Hurricanes and the Coyote

This has been an active hurricane year, and already we have had A, B, and C storms come by our way in Virginia. I want to know about these monsters well in advance, so I go to the Internet to find information on upcoming hurricanes, such as Weather Underground, the Weather Channel, Terrapin, and others. But this is information processed either by news organizations or by NOAA. The Internet provides raw data now, so you can look at it and make up your mind. This data consists of results of weather simulations such as NOGAPS, ETA, GEM (a Canadian model), and GFS. The last one stands for Global Forecasting System and is an amalgam of the former MRF (Medium Range Forecast) and AVN (Aviation) models. As of late, GFS has been somewhat of a clown on the hurricane scene. In fact, it has been a trickster, the Coyote of weather models.

In early July, GFS models suggested that a hurricane would strike the Carolinas in the week of July 18-24, which for me is SUUSI week. The worst thing that could happen at SUUSI is a hurricane. Even though it is inland, a sufficiently powerful one would produce another Isabel. The fun and renewal that we would get at SUUSI would have ended abruptly with the first power outage. But a few runs after the one suggesting such a SUUSI hurricane, the hurricane simply vanished. Poof. Gone. No trace of it any more and we had good weather for SUUSI with only one rainy day.

GFS could not track Alex until he became a fully-grown hurricane. It had some problems with Bonnie and Charley, too, although eventually it got on track. But it is now that it is clowning around. First of all, it said that Tropical Depression 5, then Tropical Storm Earl, would not do much of anything. It would peter out in the Gulf of Mexico. The meteorologists said that it was wrong, that it would intensify instead and become a major storm, and one run of NOGAPS suggested a monster storm striking Louisiana, causing oil prices to hit the roof before the hurricane could blow it off. But guess what? It petered out and became a mere tropical wave. GFS was right, and the meteorologists were wrong!

Then there was Danielle. It looped to the north and east well before it could get close to North America. But one run of GFS suggested it would escape from the Bermuda high and head for the Canadian Maritimes. It is clear now that this won't happen. And now there is Frances. Yesterday evening, GFS was calling for Frances (now an unnamed wave in the eastern Atlantic) to strike the Carolinas and go up to SUUSI land, just like the SUUSI hurricane threatened to do. Then it showed it wimping out near Florida today So now they are all saying this wave won't amount to much. But the latest run (2004 Aug 17 18Z) shows that it's back now, and it is turning away from land in the western Atlantic. So it's off again, on again with this storm, and it says another one may be following it, either Gaston or Hermine.

So keep a watch of the hurricane and weather reports, and also the GFS (which now has loops or movies, which are interesting to watch at high speed), NOGAPS, and other computer models, brought to you courtesy of the Internet.