typhoon_tip
(Meteorologist)
Tue Oct 18 2005 10:21 PM
Re: Vortex message

Quote:

Anyone on here can answer this.....................

What is your opinion about the right turn Wilma is forecasted to make?

What is your opinion about the conditions in the atmosphere that are supposed to turn her to the right?

What is your landfall guess? Is it on with the NHC? Accuweather has a different idea - they are saying Ft. Myers/Port Charlotte area.




a)"What is your opinion about the right turn Wilma is forecasted to make?"
- High probability of occurrence; the trick will be, what is the degrees of the parabolic motion. 'That' will be virtually impossible to forecast because subtle nuances in both the storm structure its self and how those variants interact with the outside environment that's causing what is also the climate favored motion, cannot be deterministically modeled as they are perturbationally driven.

b)"What is your opinion about the conditions in the atmosphere that are supposed to turn her to the right?".
-The prefered synoptic reasoning at this time is that the models are in concert with what one would expect of the current state of the indices; those being the SOI and NAO. The combination of these connotes a troughing digging smartly into Ohio Valley area, and this began appearing in earnest in the models 4 days ago. The global models are coming into decent agreement about the existence of this trough; there is however some divergent solutions regarding its exact amplitude and therefore, any subsequent affects it will ultimately have on determining both the amount of right turn of Wilma, but her speed in the flow thereafter. So, a few things to iron out there, but the gyst of all is that S Fl (Accuweather or NHC both have acceptable prognosis given the data at hand) will likely have big, BIG problems. Right now the timing best fit for both experience and model output is about 4.5 days, from 12z this morning.

c)"landfall guess? Is it on with the NHC? Accuweather has a different idea - they are saying Ft. Myers/Port Charlotte area".
-As mentioned, both Accuweather and NHC have acceptable track guidance and have equal likelihood of positive result. As a clue though...I would not be surprised if the GFS solution is a bit too far S at 120 hours. The other issue I have is that there is still some uncertainty about the meridinal amplitude of the well-advertised trough slated to settle into the Ohio Valley over the next few days. That feature could still impart a steeper steering field over the SE U.S. and East Coast, which still makes it not implausible to have the more N aspects of the "Cone of uncertainty" being the correct route.

In addition, a very strong Wilma will likely produce a bit of resistence to any differentiating steering components as she's first encountering them, and this can sometimes serve to conserve a given vector somewhat longer then anticipated - not something readily foreseeable however... Curving N, NNE then NE means that any one of these directions would likely be held slightly longer given her deeper structure and better ability to perform what is often refered to as "creating her own environment". She just has absolutely AWESOME mechanics in her favor right now. This has underdone NHC intensity profile written all over it if you ask me.. Time and time again we see this...the storm out guns the marshals trying to assertain her vitality out in time, ending up being vastly more powerful. (Not sure why, but as a side note, these types of storms, where the parametrics are astoundingly good, are almost always "officially" underestimated)

Lastly, the 970mb low at core is a tad lower than the ideal pressure wind ratio. I'm sure this is because she's born in a region with lower than normal ambient sl pressure to begin with...As she smartly leaves the region and encounters high pressure to the N, she will likely begin seeing increases in her wind velocity measurements - depending on how quickly she can adjust to the new environment she's invading. It will be interesting to see this play out.

The other thing that interests me is that her best predicted track takes her over sst's that are balmy the whole way; what's ironic, its the only route left there without processed oceanic heat content from earlier season activity. That's just catastrophic bad luck for people who may be directly affected by her.

Frankly - and I hold no allegence to them - I favor Accuweather's solution over NHC. Mainly because I think the trend for a deeper trough in the Ohio Valley has not yet completed finding a resolution, and therefore, there may be additional adjustments to the predicted steering currents that re-orient them with more S component in time... The tough part about that is, were talking about stuff that hasn't shown up in the models...



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