Here’s what some weatherbloggers and meteorologists are saying about the first tropical storm of the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season:

Alan Sullivan: “National Hurricane Center decided to waste a name on this system after a reconnaisance flight found tropical storm force winds in convection far to the east of the center. With so much shear, Alberto has no real future, but it will give Drudge another headline.”

HurricaneTrack: “As we look at the status of our first tropical storm this season, I have to say that it looks rather poor. Strong upper level winds are literally removing the deep thunderstorms from over the low level circulation center. This is never an indication of an intensifying cyclone.”

Palm Beach Post Storm Blog: “Nature proved last year that it can create powerful, enormous, beautifully circulating hurricanes — no need to go showing us all over again. I’d be really happy to have a season of tropical underachievers this time.”

SciGuy: “Alberto likely a blessing, not a curse”

The Storm Track: “The computer models are clearly locking onto Northern Florida for a future landfall if Alberto is able to survive that long. Considering this consistency in the track, it is surprising to note that Alberto thus far has been holding on the left side of the expected track. If this trend continues it would keep the center of the storm under more hostile conditions and bring it toward the northern Gulf Coast.”

Dr. Jeff Masters: “Alberto is a fairly typical-looking June tropical storm. The satellite presentation is not very impressive this morning, with most of the deep convection lying to the east of the exposed center. Strong westerly winds associated with the subtropical jet stream are removing the deep convection from the center. This wind shear is creating a very hostile environment for Alberto to survive in, let alone strengthen. With the shear forecast to strengthen, I would not be surprised to see Alberto ripped apart tonight. If this scenario does occur, the low level swirl of clouds associated with Alberto’s core will drift into the center of the Gulf of Mexico and gradually decay. The main moisture to the east of the center will separate and get pulled across Florida. If Alberto manages to survive, a strong trough of low pressure moving over the Eastern U.S. will recurve the storm over Central and Northern Florida, where Alberto will rapidly lose tropical characteristics and become a very rainy low pressure system. Alberto currently has tropical storm force winds of 40-45 mph in a very small area to the northeast of the center. The central pressure has actually risen 2 mb to 1004 mb since 7 am EDT this morning, proving that this is not a healthy tropical storm. I give Alberto a less than 5% chance of making hurricane status. It is far more likely (40% chance) that Alberto will get torn apart by high wind shear before making landfall on Florida’s west coast. The most likely scenario is that Alberto will hit the west coast of Florida as a weak tropical storm with maximum winds of 40 - 50 mph.”

AccuWeather: “The latest satellite imagery shows Alberto is trying to beconme better organized. Although southwest shear aloft continues to expose the west side of the depression, leaving the bulk of convection on the east side of the center of circulation, the latest images show that convection is trying to wrap around the center of circulation, suggesting that the shear may be relaxing some. … Although we think that this southwest to westerly shear being exerted on Alberto will continue to be a deterrent to too much strengthening over the next 12-24 hours, Alberto is moving to the north-northwest over waters that are warm and deep enough for strengthening, so it would not be out of the question that it strengthens a little more over the next 12-24 hours.”

P.S. Here’s another post, from a Florida blogger named Doyle at A Cool Change, written yesterday afternoon: “The media’s talking heads have been breaking in regularly since yesterday with ominous music, to report the same thing they did twenty minutes before. The earth-shattering news just broadcast is that the skies in Clearwater are clear <cue the ominous music> but that could change in the next few days.” Heh.

At 11 am EDT, the National Hurricane Center upgraded TD 1 to Tropical Storm Alberto. The maximum sustained winds are 45 mph, and the central pressure is 1004 mb. These winds are well to the east-northeast of the center, the system remains fairly disorganized, and as the NHC discussion reports:

STRONG SOUTHWESTERLY SHEAR CONTINUES TO DISPLACE DEEP CONVECTION AWAY FROM THE CENTER. GLOBAL MODELS PREDICT THIS SHEAR TO INCREASE…SO NOT MUCH ADDITIONAL STRENGTHENING IS ANTICIPATED.

The NHC’s projected track now shows landfall overnight Monday/Tuesday on the Florida Gulf coast, somewhere between Port St Joe and Fort Myers. Since the winds are well displaced from the center, emphasis on the centerline track may be misleading, and I would expect stronger winds to the right (south) of the center if it makes landfall. However, the NHC’s discussion notes that Alberto could remain in the Gulf of Mexico while weakening if it becomes more strongly sheared. In any case, it seems that this storm will remain fairly weak.

As of the 11 am EST report , Alberto had winds of 45 MPH, pressure of 1004 MB, and was moving northwest at 9 MPH.

I’m back from a long (but fun) day of sightseeing in north-central Arizona. Photos to come later. For now, a quick tropical update: T.D. 1 isn’t Alberto yet. But according to the discussion, “BECAUSE THE DEPRESSION HAS A LARGE CIRCULATION AND IS MOVING OVER A REGION OF WARM OCEAN…THERE IS A CHANCE FOR THE DEPRESSION TO REACH TROPICAL STORM STATUS AT ANY TIME.” Tropical Storm Watches may be required for portions of the Florida coast as early as tomorrow morning.

UPDATE: AccuWeather is more skeptical than the NHC, declaring that “we think that this shear will continue to be a deterrent to strengthening over the next 12-24 hours” and allowing only that “it would not be out of the question that it becomes tropical storm Alberto over the next 12-24 hours” — whereas the NHC is actually predicting that it’ll become Alberto tomorrow.

From Hurricane Track:

TD #1 is still rather poorly organized due to strong upper level winds tearing away the deep thunderstorms and it appears that some mid-level dry air is hampering development as well. This just goes to show that warm sea surface temps alone do not guarantee a strong system. However, the NHC is forecasting the depression to become a tropical storm tomorrow. The official track takes the center near Cedar Key, FL and then in to the open Atlantic. The question then becomes how close does it get to the Carolinas? You know the drill, it is too soon to know for sure. Right now the forecast cuts it very close with a fairly weak tropical storm, possibly even extra-tropical (meaning that the wind field is spread out more and the system is not fully warm core in its center), moving just east of North Carolina. From there, it could be a close call for Cape Cod and points north. The good news is that it is June and water temps will not support any kind of powerful storm or hurricane in the far north Atlantic- at least we hope not.

The Storm Track has more, predicting that “its intensity is likely to top out at around 50 mph so [wind] damage should be minimal.” As Sean said, rain is the primary concern with this system.

Most of the other bloggers in my hurricane blogroll at right are covering T.D. 1 as well, so be sure to check them out.

The 4 pm CDT (5 pm EDT) advisory from the National Hurricane Center holds the tropical depression at 35 mph maximum sustained winds with a central pressure of 1004 mb … no tropical storm yet. The center is expected to move into the southeastern Gulf of Mexico later tonight. From the advisory:

SOME STRENGTHENING IS POSSIBLE DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS…
AND THE DEPRESSION COULD BECOME A TROPICAL STORM TONIGHT OR
TOMORROW.

Rainfall is the immediate concern, with 10-20 inches expected over western Cuba, and 30 inches possible at higher elevations. Lesser amounts are expected in the Cayman Islands and the northeastern Yucatan. The Florida Keys and Western Florida could see 4-8 inches through Monday. The NHC’s forecast track map still has the storm curving into Florida’s west coast, on Monday afternoon, but I’m not sure how much confidence to put on the forecast track at this time.

P.S. The 5 pm NHC discussion estimates that the system will peak at 50 mph, with a 20% chance of development to hurricane intensity. The system is currently poorly organized, and development may be limited by vertical shear over the northeastern Gulf of Mexico.

P.P.S. I misreported the odds of hurricane strength, now corrected. Also, as noted in comments, the forecast uncertainty is more about timing than location. NHC’s cone of projected landfall locations on the Florida coast extends from about Punta Gorda to Panama City, with Tampa given a 35% chance of experiencing tropical storm force winds from this system.

From the NHC 8 a.m. CDT update:

“…FIRST TROPICAL DEPRESSION OF THE 2006 SEASON FORMS IN THE
NORTHWESTERN CARIBBEAN SEA…

TROPICAL STORM WARNINGS ARE RECOMMENDED FOR THE CUBAN PROVINCES OF
PINAR DEL RIO AND ISLE OF YOUTH.

INTERESTS ELSEWHERE IN THE EASTERN GULF OF MEXICO SHOULD MONITOR
THE PROGRESS OF THIS SYSTEM.”

The discussion indicates a greater than normal amount of uncertainty.

The area of disturbed weather over the northwestern Caribbean, a.k.a. the possibly soon-to-be Tropical Depression 1 or even Tropical Storm Alberto, maintained the status quo overnight:

SURFACE OBSERVATIONS INDICATE THAT A BROAD AREA OF LOW PRESSURE CENTERED ABOUT 100 MILES SOUTH OF CABO SAN ANTONIO AT THE WESTERN END OF CUBA IS MOVING NORTHWARD. THIS SYSTEM HAS CHANGED LITTLE IN ORGANIZATION DURING THE NIGHT. HOWEVER…CONDITIONS APPEAR TO BE FAVORABLE FOR THIS SYSTEM TO BECOME A TROPICAL DEPRESSION OR A TROPICAL STORM DURING THE NEXT 12 TO 24 HOURS. THIS SYSTEM IS EXPECTED TO MOVE INTO THE SOUTHEASTERN GULF OF MEXICO LATER TODAY BRINGING SQUALLS AND ADDITIONAL RAINS TO THE CAYMAN ISLANDS AND PORTIONS OF CUBA. AN AIR FORCE RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT IS SCHEDULED TO INVESTIGATE THE SYSTEM THIS AFTERNOON…IF NECESSARY.

“The way things look now, it won’t take much to transition this system in to a tropical depression or even a tropical storm. In fact, TS watches and/or warnings may be needed for portions of western Cuba this weekend,” writes Mark Sudduth at Hurricane Track. On the other hand, Charles Fenwick at Eye of the Storm remains skeptical: “My gut remains that any development will be slower and more modest than what the number of visits seem to indicate people are looking for from this.” FLhurricane.com has more.

P.S. The name “proto-Alberto” keeps making me think “Domo Arigato, proto-Alberto…”

P.P.S. Incidentally, my three “hurricane guestbloggers” for the season — Colin Pedicini, Katrina Palmore and Sean Sullivan — are finally set up on the blog, so you may be hearing from them today. (Becky and I are going to Out of Africa for her birthday.) If anyone else would like to be a “hurricane guestblogger” too, helping cover this season’s storms (especially when I’m at work or otherwise occupied), please leave a comment or shoot me an e-mail.

Thanks to reader and fellow weather-blogger Carl Schaad, I just stumbled upon a reference to my blog in today’s edition of the St. Petersburg Times:

The first tropical storm of the 2006 hurricane season may be forming in the Caribbean Sea, but a storm of a different sort already has developed on the Internet.

While meteorologists closely watch a low-pressure system near the Yucatan Peninsula, a growing legion of weather bloggers has posted theories about whether this could become the first hurricane to hit the United States this year.

“They’re all very abuzz about this — maybe out of all proportion to what’s going on,’’ said Jack Beven, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center in Miami. …

Now, besides the usual TV and radio updates, weather blogs such as www.thestormtrack.com and flhurricane.com are blaring out warnings on the Web.

Some of the blogs are put together by qualified meteorologists, while others, such as irishtrojan.com, are the work of amateurs with no formal training. The irishtrojan.com blog is run by a 24-year-old University of Notre Dame law student and self-professed “weather nerd’’ named Brendan Loy.

On Wednesday, Loy looked through the various official computer models and on his blog asked, “Will there be a tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico this weekend?’’

By Friday the answer was: Not yet. The low-pressure system was still poorly organized, although the National Hurricane Center reported that “a tropical depression could form at any time.’’

The answer is still “not yet,” by the way. As of 10:30 PM EDT:

A BROAD AREA OF LOW PRESSURE CENTERED BETWEEN HONDURAS AND WESTERN CUBA HAS CHANGED LITTLE IN ORGANIZATION DURING THE PAST FEW HOURS. HOWEVER…CONDITIONS APPEAR TO BE FAVORABLE FOR THIS SYSTEM TO BECOME A TROPICAL DEPRESSION OR A TROPICAL STORM DURING THE NEXT 12 TO 24 HOURS.

Stay tuned.

Okay, let’s be clear: the headline of this post is speculative and sensationalistic. There isn’t even a tropical depression for Florida to be worried about yet, let alone a hurricane. But the NHC is now saying that “a tropical depression could form at any time” from the closed low-pressure system in the northwestern Caribbean, and the Houston Chronicle’s SciGuy says:

There are no guarantees, but the system is moving northward and could encounter less wind shear and other conditions that might otherwise prevent it from developing. Several models, including the respectable GFDL, take the system and develop it into a Category 1 or Category 2 hurricane before landfall in Florida. However, it’s important to realize that the models are very untrustworthy at this point.

He’s definitely right about that last point — both the prediction of significant intensification, and the track forecast, are little more than educated guesses right now. But still, I just wanted to note that this possibility exists. I’ll have more to say about “proto-Alberto” later.

UPDATE: SciGuy’s comments were apparently based on the 12Z run of the GFDL, which did indeed show a Category 2 hurricane making landfall on Monday along the Florida west coast. (See image here.) However, the more recent 18Z run of the GFDL shows a much weaker Alberto, not even hurricane strength, hitting Florida Monday. (See image here.) Like SciGuy said… the computer models are very untrustworthy at this point, and one of the indications of that is their variability from run-to-run.

UPDATE 2: About six hours ago, Charles Fenwick wrote, “I’m still on the skeptical side of things as far as development goes. Anything developing is going to have an uphill fight.” Not sure if he still feels that way. On the other hand, Adam Moyer at The Storm Track is surprised the NHC hasn’t already declared it a depression.

HurricaneTrack has more, as does the Palm Beach Post’s awesome hurricane blog, which I just discovered (and will be adding to my blogroll momentarily).

After the jump, AccuWeather’s detailed discussion of the storm.

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HurricaneTrack.com’s commentary archive shows that the buzz is increasing about the possibility of a tropical cyclone forming in the northwestern Caribbean Sea or southeastern Gulf of Mexico this weekend (previously blogged here). The latest NHC Tropical Weather Outlook says:

SATELLITE IMAGES CONTINUE TO SHOW A LARGE AREA OF DISTURBED WEATHER EXTENDING FROM CENTRAL AMERICA NORTHEASTWARD ACROSS THE NORTHWESTERN CARIBBEAN SEA…AND PORTIONS OF CUBA AND THE BAHAMAS. THIS ACTIVITY IS PRIMARILY ASSOCIATED WITH A BROAD AREA OF LOW PRESSURE NEAR EASTERN YUCATAN. THERE ARE NO SIGNS OF ORGANIZATION AT THIS TIME…BUT ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS COULD BECOME A LITTLE MORE FAVORABLE FOR SLOW DEVELOPMENT…IF THE AREA OF LOW PRESSURE MOVES AWAY FROM LAND WITHIN THE NEXT DAY OR TWO.

Charles Fenwick at Eye of the Storm wrote this afternoon:

it’s very early in the game, there is nothing resembling so much as a tropical depression at this time. A hurricane hunter plan is tentatively scheduled to investigate the area on Saturday, if it appears to be necessary.

The key unknown at this time is exactly where the center of low pressure will be (assuming, of course, that a closed low does form). The further up the coast, the more favorable the situation is for something to develop due to the extra time it would get over water after crossing the Yucatan.

At this time, I am highly skeptical of models that develop this significantly and quickly bring it into the central Gulf of Mexico. I find it more likely that anything developing hangs around the Bay of Campeche and affects Mexico only.

P.S. I know I’m taking “early in the game” to extremes now, but the AVN model forecast is very interesting. It shows a very weak tropical system (probably just a depression or minimal T.S.) forming near the Yucatan and hitting the Florida panhandle, then accelerating up the East Coast and becoming a major, presumably non-tropical, cyclone — another nor’easter! Here are the 78-hour and 144-hour forecasts from that model:

The usual caveat applies: individual computer-model forecasts, especially individual models uncorroborated by others, are extremely unreliable and should not be depended upon for any sort of planning purposes. This is more for curiosity than anything else.

As for the more long-term picture for hurricanes this season, here’s some possible good news:

NASA oceanographer David Adamec had some potentially encouraging news Wednesday about the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season. He reported that the position of the Bermuda High — the semi-permanent area of high pressure that sets up shop each summer over the Atlantic — is in a much better location than it was in 2005.

Last year at this time, the high had expanded far to the south and west, which tended to steer hurricanes toward the U.S. coastline… This year, so far, it hasn’t expanded as far south and west, which would likely tend to steer storms along the U.S. coastline and out into the ocean. …

More good news is that the sea-surface temperature of the Gulf of Mexico is a mere 0.5°C above normal, unlike at this time in 2005 (click maps, above), when it was 2°C above the long-term average.

Finally, it’s not technically hurricane-related, but this is a pretty picture.

Will there be a tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico this weekend? The Canadian computer model thinks so. Here’s its forecast for Saturday morning:

That green-and-blue area northeast of the Yucatan represents a tropical low-pressure system. But Adam Moyer at The Storm Track isn’t buying it: “I don’t see this scenario playing out because there is nothing out there right now for a storm to develop from.” Mark Sudduth at HurricaneTrack (which, annoyingly, doesn’t seem to have permalinks enabled) agrees: “It is interesting to watch a few of the global computer models since some of them are indicating development in the Caribbean. Right now, there are no signs of that taking place and the NHC is not concerned about any specific areas for the time being.”

Getting back to The Storm Track, Moyer notes in the same post that, contrary to my previous alarmism, the sea-surface temperatures in the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico are actually now lower than what they were last year. (About that previous post… Charles Fenwick took me to task somewhat, noting that “SSTs can be volatile on a daily basis” and therefore “it is more useful to look at at a longer term average and compare it to a long term norm” — a strategy which produces a less alarming result. Fenwick’s visual evidence of my error was not entirely accurate, but his overall point was sound.)

Now then, on to some more political hurricane-related topics… specifically, for starters, global warming. We’ve already had a brief brush fire on that topic today, so why not start an all-out flame war? :)

There is, of course, a ongoing rollicking debate about global warming… and a second ongoing rollicking debate about the debate itself, questioning whether the debate over global warming’s existence is really a debate at all, or just something “cooked up in Texas” (to borrow a phrase), a faux-debate sponsored by the oil companies and the Republicans to advance Chimpy W. Hitler’s Evil Hegemonic Halliburtonization of Mother Earth.

(more…)

Tropical Depression 2-E in the Pacific is causing heavy, flooding rains in Acapulco.

Meanwhile, here’s another blog post about The Weather Channel’s “Lost Episode” of It Could Happen Tomorrow about Hurricane Katrina, which airs in 20 minutes.

The post also links to this article asking whether people in various storm-susceptible cities are prepared for the worst. The answer, of course, is no. Excerpt:

Despite gales of pre-season publicity, [NHC director Max] Mayfield says many people along the USA’s hurricane coasts are not poised for the next tropical storm, let alone for a monster like 2005’s Katrina. The Census Bureau says more than 34.6 million people live in the most at-risk coastal zones, from the Carolinas to Texas. That’s more than triple the population there in 1950.

Mayfield, who has barnstormed hurricane country for weeks to preach the gospel of readiness, sees trouble in a recent poll of coastal residents in 12 Atlantic and Gulf states. The survey of 1,100 people by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research found that more than half don’t feel vulnerable to hurricanes, and three in five have no family disaster plan.

The poll, released in mid-May by the National Hurricane Survival Initiative, a public-private partnership that includes the hurricane center, also found that more than two-thirds of the respondents have no hurricane survival kit. And half erroneously believe that masking tape makes windows shatterproof in a storm. Thirteen percent say they wouldn’t evacuate, even if ordered to leave.

“The folks there in Mississippi and Louisiana who made a conscious decision not to evacuate (in Katrina) were not just tempting fate, they were playing Russian roulette,” Mayfield says.

He says he was heartened by the unprecedented turnout of media for the center’s five-stop “hurricane awareness” tour this spring along the Gulf Coast. But news coverage “is all for nothing if we can’t translate that into individuals taking personal responsibility and developing their own hurricane plan.”

Indeed.

Mayfield, like Dr. Jeff Masters, also seems not to agree with the AccuWeather hair-on-fire predictions about the Northeast: “Right now no one knows exactly what areas of the coast, or which states or locations. Could it be Florida again? Maybe. How about New England or New York City? That’s possible. … The bottom line is that all coastal states from Texas to Maine are vulnerable.”

The article does talk about the NYC nightmare scenario, which is indeed a very serious thing:

Emergency managers in New York City, which would have to evacuate up to 2.5 million people in a major hurricane, say Katrina caught people’s attention. “New Yorkers who normally are complacent are starting to take hurricanes seriously,” says Jarrod Bernstein of the Office of Emergency Management. It now features hurricane advice prominently on its website.

“Take Rockaway peninsula,” Bernstein says, referring to the city neighborhood most exposed to an Atlantic hurricane. “We go out there every year to talk about hurricanes, and they’re like, ‘No way we’re leaving.’ This year it’s, ‘You know what? If the man says it’s time to go, we’re going to go.’ “

That’s a great attitude, but unfortunately, it will almost certainly fade after a few years. It always does.

Dr. Jeff Masters offers his prediction for hurricane season:

The active hurricane period that began in 1995 should continue this year, since there is no strong El Nino event present, sea surface temperatures (SSTs) are .5 - 1.5 degrees C above normal across the tropical Atlantic, and the other four indicators we look at to predict seasonal hurricane activity are all positive. However, SSTs are nearly 1 degree cooler than last year’s record levels, so I am not expecting another 2005. That was a once-in-a-lifetime year. My worst-case scenario calls for another year like 2004, with 15 to 20 named storms, and two to four major hurricanes hitting the U.S. My best-case scenario is still for an active year with 15 or so named storms, but with most of the storms recurving harmlessly out to sea. This happened in 1995, when the Bermuda High set up shop further east than usual, allowing the storms to recurve before hitting the coast. There will probably be at least three Category 4 or 5 hurricanes this year, and I expect one of these will make it into the top ten list for most intense Atlantic hurricanes on record. I don’t look for anything like 2005, when three of the six most intense hurricanes on record occurred.

As for Masters’s opinion of AccuWeather’s hair-on-fire predictions about hurricanes hitting the East Coast, he sounds rather skeptical:

The jet stream pattern controls where hurricanes recurve. Our ability to forecast the jet stream pattern is limited; the best we can do is about a one week forecast. At times, we can get a general idea out to two weeks. Thus, it is difficult to make a skilled forecast at this time about which parts of the U.S. are likely to face the brunt of this year’s hurricane season. Dr. Gray and some other researchers have shown that one can use statistical methods to make a slightly skillful prediction several months in advance about what parts of the U.S. might get hit most. Dr. Gray is predicting that the U.S. East Coast is more likely to get hit by a major hurricane then the Gulf Coast this year, but forecasts of this nature are only a little better than chance.

This is really interesting, too, and I hadn’t heard it before:

[B]etween 1000 and 3400 years ago, sediment records along the Gulf Coast show that Category 4/5 hurricane landfalls were about three to five times more common that we’ve seen during the past 1000 years. It’s possible, but unlikely, that the intense hurricanes we’ve seen in the Gulf the past few years mark a return to this hyperactive pattern. It is not yet known if the Eastern U.S. coast also experienced this same hyperactive pattern 1000 to 3400 years ago; the researchers haven’t done a full study of the sediment records there yet. I speculate that the East Coast saw a drop in intense hurricane during the same 1000 to 3400 year period, since a shift in the Bermuda High position steered most of the hurricanes into the Gulf of Mexico, and relatively few into the East Coast.

In other hurricane news, WXNation has a list of hurricane-related resources online. (I’m on it, among several other bloggers, including Masters. But they really need to add Charles Fenwick.) My full list of hurricanes links (which is constantly growing and changing) is in the right sidebar on my hurricane category page.

Finally, just a reminder… “Katrina: The Lost Episode” airs tomorrow on The Weather Channel at 9:00 PM EDT (6:00 PM MST/PDT).

“This one isn’t very exciting, but it is a depression“: Tropical Depression 2-E has formed in the Eastern Pacific. “As further development is not expected, the only problems it will cause will be heavy rains in southwest Mexico,” says Charles Fenwick.

Meanwhile, WXNation offers a review of “Katrina: The Lost Episode,” a one-hour “It Could Happen Tomorrow” special that will air on The Weather Channel tomorrow at 9:00 PM EDT, kicking off TWC’s “Hurricane Week.” Apparently it’s quite good. Personally, I’m just glad it doesn’t conflict with the premiere of the new Blue Collar Comedy Tour special. (The TWC special airs at 6pm Phoenix time; the blue-collar boys start at 8 on Comedy Central.) Otherwise, there was going to be a serious war over the TV in the Loy household. :)

In other weather news, somebody send Kristy an ark!

P.S. On the other hand, sending an ark might just be delaying the inevitable, if the 5-day forecast on Casey’s blog is any indication:

Heh.

Charles Fenwick at Eye of the Storm has a post about a new NOAA map that analyzes the percentage probability of tropical development, at any given time, in 4,000-square-mile blocks of the Atlantic and eastern Pacific basins. Pretty cool. Currently, the greatest threat area is due south of the Manzanillo area in Mexico, where The Storm Track says Tropical Depression 2E might soon form.

Meanwhile, the Houston Chronicle looks at hurricane forecasting: where it’s improved, and where it still struggles. Specifically, the article attempts to explain why it’s so much more difficult to predict a hurricane’s intensity than its track:

Track forecasting is relatively easy, [National Hurricane Center forecaster James] Franklin said, because large atmospheric features — such as the semi-permanent Bermuda High — steer hurricanes. Satellites and other tools can measure these features, and computers can adequately model them.

“The physics is pretty straightforward,” Franklin said. “Hurricanes will move where the tropical fronts push them.”

Better measurement of these features and refined computer models should continue to improve storms’ project paths.

Not so with a hurricane’s strength, which is controlled by many factors, not all of them well understood. Scientists simply don’t fully understand how thunderstorms coalesce into a tropical storm and form an eyewall within a hurricane.

There are more difficulties. Once a storm forms, forecasters aren’t looking at features hundreds or thousands of miles across, like the Bermuda High, but at things like rainbands tens of miles across. These can’t easily be measured by satellites. Numerous, mostly unanswered questions abound: is the air humid or dry? Is dry air getting sucked into the storm’s core? How quickly is the ocean transferring its heat into the atmosphere?

Answering such questions is essential for understanding if a hurricane will strengthen or weaken appreciably.

My major beef with the article is that it doesn’t even mention the term “eyewall replacement cycle.” The total unpredictability of those cycles is a huge part of the reason why, in particular, it is almost impossible to accurately predict the intensity fluctuations of major hurricanes. Anyway, according to the article, “forecasters say it will probably take another decade before they can reliably predict how a fickle hurricane’s intensity will change over time.”

In other news, yesterday’s opening day of hurricane season was also, appropriately/ironically enough, the first day of Ray Nagin’s second term as mayor of New Oreleans. The mayor who fiddled while his city drowned told his fellow residents to “get off your duffs,” an expression that would have been an excellent piece of advice for his office in the days before Katrina hit. But I digress…

Thursday’s big piece of Katrina-related news was actually this:

A contrite U.S. Army Corps of Engineers took responsibility Thursday for the flooding of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina and said the levees failed because they were built in a disjointed fashion using outdated data.

“This is the first time that the Corps has had to stand up and say, ‘We’ve had a catastrophic failure,’” Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, the Corps chief, said as the agency issued a 6,000-page-plus report on the disaster on Day 1 of the new hurricane season.

The Corps said it will use the lessons it has learned to build better flood defenses. …

The Corps, Strock said, has undergone a period of intense introspection and is “deeply saddened and enormously troubled by the suffering of so many.” …

The much-anticipated report - prepared by the 150-member Interagency Performance Evaluation Task Force, assembled and headed by the Corps - is intended to serve as a road map for engineers as they seek to design and build better levees and floodwalls.

Serious work began on New Orleans’ hurricane protection system in the 1960s after Hurricane Betsy flooded the city in 1965. But over the decades, funding slackened and many parts of the system were not finished by the time Katrina hit.

The result was a disjointed system of levees, inconsistent in quality, materials and design, that left gaps exploited by the storm, the report said.
Also, engineers did not take into account the poor soil quality underneath New Orleans, the report said, and failed to account for the sinking of land, which caused some sections to be as much as 2 feet lower than other parts.

Four breaches in canals that run through New Orleans were caused by foundation failures that were “not considered in the original design of these structures,” the report said. Those breaches caused two-thirds of the city’s flooding.

(Hat tip: WXNation.)

Also from WXNation, a defense of Max Mayfield:

As you may have seen on Drudge, some environmentalists are protesting today, calling for the heads of National Hurricane Center director Max Mayfield and other NOAA officials. Their claim? That federal hurricane scientists are covering up a link between climate change and hurricanes.

I’ve previously stated my thoughts on this topic here, but let me say that I believe people looking for a conspiracy here are misguided.

Based upon my discussions with hurricane researchers — some of which have been at length — there is no general consensus on this question. Yes, more and stronger hurricanes tend to form when sea surface temperatures are warmer, but there are many more ingredients that go into a powerful hurricane, not all of which would be strengthened by a warmer Earth.

Even Kerry Emanuel, probably the most prominent advocate of a link between climate change and hurricanes, has acknowledged no scientific consensus has emerged on this issue. (He believes, however, that one will in a couple of years as forecasters like Mayfield become more comfortable with the science.)

But the bottom line is that the science on this subject simply isn’t settled yet. The hurricane record is poor for all but the last 30 years, and only then is it truly reliable in the Atlantic basin, where only about 10 percent of the world’s storms form. Moreover, scientists can’t even describe the physics of a strengthening hurricane with confidence.

The denigration of Mayfield and other NOAA officials who are participating in a legitimate debate is bad, bad policy, and it’s not good for science either.

I concur. If there’s one single official in our whole entire government who has actually done a good job in the past 12 months, it’s Max Mayfield. Calling for him, of all people, to resign or be fired is downright idiotic.