Central Florida Hurricane Center 2012

While the convection on the east side of the storm is more disorganized than earlier today, we are now starting to move toward the diurnal convective maximum. Alberto seems to be repeating the events of last night -- one of the low-level circulations spit out by the convection takes over, leading to the system becoming a bit better defined into the morning hours before multiple swirls take hold once again. The feature that I'm looking at here as the sun goes down is located around 25.5N/88W, or a bit NW of the previous NHC position.

By better organized, note that I don't necessarily mean stronger; just status quo. Intensity will be determined based upon what recon finds in the convection to the NE, not what it finds near the center. Central pressures are holding near 1004mb, so I anticipate this will still be a TS at 11pm.

The environment very near the center is a bit moister than before, but debris from this afternoon's convection over the Yucatan is starting to impinge upon the southern end of the low-level circulation. Whether this leads to an enhancement of the moisture fields over the center (and potentially some better organization) or an enhancement of the storm-relative shear over the center (and potentially some reduced organization) is still to be determined. Nevertheless, the environment isn't changing all that much and I don't expect much in the way of any intensification from Alberto and for its intensity largely to wax and wane with daily convective cycles.

Movement of the storm is largely driven by wobbles about the mean center. I am still holding to a Tuesday landfall somewhere between Panama City and Tampa, generally toward the west-central end of that region. Again, a good parallel for this case would be T.S. Bonnie from 2004. If the center begins to move or redevelop to the NE, as some models hint at, then you may see a temporary lull in the storm-relative shear followed by an opening up of the circulation. Waters near-shore are at or just above 80, but if you go down just a foot or two, temperatures drop off rapidly. Thus, I anticipate a 35-45kt TS at landfall, when and wherever that happens, with the strongest winds confined to convective bursts.

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