Tropical Storm Andrea heads off the season 3 weeks early

Tropical Storm Andrea has formed off the coast of Georgia and South Carolina with winds of 45 mph as of 11 am EDT today. Bryan at Stormtrack.com got the prediction right while the NWS was downplaying the possibility because the water temperatures and the winds weren't quite right.

Andrea has continued to churn this afternoon off the Southeast U.S. coast. The storm is nearly stationary, wobbling ever so much to the west. The bigger development this afternoon has been the complete dissolution of convection on the western flank of the storm (Figure 1). My best guess for the reason why the convection died so quickly is that the storm was ingesting very dry air that is in place along the East Coast and the dry air stabilized the mid-levels of the atmosphere.

This is very unusual. It may be the earliest that a tropical system has formed in the Atlantic and may be a sign of things to come - or it could be a fluke. The point is that we need to be prepared and plan properly how we are going to handle any bad storms that come our way.

Future posts will deal with evacuation plans and preparedness. For right now we just need to watch what happens in the Atlantic and keep an eye on the weather. Andrea won't amount to much and will likely peter out before she makes landfall as the graphics are showing. The National Hurricane Center isn't even using the traditional tropical storm symbol to mark this storm but is rather still designating it as a low pressure system.

Updated Statement from the National Hurricane Center






Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, The Virtuous Republic, Perri Nelson's Website, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, The Random Yak, Adam's Blog, Big Dog's Weblog, Stuck On Stupid, Cao's Blog, Leaning Straight Up, The Amboy Times, The Florida Masochist, Conservative Cat, Rightlinx, The Magical Rose Garden, Allie Is Wired, third world county, stikNstein... has no mercy, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, The World According to Carl, Pirate's Cove, The Pink Flamingo, Planck's Constant, Dumb Ox Daily News, Wake Up America, Right Voices, Gone Hollywood, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe. And Woman Honor Thyself