Irene and Jose dissipate, TD12 forms

The final advisory was written on Irene at 03Z today, located north of Maine and still producing heavy rain in eastern Canada. As of this writing, Irene is blamed for at least 24 deaths, tens of billions of dollars in property damage, major disruptions to the nation's transportation network, and about 3 million people without electricity.  The radar/raingauge precip totals during Irene's passage are shown below.  There are values approaching 20" near Albany NY, Suffolk VA, and Greenville NC, but very heavy totals from NC into northern New England resulted in widespread flooding.  The governor of Vermont summed up the weekend for many areas: "We prepared for the worst and hoped for the best and unfortunately got delivered the worst".

All of the radar loops that I've made for Irene can be found at http://einstein.atmos.colostate.edu/~mcnoldy/tropics/atlantic/ (News & Updates section, or in the CSU Atmospheric Science section).  This includes coverage from San Juan PR, Miami FL, Morehead City NC, Dover DE, and New York City NY.

The odds of the name Irene being retired are high, which would make it the 7th "I" storm in the past 11 years to be retired (joined by Iris, Isidore, Isabel, Ivan, Ike, Igor).  Quite unusual!

Short-lived TS Jose has already dissipated after being a named storm just a day.  It formed southwest of Bermuda and the remnants are now north of Bermuda.

The easterly wave that I mentioned yesterday is now near 28W and was upgraded to TD12 at 09Z this morning.  The environment should improve in the coming days, mostly in the form of decreased vertical shear.  The majority of models are quite aggressive in developing this, and it will likely become our next tropical storm and hurricane: Katia.

One additional tidbit: today is the 6th anniversary of Katrina's final landfall in LA.  The next name on this season's list, Katia, is the replacement name after Katrina was retired.

Please visit my tropical Atlantic headquarters.