15 August 2008

Disturbance upgraded to Tropical Storm Fay, now near Hispaniola...

Yesterday through the present time, it tracked over the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and is now over extreme eastern Dominican Republic (the eastern country on the island of Hispaniola).  Latest intensity is estimated at 35kts and 1009mb, and heading W at 14kts.  The track over Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, and eventually Cuba will certainly stall substantial intensification, but any opportunity over open water could be rapidly taken advantage of.

The track forecast has been most well-handled by the leading Canadian model, which has shown this system moving south of Cuba and into the Gulf of Mexico, while all of the others either recurved it east of Florida or up the eastern FL coast.  It's showing no rush to recurve, and is on a straight west heading, plowing right through the Greater Antilles.  Now, more and more models are indicating a path over or south of Cuba, then along or west of the FL peninsula.
A recent run from GFDL is shown here: http://moe.met.fsu.edu/cgi-bin/gfdltc2.cgi?time=2008081512-invest92l&field=Sea+Level+Pressure&hour=Animation (sea level pressure is contoured, runs out to 7 days)
This scenario has Fay passing south of Cuba, intensifying, THEN heading north toward the FL panhandle while intensifying, finally making landfall next Wednesday evening as a CAT3 hurricane.  This IS NOT an official forecast, just one model run, but something that warrants a close eye nonetheless.

The other easterly wave we've been watching for some time now is on its heels near 50W.  It's still disorganized, but is becoming more convectively active with time.


Please visit my tropical Atlantic headquarters.

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