Happy New Year ( hurricane season new year, that is....)!

Well, perhaps the first of many many "ghost" storms on the horizon. At least if looking at the long range GFS models. As of 6Z today, still showing a downstream disturbance eminating from the ITCZ around Panama, only to emerge and drift north into the S.W. Caribbean. This, starting at approx. 228 hours out, and slowly deepening and drifting north to an eventual 998mb low off S.W. Florida coast.

Though I would love a nice wet sloppy storm to just soak all of Florida, replenish the water table and rid us of all the local smoke around from Everglades fires, I am less interested ( or concerned ) in the specific consideration of the long range GFS accuracy, as I am with regards to anxiously seeing what might develop as an overall "pattern of tendancy". Meaning, this low may very well develop and would not be out of sinc with Climatology, however most times such a low would tend to migrate westward and develop as an East Pac system. I beleive that a truly developing early system that would move north to N.W. ( either towards Florida or the Gulf states ), would prove indicative of a general trend of overall long wave pattern and overall motion of several Tropical Cyclone tracks during the season. Conversly, a developing cyclone in the far southern Caribbean, only to move due westward, may equally prove a greater ridging pattern over the far Western Atlantic, thus keeping any low latitude systems south and less of a problem to the S.E. U.S. Such was the case last year. The other pattern of interest, would of course be one which would seem to indicate a potential cyclogenisis "hotspot". Again, Climatology favors the Gulf and W. Caribbean early and late during our Atlantic season, yet there are years where few or no storms form in these areas, and other years where a fairly high prevelance of formation seems to develop.

Finally, and if for no other reason of curiousity......., doesn't it seem as if in some years we tend to look at perhaps the GFS, UK, or ECMWF models and say to ourselves "....i've never seen this model so misserably off...", or in some years ".....this is the one model that has been pretty on target.....". In recent years, it seems as if certain models show certain tendancies, and the models are "tweaked" to continually attempt to increase overall accuracy. I will look anxiously, as is part of "our sport", to see if the GFS tries to hold onto and continue to predict cyclogenisis with this system. For that matter, am starting to look at the long range European model
to see if it eventually picks up on whatever the GFS might be seeing downstream.

Final note......., GFS has been fairly consistantly in trying to develop this low in the S. Caribbean for several runs now. Then, comes the next run, and POOF, could all be gone. Such is "our sport" of tracking, forecasting, viewing, analizing, and understanding, or chasing Tropical Cyclones.

(Post moved to the appropriate Forum. Note that the Storm Forum is for existing systems and Invests, and for seasonal storm predictions.)