In addition to Igor, there are small areas of activity being monitored by the National Hurricane Center (NHC) among others although they have a very low to zero potential for development at the moment. One area is right next to (northeast) Igor. Two other areas are Caribbean region, one near Trinidad & Tabago while the other is south of Hispanola.

Hermine is still on the map, although barely…as it is all the way up in central Texas as a Tropical Depression. However, responsibility of this storm has been shifted over to the Hydrometeorological Prediction Center.

Tropical Storm Igor is in a slight sheared environment which will suppress development beyond Tropical Storm status for a few days. However as the system moves west, it should encounter less shear and begin to intensify. Both forward motion will increase, thanks to a trough that is to the west, and the intensity should increase into hurricane strength furthr out in the forecast period. Overall motion, according to the plots will be either west to west-northwest. Overall impacts to land is unknown at this point.

Not sure if this will be a chaseable storm or not yet, still has a good 10 to 15 days away from the Eastern US seaboard and a lot of ocean to cover first.

Official release isn’t known, but I likely will be before the end of the month. Most of the design work is done, it is merely content that needs to be added and organized. A few administrative tasks also are needing to be done.

And the name of this whole thing you ask….well that’s just MAD. Yup…MAD US Weather. It is in full: Mid-Atlantic Dynamics and US Weather, “Mad Weather” will likely be the nickname.

I’m already working on the summary page, so I’ll have plenty more to share shortly. Thanks to everyone for the support, comments, and help during the storm. I appreciate it all.

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010 at 5:09am EDT

Today (Wednesday)
5am - finish gear prep/caching
6am - load all non-valuables into car
7am - breakfast/coffee
8am - finish all loading of the car
9am - departure for Virginia and points south

From there it is hard to say. I did not get much sleep last night and will take my time getting to North Carolina. I may even slightly postpone my departure a little (9:30am) after the HOV lanes open up for faster more efficient travel.

Hurricane Earl is still way down there, and getting to North Carolina early means I will have the option to travel further south if I want to…perhaps to Morehead City / Atlantic Beach / Emerald Isle areas of North Carolina.

Look for more blogs from the road.

Lots of problems today, but still on time for intercepting Hurricane Earl in N.Carolina
Today was a rough day to get through. First it started out with waking up and getting ready to run errands and finding I had left the ham radio power cord plugged in (it draws too much power even when turned off) which had killed the battery overnight. So I started working on things around the house when in almost devilish timing, the house looses power. Almost the entire community lost power due to an underground power line failure. So I was very limited in the work I could do for nearly 5 hours. Of course it didn’t end there. Later tonight I went to go get the mobile weather station only to find that the remote cpu box(the cpu attached to the outside temp./wind/dew pt. sensor) was completely filled with water. I’m currently trying to see if I can rescue it before departure tomorrow, but I won’t know until tomorrow when I go pick-up a new battery.

I did get going though by late afternoon and it looks like I’m still on time for departure tomorrow by noon, although I’m still debating a push back to later in the evening (after the DC rush hour). The track keeps shifting westward ever so slightly, but the big help is that the storm slowed from earlier forecasts leaving me a little more time. I may just use the extra time to take the scenic route south from Maryland to Virginia.

The plan right now is to start the intercept in North Carolina and then follow the storm north along the coast. I am crossing my fingers they will keep the Chesapeake Bay Tunnel/bridge open so I can continue north into the Delmarva (so named for the three states Delaware, Maryland, Virginia) peninsula and break off in either Ocean City, Maryland or Rehoboth, Delaware to return home. I hope to bring live video and images from all along the coast.

I’ll post more updates throughout the period between now and departure, including any special webpages for tracking my progress, although the default is always http://www.weatherwarriorl.net/TV.html when I’m actively chasing.

Stormtrack.org is not the only site to see this, as I’ve seen similar from sites like easternuswx.com, accuweather.com, storm2k.org, and more. However, this is the only time I’ve seen it from a chaser specific site, and one as small as stormtrack.org.

Eitherway, I still post there, try to move the site to a positive direction and make it better rather than just be lazy and leave it then bash it. OK if you just want to leave, but it stupid to be judgmental about it. In fact this is about all you hear from me about it. Just a quick commentary on the matter. Back to the tropics and other weather news in the next blogs.

Danielle is still a week Category 1 Hurricane, and may be shifting it’s path slightly, but more toward the open ocean than before. Danielle poses a less than 1% chance for US landfall. Newly formed Tropical Storm Earl has one battle among others, because of it’s position close to Danielle (and behind), Danielle may be churning up enough Atlantic waters from the depths that it will a bit less surface heat to fuel Earl. And with all storms, wind shear will be monitored. Earl still could pose a US threat, but unlikely because of the various troughs that are currently over the eastern seaboard. However, there is still time and it’s just getting started so things can change.

The parade continues with showers just emerging off the African western Sahara desert. Those showers and storms are already showing enough bulk and characteristics to gain attention from various sources. I also have been watching the thunderstorm activity over the southern Sahara region further inland and predicted this activity as well as yet another possible area of interest that may emerge days from now. I’m no pro at forecasting, actually I’m pretty poor at forecasting, but it’s not hard to watch and see how this pattern is working.

Unfortunately, for the moment it looks as though we could have a repeat of the 2009 season with little to no US landfalling threat which means I go another year without a decent storm intercept. 2008 was a great return to the tropical chasing for me, and I was already in 2009. However the only chase I was able to do was with the US Air Force Reserves Hurricane Hunters into Hurricane Bill. Granted that was a fantastic thing and I loved covering that event (even though I have yet to sell the footage), it certainly was worth getting the experience and footage for later projects.

Now let’s keep an eye out for Hurricane Danielle and Tropical Storm Earl….see what (if any) risks they pose and if I still need to be ready for an intercept down the road. We still on the upswing of the active part of the season. That peak isn’t for a few weeks in early September.

STRONG SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS…WITH VERY COLD CLOUD TOPS TO NEAR-85C…HAVE RECENTLY FORMED IN ASSOCIATION WITH THE CYCLONE…AND THE LOW-LEVEL CENTER IS NOW EMBEDDED BENEATH THE CONVECTIVE CANOPY. DVORAK FINAL T-NUMBERS FROM TAFB AND SAB ARE NOW BOTH 2.5…35 KT…AND THE MOST RECENT 3-HOUR AVERAGE ADT FROM UW-CIMSS IS 2.7. THE DEPRESSION IS THEREFORE UPGRADED TO A 35-KT TROPICAL STORM.

GIVEN THE NORTHWARD MOVEMENT OF THE CENTER OF DANIELLE THROUGH MUCHOF THE DAY…THE ESTIMATED INITIAL MOTION IS 310/10. HOWEVER…RECENT SATELLITE IMAGES SUGGEST THAT THE CENTER IS TURNING BACK TOWARD THE WEST-NORTHWEST…AND THIS MOTION IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE FOR THE NEXT 72 HOURS AS THE SYSTEM IS STEERED BY THE SUBTROPICAL RIDGE TO ITS NORTH. A BREAK IN THE RIDGE BY DAY 3 COULD ALLOW THE CYCLONE TO TURN TOWARD THE NORTHWEST…BUT DANIELLE IS EXPECTED TO SLOW DOWN AS IT APPROACHES A NEW RIDGE TO ITS NORTH ON DAY 5. THE NEW OFFICIAL FORECAST IS A LITTLE NORTH OF THE PREVIOUS FORECAST DURING THE FIRST 72 HOURS TO ACCOUNT FOR THE INITIAL POSITION…BUT IT CONVERGES BACK WITH THE PREVIOUS FORECAST ON DAYS 4 AND 5. THERE HAS BEEN NO SIGNIFICANT SHIFT IN THE MODEL GUIDANCE SINCE THE LAST ADVISORY…AND THE MULTI-MODEL CONSENSUS TVCN IS EXTREMELY CLOSE TO OFCI.

WITH THE EXCEPTION OF THE GFDL…THE INTENSITY GUIDANCE HAS CONTINUED TO SCALE BACK ON THE INTENSIFICATION OF THE CYCLONE.
SLOW STRENGTHENING IS ANTICIPATED FOR MUCH OF THE FORECAST PERIOD SINCE VERTICAL SHEAR IS CURRENTLY NOT IDEAL…AND SOME DRY AIR APPEARS TO SURROUND THE SYSTEM. THE STATISTICAL GUIDANCE SEEMS TO SUGGEST THAT THE VERTICAL SHEAR COULD INCREASE AGAIN AFTER DAY 3…AND THE LGEM DOES NOT EVEN STRENGTHEN THE CYCLONE TO A HURRICANE DURING THE FORECAST PERIOD. FOR NOW…THE OFFICIAL INTENSITY FORECAST IS LEFT UNCHANGED OUT OF RESPECT FOR CONTINUITY.