Ingrid is serious. Humberto tries for new record. And Manuel (UPDATE)

gregladen — Sat, 14 Sep 2013 06:34:48 +0000

Ingrid is serious and is going to hit something. (UPDATE: Ingrid is the second hurricane of the Atlantic Season.)

A tropical disturbance of one form or another has been hanging around since around the beginning of the hurricane season in or near the southern Gulf of Mexico, and the latest instance of this phenomenon has finally made use of very warm surface water and sup itself up into a real live tropical storm that is doing to turn into a hurricane by the end of the weekend, and hit the east coast of Mexico. This will not be a real strong hurricane but it will be VERY wet and thus dangerous; life threatening flooding and land sides in hilly areas will ensue. From the NWS:

HAZARDS AFFECTING LAND
----------------------
RAINFALL...INGRID IS EXPECTED TO PRODUCE 10 TO 15 INCHES OF RAIN
OVER A LARGE PART OF EASTERN MEXICO...WITH ISOLATED AMOUNTS OF 25
INCHES POSSIBLE...ESPECIALLY IN AREAS OF MOUNTAINOUS TERRAIN. THESE
RAINS ARE LIKELY TO RESULT IN LIFE-THREATENING FLASH FLOODS AND MUD
SLIDES.

WIND...TROPICAL STORM CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED TO AFFECT PORTIONS OF
THE COAST WITHIN THE TROPICAL STORM WARNING AREA TODAY. HURRICANE
CONDITIONS ARE POSSIBLE IN THE HURRICANE WATCH AREA BY LATE
SUNDAY...WITH TROPICAL STORM CONDITIONS POSSIBLE BY SUNDAY MORNING.

The graphic above shows the tropical storm wind probabilities for Igrid, on the right. Meanwhile Manuel, a Pacific tropical storm with only a small chance of spinning up to a hurricane (just over 10% chance) is coming ashore in Mexico as well.

Meanwhile, Humberto is doing something strange. Humberto was a hurricane, the first one of the season. It is now a tropical storm and is about to transition into a mere depression. But in a few days, the storm is expected to regain strength over warm Atlantic wates and regain tropical storm status, THEN TURN INTO A HURRICANE AGAIN. Indeed, Humberto is so strange that it's got me using ALL CAPS. Now I understand why the nws does that all the time.

I'm still checking no this, but Humberto's northerly formation could vie for the record for farthest north hurricane formation in the Atlantic, if we can count reforming from a depression in that category.

gregladen Sat, 09/14/2013 - 02:34