will be a problem. Plus, Isaac may slow down some upon landfall, causing torrential rainfall over the same location before its remnant low makes a track northward through the drought-stricken central U.S., where his arrival will be heralded, not scorned . Closer to home, we have a weak cold front pushing through today is already triggering a few showers. With some daytime heating, and even a bit of moisture blowing in from the southeast aided by Isaac’s circulation, a few sporadic storms may develop during the afternoon. END UPDATE
UPDATE 10 PM: As of this update, Isaac still isn’t considered a hurricane. That may change soon, perhaps at the 11 p.m. update — click on the National Hurricane Center website linked here for the latest. It’s on track for a Louisiana landfall and, likely, a rather slow trip northward with its remnant low through through the Mississippi River valley, well west of us. If we get any moisture from Isaac, it will be second-hand, pushed our way by a cold front over the weekend or early next week. We’ll have a rather run-of-the-mill cold front on Tuesday that may trigger some showers. Highs in the 80s and lows in the 60s will continue most of this week. END UPDATE
At left is Sunday evening’s cluster of forecast tracks from various hurricane models used by the National Hurricane Center. The most notable thing is that only one track for Tropical Storm Isaac (very likely soon to be a hurricane) is as far east as Mobile, Ala., and only two others are east of New Orleans. Forecast guidance has mostly continued to shift westward today with the track of Isaac throughout Sunday. (The European model is an exception, depicting a direct hit on Mobile. Meanwhile, the GFS has the hurricane almost getting to the Texas-Louisiana border). This westward shift means a few things. (1) The Mississippi Gulf Coast, New Orleans and even the Louisiana coast west of New Orleans are having to prepare much more for a possible hurricane than it appeared they would just 24-48 hours ago. (2) The farther it goes westward, the longer it stays over the warm Gulf waters, and therefore the more chance it has for an explosion of development that could carry it into “major hurricane” status at Category 3 or above (111+ mph winds). Sunday evneing National Hurricane Center projections are for a Category 2 hurricane at landfall. (3) A landfall west of Mobile, combined with northwest movement at landfall, would likely carry the remnant low of Isaac farther west once inland, into Arkansas or even Oklahoma (areas with extreme to exceptional drought), and its eventual curve back eastward with a upper-level trough in the central U.S. may carry it well north of Virginia through the Ohio Valley. That would likely mean less chance of direct effects here, such as heavy rain and tornadoes — though there could be some indirect effects worth keeping an eye on. (4) The more westward track will carry it even more deeply into the nation’s oil extraction and production hotbed, and you know what that will mean at the gas pump.
Southwest Virginia weather is going to be benign, by comparison to the Gulf Coast, this week, as our weather is controlled mostly by high pressure. Expect highs mostly in the 80s, lows mostly in the 60s, near normal for late August, perhaps even creeping a little above normal. Shower/thunderstorm chances will be the typical sporadic afternoon stuff, though a weak cold front Tuesday may enhance those chances a bit. In general, we will be moving toward warmer and stickier weather this week after 2 weeks of mostly below-normal temperatures. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a 90-degree high at Martinsville or even Roanoke a day or two this week, perhaps even on Monday.
August 26, 2012 - 10:27 PM
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National Hurricane Center shifts track westward yet again. New Orleans is near center of cone. Mobile, once on the west edge just a day or two ago, is on east edge now.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/graphics_at4.shtml?5-daynl#contents
Jared, I have never fished before, but I am planning on trying someday. I love nature.
As for fog, about 17-18 days have been foggy here. Pretty substantial.
Monday 0Z Euro & 0Z GFS both showed New Orleans/Bay St. Louis MS landfall Wednesday AM. Euro stalls Issac for over 24 hours as GFS shows a westward movement to TX.
Monday 0Z Euro Operational run:
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~gadomski/ECMWF0.5_0z/ecmwfloop.html
06Z GFS stays west as well but takes Issac to a Morgan City LA landfall or just south of NOLA:
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~gadomski/MRF_6z/mrfloop2.html
Of note on the 06Z GFS, at hour 96 you can start to see Kirk I believe? The track is almost identical to Issac from Africa to New Orleans. This run on Sunday September 9 has another Landfall in LA almost identical to Issac. Good news here is 06Z GFS is a terrible model beyond 4 days.
06Z NAM now in agreement with GFS & Euro for a Southeast LA landfall around the Mississippi Delta/Houma/Nawlins area and stalling out in that area for at least 24 hours:
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/~gadomski/WRF_6z/wrfloop.html
worst case scenario for New Orleans & Louisiana. I pray for everyone in that area.
Looking at the satellite imagery….Isaac doesn’t look any more organized than it did yesterday, and seems to have sucked in some dry air. The whole “could rival Katrina” seems to be a bit of media sensationalism at this point.
While I hate that the New Orleans/TX area is going to be hit again with a significant hurricane, I am glad of the westward shift. My hubby and I are traveling to Atlanta on Friday morning for the opening college football kickoff game and I absolutely HATE driving in wet weather.
Guess I should have changed my name to say Nurse Snow on the end so everyone would know who I was LOL
Looking at Isaac’s projected path brings a shudder of memory.
We were told to expect Camille to follow a similar track north up the Mississippi. Newspaper and TV graphics showed it fizzling out somewhere north of the Great Lakes. We had no internet then. We went to bed without the slightest idea all that rain would take a turn to the east. A fire siren woke me before dawn. The message scrawed on the volunteer fire station’s blackboard said, “High water.”
Why do I shudder? Our daughter was expected in less than a week. The three bridges leading away from our home were washed away. We were isolated for an indefinite time. I had no idea how to deal with a placenta and umbilical.
At a recent presentation at VMI, the Blacksburg staff essentially said “Oops!” They pointed out we have much better data and communications today.
So I look at the sketch of Isaac’s path through the confusing maze of computer models and smile. At least this one is going to be a piddling category 1.
Joe, in case you missed it, this one’s for you.
http://blogs.roanoke.com/dancasey/2012/08/sundays-column-rocky-mount-abuzz-about-new-moonshine-movie/
Well, did your daughter wait til the bridges and roads were fixed????
WD….I dont know how you would know I would have
an interest in that.
As it turns out I was quite familiar with
the players in real life…especially the main character.
The writer of the novel is from Northern Va..I-ve gotten
to know him somewhat, as he is a writing teacher here in the
Dallas area now.
Lexingtonian…
Dont let the category sway you too much…
that is of interest to most folks that
are near the coastline.
Categories refer only to the wind speeds.
A tropical depression with NO category
can carry huge volumes of moisture, and if it parks
itself over an area of bowl shaped topography..
well you know what can happen.
There is a lot of variation to the characteristics
of tropical remnants as has been shown in the past.
..”(it was) reported and that 43 inches of rain was reported in 24 hours at Alvin, Texas as a result of the remains of Tropical Storm Claudette.”
..Also “The Rappaport study suggests that there is no apparent relationship between the intensity of the tropical cyclone at landfall and the number of rainfall induced deaths that occur because of the storm.”
http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/research/mcs_web_test_test_files/Page1637.htm
Regarding our daughter’s birth: no, she did not wait for the bridges to be repaired, but the state did manage to fill in a temporary path at one of the washouts that allowed us to get to the hospital. And no, we did not name her Camille.
Unlike earlier today, most of the models are now beginning to show a right turn for the remnants of Isaac. http://www.skeetobiteweather.com/picservice.asp?t=m&m=09&av=4
The CPC obviously thinks Isaac’s rain is going to first go west of us and then cross over east, but stay north of us. Bummer for us, but it will go where it is despirately needed.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/threats/hazards_d3_7.png
Many thanks for the link to “Hurricanes and extreme rainfall,” Joe. This is valuable information I had missed.
Does the right turn in the above website shown by Lexingtonian mean that we are likely now to get some of this rain! The weather stations up here and Weather Channel all say its not coming here but going up into Canada! What is your best guess on this Kevin?
It’s going to turn east at some point — probably north of us.
Don’t get too caught up in where the center of the storm is once it goes inland. It will lose organization when it gets inland, and the moisture will likely not hang too close to the center. Sometimes it gets stripped off entirely, usuall moving off north and east of the low center.
We probably will get SOME of this moisture when a front approaches and/or moves through over the weekend or early next week. But it would be hard to tell the tropical moisture apart from the “regular” Gulf moisture pulled up with the front.
Also — the southeast winds created between Isaac and high pressure to the north and east may supply some moisture off the Atlantic against Tuesday-Wednesday’s front and the higher terrain — and indirect effect.
Isaac is now as close to a hurricane as it can be without being one — 70 mph winds per hurricane center. (74 mph is hurricane force, but official wind speed on hurricane are done in increments of 5 mph, so any strengthening would raise it from 70 to 75 mph).
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/graphics_at4.shtml?5-daynl#contents
See where they bumped it back up to 2.
Hey Captain Quag, why do you apologize (actually, I congratulate you for apologizing …. WAY too few people do that anymore) and add the phrase “my bad”?? I don’t remember anyone ever using that phrase, and as most of you know, I am ancient. And I just congratulated you in a comment I added on a previous thread, added from here a few minutes ago.
Gonna sign off a little early tonight. Little guy has worn me out today, and it’s not Isaac. I’ll see where we are with this in the AM.
The possible prolonged northward thrust
of Isaac-s remnants prompted me to look up
Nebraska and tropical storms.
One of the models has it that far west before turning toward Chicago.
Though the old one was caught up in a front and became an
indistingushable entity.
Had the same name as my sweet little Neice..
Alicia,,,August 1983.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alicia1983filledrainblk.gif
I remember Alicia. Very compact Category 3 hurricane that hit Galveston-Houston. Very narrow corridor of damage for a hurricane, but where it hit, it was bad. And like you say, it almost disappeared entirely as its own entity shortly after landfall, caught up into a front.
DT is starting to talk about the possibility of a tropical system hitting the east coast in the September 3-5 time frame. What is out there Kevin that he is seeing right now that brings about that prediction?
The last couple frames on the infrared looks like Isaac is developing an eye.
Here’s hoping that Isaac is a godsend to drought-stricken areas in the midwest.
Kevin, if I remember correctly, Hugo made a surge in strength just before landfall, and there have been a few others that have done that. What are the conditions that allow that to happen?
Greetings from Stavenger-Sola, Norway!
Time for bed but wanted to check in first. Finally head home Sunday night after stops in Geneva, Warsaw & London before coming home.
Just wanted to say thanks to Mr. Griggs for the compliment and see that Issac will just make it to Category 1 status but will still a ton of rain.
Will check back later…
CAT-1. 11:20 AM.
Joe: Heard the ROA and Williamburg airport might be closed due cut in fed funds for air controllers. You got a whiff of that? Know you ain’t in that line[dispatcher/router I think you said] but maybe hear things.
Reason for asking is a rep. here in Va. said the funds were due to expire on Dec. 31st. I believe. Figger it’s politics as usual and drumming up support for congress to do something. Maybe this winter will be so cold that them and the lawyers will have to keep their hands in their own pockets.
I have several friends in the Baton Rouge area so I will try to post anything I get from them as Isaac makes landfall. One friend there remembers Gustav in 2008 well (almost same time of year 8/31). No power for a week and they lost 16 trees on their property from winds and heavy rains. She said that day and into the night they could hear the tree roots pulling out of the soaked ground and then crashing and hoping it didn’t hit the house. Isaac’s track looks similar to Gustav.
Pleanty warm and a little wet for early September. Works for me.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/814day/index.php
Back home. And there is still a hint of green in the back yard, tho’ not much.
KM, in your latest update you stated, ” All indications remain that Isaac’s remnants will track well west of our region.” I agree with you, but I did see one graphic briefly on TWC early this morning showing Isaac’s remnants heading due north into ARK, Mizzou, western TN, and western KY, and then making a sharp right turn due east into eastern KY (very similar to what Camille did). It did not show it continuing east after that, but it also did not show it going N or NE into Ohio or western WV. I guess that meant that it would “peter out” in Kentucky. Your thoughts? Specifically, do you see it heading east toward Lexington and Frankfort, KY?
The previous stuff I had seen had it dousing Indiana and Illinois, like the link that “Link-Man” Rick posted earlier. {That was a big compliment, Rick}
Brent Watts and WDBJ7′s Forecast Model agrees with your link yesterday, Rick, and what KM stated at 3:40 PM update. Shows the remnants of Asimov heading north, then bending a bit NE into ST. LOU, then central Illinois and ending up in NW Indiana, just east of Obamatown (Chicago). Big areas of rain on both the west and east sides of the center of the track.
Catching up on comments. Was out on hiking trail 3 hours today with son, didn’t even have smartphone service out there.
* The center of Isaac has only 30 miles til it reaches the mouth of the Mississippi River, so it’s doubtful it will have time to have a late burst of intensifcation before landfall that would take it to Category 2 or Category 3 level. Isaac has struggled to develop the right eyewall structure for intensification — most of the cases where there was a late burst of intensification like Hugo and Andrew were well-formed hurricane structures. Would not be surprised to see it increase to 90 mph winds or so, but time is running out.
* There is Tropical Depression 11 and another weak system in the Atlantic to watch, but for now, it appears they are fish storms. http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/gtwo_atl.shtml
* I did get a few sprinkles near my house today.
* We may get some moisture from what was Isaac pushed along by a cold front this weekend or early next week, but very doubtful any recognizeable atmospheric entity that could be identified as the former Isaac will be anywhere near us.
Noting pretty good looking inner eyewall structure on Isaac now — a closed eye — but lots of dry air swirling around it, as noted by the precip gaps. If Isaac had looked like this a day ago, it might have made Category 2 or 3. Probably won’t now.
http://radar.weather.gov/radar.php?rid=lix
Sometimes tropical systems don’t lose energy fast crossing that low, swampy, brackish southern Louisiana landscape. Hurricane Juan (1985 — SW Virginians should remember that one well!) more or less jumped from a tropical storm to a hurricane as it was making landfall, and didn’t weaken much meandering over the southern Louisiana swamp before re-emerging into the Gulf. So however it comes ashore, it may stay about that strength for 3-6 hours as it drifts northward over the swamps. It will still be able to draw some inflow off the hot Gulf for a while.
This has been the most over hyped storm I can ever recall. The non-stop coverage on TWC and Cable News Networks is ridiculous. The winds are not even as strong as our Derecho was, and it is doubtful that anyone on land will even officially clock hurricane force winds, as they will likely only be felt hundreds of feet above the ground. Joe Bastardi last night on one of the Cable News Networks, actually said that Ivan could be as destructive to New Orleans as Katrina was. No wonder Accuweather canned him a couple of years ago. Just because the media wants a major hurricane, does not mean it will actually happen.
Sorry I said “Ivan”, but meant “Isaac”. I have already forgot about this hurricane, as everyone will soon enough.
We had a little storm at the Chapel this evening. Some thunder and lightening and a light rain. Still dry under the trees. Not much going on for a couple of days. NWS gives us a 50% chance of rain on Sunday with 40% on several days over the weekend. Sure could use the moisture. Watering my late corn tonight. Rain stopped when dog days ended. My prayers go out to those on the gulf coast. It may be Cat 1 but it is still a hurricane with wind and lots of rain.
WD…I do think there is a big political angle on the threatened closure…what they will try to offer after everyone is sufficiently afraid is contract controllers..that has been happening around the country for years. @ work now…but will elaborate later..
Doug, as Link-Man, do I get a colorful super-hero cape to wear? And who would be my sidekick, you?
Mike, right again…….TWC and many others use hype to sell the weather. They don’t need a disaster to sell you one.
Blacksburg Mike, part of what you are getting at I agree with, that some folks dislike the non-stop coverage on TWC (my Nancy is one of those). But I actually liked being able to turn on TWC and have the ability to know the latest details on “Asimov.”
The huge issue with Isaac in mho is not the winds nor the storm surge (I will be surprised if anyone gets over 10 feet), but the fact that the storm is fairly big in area and moving as slowly as cold molasses. Just like that tropical storm that stalled over Houston about 10 years ago (Alicia?), Isaac could do something somewhat similar. Some areas may get fairly massive flooding. Throw in power outages possibly lasting days, and some areas could be really hard hit.
About the slowdown. As of 5PM EDT yesterday, Isaac was moving at 12 mph. At 8 PM and 11 PM, it was only moving at 10 mph. A few hours ago it was only moving at 8 mph, or only 192 miles in a day. And expected to slow down further.
Here is a radar grab I took earlier just before it made landfall:
http://i47.tinypic.com/34evwyf.png
Isaac has currently moved back over water and the eyewall is beginning to tighten again. Very bad for levees because the combination of constant SE surge and rain surge coming from inland locations are causing rapid rising and levees to be almost breached.
Rick, as “Link-Man” you already had the honor of being someone other than Kevin who got praised on this blog. No side-kick. No super-hero cape. Sorry. But I will continue to call you Link-Man when appropriate, intending it as a phrase of praise (“I’m a poet and I know it …”) , unless you would rather I no longer use that term. As an ancient sponsor for the NFL used to challenge, “you make the call.”
Friend in Baton Rouge texted at 10 PM that it was still dry and breezy there. “No big events yet!”
Looks like Shell Beach, LA really got hammered with 56 mph winds and an inch of rain. They even had a gust at 72 mph.
National Weather Service reports 40 mph @ New Orleans airport. National Hurricane Center reports winds near 80 mph. Highest I can find is 57 mph. Maybe they are reporting gusts from an unknown location or rounding up from 72. Anyway you look at it, they did a much better job than with Irene 2011. Must be a different commander in charge this time around.
About the hype, two factors are feeding that — (1) The threat earlier in the week on the Republican National Convention in Tampa and (2) New Orleans. Any tropical threat on New Orleans is going to generate wall-to-wall coverage after Katrina. Whatever the wind speeds, the enormous amount of water this storm is going to generate will test the city’s levees and pumps more than any storm since Katrina.
Wind speeds in hurricanes are based on hurricane flights and dropped instruments into them. Surface winds are sometimes estimated from winds recorded a little higher up. The National Hurricane Center wind speeds are always estimates to some degree or another because it is physically impossible to record winds around the eye wall continuously. The highest winds will be in the eye wall, and there’s likely to be very few land-based wind instruments down in the swamps where those will be highest. Keep in mind that when Hurricane Katrina came ashore, there was only 1 land-based sustained wind reading as high as Category 3, and no gusts above 94 mph in New Orleans itself. I would actually be surprised if at any time New Orleans records a hurricane-force sustained wind in Isaac and would not at all be surprised if it never gets a hurricane-force gust.
I mentioned our derecho for some idea of comparative wind speed, but I don’t like to fundamentally compare different kinds of storms. A hurricane involves strong winds for hours rotating from one direction to another. The derecho, very severe as it was, was 15-45 minutes of winds basically from one direction, and only 2 gusts in NWS-Blacksburg’s forecast area officially recorded at or above 58 mph severe level (Roanoke’s 81 mph and Lewisburg’s 58 mph; Blacksburg, Lynchburg and Danville had gusts in the low to mid 50 mph range — officially, I’m certain there were lots of 80-100 mph gusts away from official instruments). We didn’t have to worry about 2 feet of rain or storm surge from the ocean. I would not say one storm was worse than the other so much as they are fundamentally different types of storms, apples and oranges.
To illustrate what KM just wrote about the recording of wind speeds when a hurricane comes through, I just read an article about the New England hurricane of Sept. 1938 (75th anniversary next year). Cat. 3 when it made initial landfall in Suffolk County, Long Island, NY. From there the eye went up through western CT and western Mass, and on into Vermont and perhaps the extreme eastern edge of upstate New York. But the top wind speeds were recorded at the Blue Hills Observatory just SW of Boston, sustained winds at 121 and a gust at an amazing 186. Unluckily for western Mass and Conn., a wet frontal system had just gone through 3 days before, so some parts along the Connecticut River Valley got 10-17 inches of rain. On the lucky side, the storm went racing through at 60 mph!! Compare that with Isaac’s slow motion movement. The Conn. River got as high as 19 feet above flood stage in Hartford. Definitely the worst hurricane to hit New England since at least 1900.
I largely repeated part of my comment in my newest blog post, plus some discussion of where Isaac’s rains end up — and how nice our weather will be the rest of this week.
Tonight’s model runs as shown in this graphic are interesting. Some of them show whatever remains of Isaac passing right through the heart of Virginia.
http://www.skeetobiteweather.com/picservice.asp?t=m&m=09&av=4