mwatkins, derek ortt

[seaswing]

Can you give us some insight on why storms seem to be heading up the Gulf so much this time of year? I realize that cold fronts coming down and steering currents are unusual for this time of year. Is this a sign of what is coming this hurricane season? It seem to me that this is what we expect on October, not August. Will this be a long hurricane season in terms of gulf storms? will October be this bad? Thanks for any insight you can give......

[Derek Ortt]

the subtropical ridge is located in a position that is causing these storms to be steered to the west. In addition, these systems are taking a long time to develop, doing so near the islands; thus, they were steered across the atlantic by the low-level wind flow which pushes them nearly striahgt west

[vbhoutex]

the subtropical ridge is located in a position that is causing these storms to be steered to the west. In addition, these systems are taking a long time to develop, doing so near the islands; thus, they were steered across the Atlantic by the low-level wind flow which pushes them nearly straight west

And when this happens the storms will generally stay on a more westerly path unless there is a weakness in the subtropical ridge(high pressure) to the north which is displaced somewhat further west this year. Thus the storms steer around this as they develop and unfortunately have been ending up in the Gulf.

As you stated, the fronts with their associated troughs are moving much further South than normal for this time of year and that is what is redirecting these storms back to the North and East as opposed to the more expected WNW tracks. Trend? It almost appears that way, but I leave that to the more experienced Pros on this site. Are we going back to the more normal zonal flow anytime soon or can we expect more of the same?

[seaswing]

Bump...... Please, Pros~ can you give more insight? what are the pros thinking about this 'trend'? what can we expect with the current trends? tell us what you think?

[PurdueWx80]

I'm not a total pro, but a grad student in meteorology so I'll give it a try. It has been the 'trend' this summer for highly amplified flow - which basically means troughs are deeper and ridges are stronger. For instance, the big shots of cool air have been steadily coming into the eastern half of the country most of the summer - which is pretty atypical, but it still happens. There are a lot of signals, similar to the El Nino southern oscillation, which all interact to dictate the patterns that we see. This is still a relatively young science, so there is a lot we don't understand. Back to what I was saying - the subtropical ridge in the Atlantic is almost always there, just further east or west depending on the water profiles int he Atlantic and the pattern around the rest of the world. It seems to be stronger than normal this year, which is why these African waves keep racing westward faster than "normal". Charley and Bonnie (both came from waves off of Africa) happened to recurve in the Gulf because of the deep trough in central North America. The so-called "Gulf season" is typically later, but that refers to storms which develop in the Caribbean or Gulf, rather than from African waves. They usually form in the late summer and fall when steering flow down there is very weak, and any grouping of thunderstorms has the potential to organize in to a tropical storm. So basically, I don't believe we are yet able to explain far enough ahead whether or not a particular year will be conducive to African waves making it to the Gulf. Part of them making it all the way there w/o dying is fate, but most is related to patterns in oceanic and atmospheric interactions/motions.

[MWatkins]

Can you give us some insight on why storms seem to be heading up the Gulf so much this time of year? I realize that cold fronts coming down and steering currents are unusual for this time of year. Is this a sign of what is coming this hurricane season? It seem to me that this is what we expect on October, not August. Will this be a long hurricane season in terms of gulf storms? will October be this bad? Thanks for any insight you can give......

The story so far to me is not that storms are heading into the Gulf...but that since 1995 storms haven't been heading into the gulf.

This year 2 of the 3 have made it. The first system, Bonnie made it in because it was weakened into a wave...and stayed in the low level flow.

Charley made it because it was a pure cape verde system that came into the southern Caribbean. Not unusual...the unusual thing was the system getting picked up by such a large trough.

A quick count plus or minus 2 makes 30 Gulf systems that either developed or moved into the Gulf from 1940 to 1949.

Tropical Depression 5 looks to make a run for the Gulf. The luck the US has had in recent years has been just that...luck. Experts have been warning for years that the luck was sooner or later going to run out. And it looks like it has.

ADDED...Also...purdueWX did an excellent job of explaining why we cant really tell if what is happening now will have any bearing in October.

MW

[Anonymous]

Mike... by 2010 it will be... Hurricane Bonnie is a category 4. So it is bad. Now it is HURRICANE CHARLEY WILL BE ABSOULUTLY DESTRUCTIVE!!!!! So in a few years, two major hurricanes hitting the USA will be a normal thing. By the way... Earl...Frances...Gaston...Hermine... CHARLEY MAY NOT HAVE BEEN THE STORM OF 2004....STAY ALERT!

[seaswing]

I was afraid of that..... I recall the talk of how many storms since '95 hadn't come into the Gulf...and I agree with you totally, that experts have been warning about this for some time. I just hope and pray that people heed the warnings now...I still cannot forget the people who say, "If you live by the water, you sometimes have to live in it" like a storm of this magnitude would obliterate their small fishing community. There would be NO CEDAR KEY left if this storm had directly over them. Thank you Purduewx80, you made a good point I had not thought of. These storms have been Atlantic storms that reached us. I forgot, the storms that normally come this way are Carribean or Gulf in nature! and yes, Floydbuster, you are corret, the season isn't over yet.........

[rbaker]

agree with most of what is said here, as compared to last year, nc was target area for alot of storms, because trough was a little futher east, so it turned storms north of puerto rico, instead of caribbean. This year seems that a seasonal trough has set up from about e gom and semi high (bermuda high has been unusally futher south, so keeps storm futher south, not allowing them to recurve before the states. Here in fla. we typically have our t-showers starting from the east coast moving to west coast, but this year more sw coponet which has brought in more rain to central fla, where we can have rain almost anytime but mostly in am, and east coast has gotten afternoon pattern. Im beginning to think this is getting to be more normal, because after several years of this pattern, we have had more sw winds. That's why mia has had below normal rains, but places like Tpa and DAB have had more, because bermuda high ridge has been south of its usual position, which is where it got its name.

[WeatherEmperor]

I noticed that since 2002, alot more tropical systems have tracked further south to hit in the Gulf region. Just look at 2002 when Isidore and Lili went to the Gulf region. Last year we had Claudette enter the Gulf to hit Texas and this year we had Charley enter the Gulf and hit west Florida. In years past there were alot of systems like Bertha, Fran, Bonnie, Floyd, etc. that passed north of the Virgin Islands to either curve out to sea or hit North Carolina. Now they are tracking further south and affecting the Gulf. Weird.

<RICKY>

[Steve]

You can add to what's been said a couple more things. 1) sea surface temperature anomalies. Look at 2002, 2003 and 2004. You've had cooler than normal water off the South American Coast and wamer then normal water in the Gulf and on the Eastern Seaboard. This appears to be a telegraph of close in storms. 2) Strong Bermuda Ridge in 2002 and 2004. 3) Tendency for development west of 70W. In 2002, the tendency was around 80W. That's pretty far. At some point, there's no way for the heat to get out except via land. This year, we're seeing flareups near the islands, then, with the exception of Charlie, some petering out prior to stronger development farther west. 4) Teleconnection of ridge placement utilizing tracks and landfalls of West Pacific systems. In years when most of the summer WPAC storms recurve east of Japan or clip it on their way to the high lats, there is a tendency for "fish spinner storms." But in years when Viet Nam, China, Taiwan, Korea and Southern Japan take hits, that usually shows a ridge position that will support a ridge in the vicinity of the U.S. Soutwest Atlantic coast.

Also (per independent wx), there haven't been any years in the last 40 or 50 where there were 6 named storms in the Gulf followed by any more than 3 the following year (happened once) and 2 happened a few times. Usually it's one or none. However, 2003 broke that trend where we saw 5 named storms in the Gulf after 6 the previous year. 2004 already has 2 - a tropical storm and a Cat IV hit. While 40-50 years isn't much climatologically (sp?) speaking, it does show a trend that appears to not be holding these last few years.
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What I think is interesting about this year is that the first 3 named storms all made landfall in the U.S. We're not even really into the meat of hurricane season either. (Some may call Alex a "brush" but apparently the eye did cross what is referred to as "The Point" somewhere north of Nags Head and Duck. Many threads have notes of how this season's gone from boring to full-blown excitement. I've got a feeling there are at least another 3 or 4 U.S. landfalls to go. Scary when you think about what could be.

Peace

Steve