Wilma Continued - FLHurricane.com

The reality here is that there is a great deal of uncertainty in this forecast right now.

The two lows did NOT merge, as I had expected.

What the GFS, and the models which init off it picked up from this, was that the trough would not amplify enough to pick up Wilma and bring her north. That leaves her "twisting in the wind" so to speak, and thus you get the solution that the model has put forward - a storm that hits the Yucatan and then has the steering field collapse, meandering towards the usual direction (east and somewhat north) more due to atmospheric friction than anything else.

Is that right? Don't know. I certainly don't buy it YET, because the rest of the met guidance I'm seeing, that is not storm related, still shows an amplified trough pushing into the northern gulf tomorrow. If it arrives and is amplified as expected, and moves to the east as you'd expect it to, it should pick the storm up and you'd get the solution I put forward last evening - which is north of the official track but still well within the cone.

If, on the other hand, the bottom of that trough "dies" for lack of amplitude, then you don't get the height falls over the northern gulf and the SE states, and Wilma gets "left behind". Then the GFDL solution looks reasonable.

I'm not buying that shift yet. Certainly there's no "vast model support" for something that huge. Its entirely possible that the GFS got bad data - with the radical wobbling that this storm's eye has done, its possible that some bad samples went into the mix, and that you got the "GIGO" (garbage in, garbage out!) scenario.

I want to see at least another 12 hours of WV imagery and some more "actual" (rather than prognosticated) views of the 850mb and 500mb steering levels. If they support the trough not having the amplitude originally forecast, then you should see the models follow along - otherwise, I suspect you'll see the GFS/GFDL and related models shift BACK, and quite possibly northward of the official track.

Right now I still like my previous scenario, but of course that can change - the issue is how far down into the gulf will that trough dive, and will the amplitude of it, along with the height falls forward of it, support the motion of the storm originally prognosticated.

If not, then we have a meandering cyclone over by the Yucatan until the next feature establishes a steering environment - a weakness - into which it will move.

It would be unwise to let your guard down..... this storm seems destined to pull a surprise on someone - certainly it has done so thus far with the rapid strengthening that it underwent last night..

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