Hurricanes Hurricanes and more Hurricanes

I have not talked too much about hurricanes lately, but this has been some season. Since early July, I have been tracking down some hurricane or tropical storm somewhere, even if it is only in modelspace, such as the infamous SUUSI Hurricane that ruined SUUSI this year by striking Virginia Tech with 10 inch rains and 50 mph winds on its third day, and also that did not exist at all. It was a mere figment of modelspace. Some runs of the Global Forecasting System (GFS) showed this hurricane striking Charleston, SC and hitting western Virginia, but after two or three days, it completely disappeared from the runs and we had beautiful weather for SUUSI.

But most of the other storms I have been tracking have been real storms that have caused some real trouble. Charley and Frances X-ed out Florida with their tracks, and now the Gulf Coast is being hit by Ivan the Terrible as I speak. It's hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, Alex, Bonnie, Charley, Frances, Gaston, Ivan, and Jeanne, plus Karl and Lisa in modelspace. Gaston already has given us the second worst storm that I can remember here, and it was a mere tropical storm.

So the question is, will Ivan and Jeanne strike here? A Virginia DOT meteorologist says no. Neither will affect us. The forecaster at WxRisk.com also says that both will miss. He says Jeanne will be a Florida hurricane. Certainly I don't think Ivan will strike here. He is going straight for the Great Smoky Mountains, and there he will die. He may give us some flung-out spiral arm rain, as Frances did. But that's all. But what about Jeanne? Although WxRisk thinks this is a Gulf hurricane, MillenniumWeather thinks it's headed for the Carolinas. What do the models say?

No model goes out far enough to see where it will strike, except GFS. They do show her approaching North Carolina, but no farther than that. GFS does show what happens to her, and this is really peculiar, almost comical. GFS says that Jeanne will hit Florida twice. After Charley, Francis, and Ivan, this will make for five hurricane strikes this season for the beleaguered state, out of only four storms. It shows Jeanne going out in to the Atlantic, approaching the Outer Banks, but then a huge H of a High bombs out of Canada (the season's first cold snap) and stands right in front of Jeanne and says "STOP!". The big H then pushes Jeanne back to where she came from, and then towards the southern tip of Florida. Not only that, but the 18Z run of it shows it being pushed farther than that, into the Gulf of Mexico, where it hits the Yucatan. The idea of a hurricane going backwards seems comical to me. But then when this big beautiful Autumn High finally leaves, the hurricane then turns around and heads east northeast, hitting Florida a second time and then going out to sea in the Atlantic to spend its last days spinning fish. In my opinion, I don't think GFS knows what to make of this tremendous battle between a strong high ridge and a hurricane. I think the strong high will force Jeanne to move west northwest and hit Florida and go into the Gulf, as WxRisk says. But I am still going to watch this storm.