Central Florida Hurricane Center 2012

5AM Sunday Update
Ernesto is just shy of reaching Category 1 Hurricane status at the 4 AM Advisory. Winds are now up to 70 mph and the satellite signature has much improved since 0345Z.

At 4 AM EDT, NHC has shifted the 5 Day Forecast track Eastward toward the West Coast of Florida. With the SE Portion of the Florida Peninsula, from Tampa to Miami, in the 3 Day Cone. The remaining 5 day Cone covers ALL of the state of Florida.
Latest Forecast has Ernesto increasing in intensity to Category 1 Hurricane sometime today, and Category 2 before reaching Cuba.

This morning, Saturday, Tropical Storm Ernesto continues to become better organized south of Hispaniola. The current forecast track takes the storm very near Jamaica late tomorrow and into early Monday morning, then toward the western tip of Cuba in about three days. From there, there's still some uncertainty in the forecast track.

Overnight, all models trended eastward from their previous positions, with the new NHC forecast targeting the north-central Gulf coast being just west of the guidance. The models don't quite agree on how the upper low currently in the Pacific Northwest will evolve over the next 3-5 days. They agree that it will travel westward and expand somewhat, but they disagree as to whether or not it will shear out and leave much of the ridge intact or become a more significant feature and cause Ernesto to recurve. Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of run to run consistency with either this feature or Ernesto's evolution quite yet, so stay tuned.

Residents of the north-central and northeastern Gulf coast should pay particular attention to this storm over the weekend, particularly from Baton Rouge, LA east to Panama City, FL. If current trends continue, we should have a better handle of what to expect early next workweek. But by all means, don't panic! All residents along the entire Gulf coast and in the southeast US should keep an eye on this one too in case trends reverse over the weekend. Any potential impact to the US is likely still 5-6 days away.

The upper level environment surrounding the storm, while still somewhat hostile, is becoming increasingly favorable for development. The upper low that had been situated just to the west of the storm is starting to exit the picture quite rapidly. Conditions are projected to be favorable for significant intensification over the next five days, particularly after the next 24-48 hours, and the current NHC forecast is for a major hurricane in the northern Gulf in 5 days. Unfortunately, this is a quite reasonable forecast, and admittedly perhaps a tad conservative. Recon flights will be heading into Ernesto every 6hr from here on out, so we should start to get more information on its intensity soon.

Debby is trudging along in the North Atlantic and never really got going thanks to some stable low-level air in the eastern part of the basin. It should no longer be a classified entity sometime later today or early tomorrow.

We'll have more throughout the weekend, so check back often for the latest.

Event Related Links
StormCarib - Reports from the Caribbean Islands
Caribbean Weather Observations

Ernesto

Animated Skeetobite Model Plot
Animated Model Plot
SFWMD Model Plot
More model runs on Ernesto from Jonathan Vigh's page
Google Map Plot of Ernesto
Visible Satellite Floater
IR
Animated Floater with overlays
More Satellite Images of Ernesto

Debby

Animated Skeetobite Model Plot
Animated Model Plot
More model runs on Debby from Jonathan Vigh's page
SFWMD Model Plot
Google Map Plot of Debby
Visible Satellite Floater
IR
Animated Floater with overlays
More Satellite Images of system

Edited by danielw (Sun Aug 27 2006 04:59 AM)

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