Tropicl Storm Noel Gains Strength...causes destruction

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) - Tropical Storm Noel brought heavy rain and flooding to the Dominican Republic on Monday and officials said at least 20 people had died.

At least 20 other people were reported missing from the storm, which lashed Hispaniola, the island the country shares with Haiti, said Ramon Franco of the Dominican emergency services agency.

Noel was expected to drop as much as 20 inches of rain on Hispaniola before heading northwest toward the Bahamas.

Noel increased in strength with winds as high as 50 MPH.
Heavy flooding seems to have caught the island by surprise.

All forecast tracks show Noel moving to the northwest to the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos Islands before turning eastward and heading out to open seas. Depending how far east the storm comes before turning may require a tropical storm watch or warning for south Florida. None of the computer models predict that Noel will bring any relief to Georgia although some of the outer rim bands may help alleviate the drought situation there.

The AccuWeather Hurricane Center is predicting trouble all along the southeast coast.

The track of this storm does seem interesting. AccuWeather probably does the best job of showing the steering currents at the moment. As the diagram below shows, the high pressure that is coming off the east coast is setting up the primary driver for which direction Noel will go. If the high stalls on the coast and sets up the strong pressure gradient shown... it seems to me that the driving force will be to push Noel into the Gulf, or at least into Florida. None of the models show this possibility so I suspect it is very unlikely... but it just looks so obvious.

Of course if the high moves further out to sea (as is likely) then a conveyor pulling Noel northward will clearly form.




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New depression forms in the Atlantic

Hey folks!

Sorry I haven't been around in a while. My hours at work just seem to keep increasing and then last week I had the joy of learning that my company's IT department decided that they had to block all Blogspot content so now I have no access to my blog world during work.

We have had some activity in both the Atlantic and Pacific over the past month but it was all minor and dissipated just about as fast as it developed so we really didn't have much to talk about. Of course there was the pre-destined conclusion stuff - Was anyone really surprised that Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize? How does what he did promote peace anyway? The real news is all the inaccuracies that have finally been brought to light. The word is getting out about just how much of a hoax the global warming alarmism is. Pretty soon reason and science will be brought into the discussion and we can start having intelligent debates over what is happening and if there are any actions that we can take to make a difference.

More likely, the proper debate is what we need to do to adapt.

Anyway, today's topic is this depression that formed in the Caribbean. I am really surprised to see a storm come up so late in a year that has been so relatively quiet near land. The wind shear has been high enough that no storm can form for any length of time - that has been the pattern for the last couple of months and I will really be surprised to see it change now. This storm may grow to tropical storm strength and could even enter the Gulf so we need to watch it. The Gulf water is still warm so we could see some strenthening over time if the winds don't tear it apart first.


Update: Tropical Storm Noel has formed and is tracking towards the east coast of Florida. This storm is being guided by a high located off the Georgia coast that could pull the storm track up across Florida and up the east coast. I certainly hope that the storm moves further west before heading north so that Georgia can get a good drenching. Something needs to come along to quench that drought soon. Maybe this can help.

Here in Houston we have finally gotten some sustained cooler weather - lows in the 50's and highs in the upper 60's and 70's. I've finally been able to turn off my A/C. Maybe the electric bills will finally come down to reasonable levels.

Hope you all are well. My prayers go out to all of you in Southern California who have had to deal with or are still dealing with the fires.