Well, folks, we could be looking at our first serious tropical threat of 2006. It’s too early to be sure, but Tropical Storm Chris has thus far defied expectations, first by not dissipating last night, and now by strengthening unexpectedly into a relatively strong tropical storm. He’s at 60 mph and counting, as of 2:00 AM EDT. According to the public advisory: “SOME STRENGTHENING IS FORECAST DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS… AND CHRIS COULD BECOME A HURRICANE LATER TODAY.” AccuWeather, as usual, is more bullish than the NHC: “Chris could easily be a hurricane by Wednesday morning.”

Dr. Jeff Masters writes of the surprise intensification: “The Hurricane Hunters found much stronger winds than expected in Chris this afternoon. … Most surprising were the winds in the southeast quadrant, which were in the 55-60 mph range.” Adam Moyer at The Storm Track also notes the unexpected strengthening, and admits: “For the last few days, Bryan and I (and NHC for that matter) have been skeptical of the development of the former Invest 99L [Chris’s “name” before becoming a tropical depression -ed.]. ‘Too much shear,’ we said. ‘Too much dry air,’ we said. Clearly, we were wrong.”

I gotta say, I wonder if they’re going to keep being wrong. At the moment, Chris is officially expected to become a Category 1 hurricane in 36 hours, and then see its intensity plateau at that level. I wonder if it’ll get stronger, faster. As an amateur weather observer with no meteorological training, I don’t have the expertise that Adam, Bryan, and of course the NHC meteorologists have… but sometimes I, like Margie Keeper, get a feeling about a storm, a sense that it has “a certain je ne sais quoi.” And sometimes, it seems like storms that defy expectations have a tendency to continue defying expectations. I suppose I’m anthropomorphizing a bit, but… I dunno. Let’s just say I wouldn’t be stunned if Chris is a major hurricane five days from now. I’m not predicting it; I don’t have the expertise to do that. I just have a hunch.

What are the experts saying will happen next? Moyer writes:

As for the forecast, it’s pretty difficult at this point. None of the global models have yet to pick up on Chris, so it’s up to the hurricane-specific models to make the forecast. Shear is actually fairly low over Chris at the moment (<15 kts). So long as it stays in a low-shear environment, there is no reason Chris can't intensify, since...SSTs are warm and the dry air is sufficiently far away. The GFDL briefly takes Chris up to hurricane strength and the SHIPS models approach it, but their initial conditions are too weak. The offical NHC forecast has it becoming a hurricane in 72 hours. I tend to agree with their forecast, again provided that Chris stays away from shear. [There is] an upper-level low over the Bahamas. If Chris moves toward the upper-level low, shear will increase and Chris will probably be blown apart. For the track forecast, the models are quite divergent. Some have tracks directly across Haiti and Cuba, while others recurve it out to sea without threatening the US. For now, I would just take the average of all the models and keep it moving to the west-northwest. Interests in Florida and along the Eastern Seaboard are going to want to start paying attention to Chris in the near future.

And, er, maybe the Gulf of Mexico, too, if Chris manages to move through the Florida Straits, right in between Cuba and Florida — which, coincidentally, is precisely what the official forecast track calls for right now. Hurricane Chris entering the Gulf this weekend? A scary thought, given what’s happening with the Loop Current. The Houston Chronicle’s SciGuy is also concerned. But let’s all remember how unreliable 5-day forecasts are. It’s way too early to know where Chris is headed. All we know is that he’s worth watching.