Jacksonville, Fl. — The “Buresh Bottom Line”: Always be prepared!.....First Alert Hurricane Survival Guide... City of Jacksonville Preparedness Guide... Georgia Hurricane Guide.
STAY INFORMED: Get the * FREE * First Alert Weather app
FREE NEWS UPDATES, ALERTS: Action News Jax app for Apple | For Android
WATCH “The Ins & Outs of Hurricane Season”
WATCH “Preparing for the Storm”
READ the First Alert Hurricane Center “Survival Guide”
***** ALWAYS CHECK & RE-CHECK THE LATEST FORECAST & UPDATES! *****
Forecast local - Jax/NE Fl./SE Ga. impacts from“Fred”, “Grace” & “Henri”: None (except for a “bump” in surf at area beaches Thu./Fri./Sat. resulting in a heightened rip current risk)
FRED:
Fred underwent a metamorphosis of sorts Sat. night/early Sunday in what is likely the long awaited/anticipated reorganization cycle after its 3-4 day entanglement with the land masses of Hispaniola & Cuba but finally found an area pretty favorable for intensification over the Eastern Gulf Sat. night through Mon. prior to the late Mon. afternoon landfall on the central coast of the Panhandle.
Overview: The strong tropical wave entered the NE Caribbean Tue. & was upgraded south of Puerto Rico to tropical storm “Fred” Tue. evening - the 6th named storm of the Atlantic season & about 2 1/2 weeks ahead of the avg. date of Aug. 28th. The avg. date for the first hurricane is Aug. 10th (Elsa briefly became a hurricane in early July). Fred weakened to a tropical depression over the mountainous terrain of Hispaniola Wed. evening & struggled with persistent land interaction with Cuba for some 48+ hours but then regained tropical storm strength Sunday morning followed by a 3pm EDT Mon. landfall about 40 miles southeast of Panama City.
Fred had took it on the chin after tangling with Hispaniola & Cuba but restrengthened from Sat. night through Monday. Fred slowed as the storm made it to the western edge of the expansive Bermuda High stretching over the Central & Western Atlantic after a long track west across the Greater Antilles.
Fred will continue northward turning more NE through Wed. night producing flooding & a tornadoes well to the north & northeast all the way through the Mid Atlantic 7 Northeast.
GRACE:
Tropical wave ‘95-L’ became tropical depression #7 Fri. afternoon & was upgraded to tropical storm “Grace” while steadily & quickly moving west/northwest. The five earliest named 7th storms of the season (Klotzbach): 2020 (7/22) 2005 (7/24) 1995 (8/10) 2017 (8/13) 2011 (8/14). Grace weekend back to a depression Sunday before returning to tropical storm status early Tue. then becoming a hurricane Wed. morning.
The track was initially very similar to Fred but with more of a west vector &, therefore, a more southern route, particularly evident now. As Fred departs over the next couple days, a high pressure ridge is building underneath which will help steer Grace more westward. The GFS model seems to have come to terms with itself after some wild swings regarding track & intensity & - unfortunately - some irresponsible posts on social media by some media/ “weather types”. In any case... the GFS, European & UKMET models are in good agreement on an almost due west or slightly W/NW swift movement this week though the European does show a turn more southwest upon approach to the main Mexican coast by the weekend. Grace - as a hurricane - moves across the Yucatan Peninsula Wed. night/Thu. then into Mexico well south of Texas, again as a hurricane by late Friday night/early Saturday. Such a track will keep the U.S. out of any direct significant impacts from Grace with no impacts at all for Jax/NE Fl./SE Ga.
HENRI:
A disturbance over the Western Atlantic has become tropical depression #8 - upgraded Sun. night then upgraded to tropica storm “Henri” Mon. afternoon. Only two other infamous hurricane seasons have made it to ‘H’ by Aug. 16th - 2020 & 2005. This storm will drift south/southwest then more west through Thu. followed by a north/northwest heading - doing a loop essentially around Bermuda & east of the U.S. So there will be a period through Thu. that Henri is moving west before becoming blocked & turning rather sharply north over the open W. Atlantic. The tropical cyclone will be at about Jacksonville’s latitude through Thu. night but hundreds of miles to the east while making the turn to the NW then north. There will be local - Jacksonville/NE Fl./SE Ga. impacts other than a slight “bump” in the surf at area beaches through the end of the week.
One very noteworthy issue on the longer range track of Henri: The general model suite has been shifting west all week long. The GFS & UKMET models are quite disconcerting in that both models take a hurricane into New England late in the weekend/early next week. That’s not an impossibility given the building high pressure over the N. Atlantic over the next several days. The European model, on the other hand, shows a sharper turn to the northeast with a lot of weakening. There are two high pressure cells: the Bermuda High stretching over the U.S. which is guiding Grace west & will block Henri from getting to far southwest & west... initially. The second high pressure area is over the N. Atlantic & will be strengthening over the next several days. That strengthening trend *could* be strong enough to force Henri more west in the long term which introduces possible - significant - impacts for parts of New England.
Anyone living in - or traveling to - the Northeast through early next week needs to stay up to date on the latest forecasts!
Meanwhile... a series of tropical waves continues to move west off the coast of Africa with multiple “threats” over the next few weeks.
We’re now about 3 weeks from the peak of the hurricane season (Sept. 10), so just from a climatological point, we should see an uptick in Atlantic activity. But there are also other indications of a more active period or “burst” with the MJO, seasonally warm sea surface temps. & rather impressive deep oceanic heat content.
Sea surface temps. across the Atlantic are now near to above avg. across much of the basin (2nd image below) & - even more importantly - deep oceanic heat content is becoming impressive & the “equivalent oceanic heat content” - namely depth averaged temperature in the upper 300 m (~984 feet) - is even more impressive all the way from Africa to the Gulf of Mexico. Such an ocean water temp. pattern is conducive to long track deep tropical Atlantic tropical cyclones & can lead to a more favored regime for rapid intensification cycles. From an AMS research paper in ‘08 Mainelli, DeMaria, Shay, Goni: “Results show that for a large sample of Atlantic storms, the OHC variations have a small but positive impact on the intensity forecasts. However, for intense storms, the effect of the OHC is much more significant, suggestive of its importance on rapid intensification. The OHC input improved the average intensity errors of the SHIPS forecasts by up to 5% for all cases from the category 5 storms, and up to 20% for individual storms, with the maximum improvement for the 72–96-h forecasts. The statistical results obtained indicate that the OHC only becomes important when it has values much larger than that required to support a tropical cyclone.” More recent research continues to indicate similar correlations.
Saharan dust. Dry air - yellow/orange/red/pink. Widespread dust is most common earlier in the hurricane season & is indicative of dry air that can impede the development of tropical cyclones. However, sometimes “wanna’ be” waves will just wait until they get to the other side of the plume then try to develop if everything else happens to be favorable.
2021 names..... “Ida” is the next name on the Atlantic list (names are picked at random by the World Meteorological Organization... repeat every 6 years... historic storms are retired (Florence & Michael in ’18... Dorian in ’19 & Laura, Eta & Iota in ‘20). Last year - 2020 - had a record 30 named storms. The WMO decided beginning in 2021 that the Greek alphabet will be no longer used & instead there will be a supplemental list of names if the first list is exhausted (has only happened twice - 2005 & 2020). More on the history of naming tropical cyclones * here *.
East Atlantic:
Mid & upper level wind shear (enemy of tropical cyclones) analysis (CIMMS). The red lines indicate strong shear:
Water vapor imagery (dark blue indicates dry air):
Deep oceanic heat content continues to increase across the Gulf, Caribbean & deep tropical Atlantic & has become pretty impressive from the Central/NW Caribbean into the Gulf of Mexico:
Sea surface temp. anomalies:
SE U.S. surface map:
Surface analysis centered on the tropical Atlantic:
Surface analysis of the Gulf:
Caribbean:
Atlantic Basin wave forecast for 24, 48 & 72 hours respectively:
The East Pacific - Linda will slowly wind down after becoming an annular hurricane:
West Pacific IR satellite:
Global tropical activity: