Well, Barry did what we expected in the end, and that's bring some needed rains to parts of SE Georgia and the Florida peninsula. General totals will be in the 2-3" range with a few spots closer to 5-6", it appears, without really any flooding concerns. All in all, a needed soaking rain.
Looking back on it, out of all of the available model guidance, the ECMWF did the best with this one. It was largely consistent on a track near or just north of Tampa throughout most of its runs over the past several days. The GFS was probably next best; not nearly as consistent but did better toward landfall. It also showed the mid-level and surface circulations being decoupled from one another, which actually did happen. Every time convection flared, a new mid-level center would get shot off to the north while the surface circulation turned more northeasterly. Most of the rains in my neck of the woods came from one of the mid-level centers, in fact. Good call by the GFS there, even in the face of some signs to the contrary at times.
The NAM didn't do awful with this system, but it had the wrong idea in keeping the storm vertically coherent in the face of the strong vertical shear across the Gulf. If the system had stayed upright and vertically coherent, it likely would have made landfall near where the NAM suggested -- further north and west -- but alas, it did not. Not sure what part of the NAM analyses you can chalk that up to, but I'm guessing to a tendency to overdo warm core structure nowadays.
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Re: Day 1. Tropical Storm Barry Forms in Gulf of Mexico
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