User blog:CobraStrike/The Atlantic Gone Whack: September 7, 2011

The Atlantic Basin is going wild with tropical activity today. We'll talk about the 3 tropical systems, Katia, Maria, and Nate, and also talk about 2 Atlantic AOIs, with one having a good shot at formation.

Hurricane Katia
After a few good days at major hurricane strength, Katia is now starting to fade away, although it is still very robust and big as it heads north. Currently, Katia is a category 1 hurricane with 80 mph winds and a minimum pressure bottoming out at a fairly low 982 mbar, normally associated with category 2 storms. Yesterday, a pocket of dry air penetrated Katia's strong outflow and impacted the CDO. This cause the inner eyewall and structure to fall apart rapidly, going from a fully fledged category 4 hurricane to a 100 mph category 2 in 24 hours. As you can see in this MIMIC representation, Katia maintained a strong NE, NW, and SE quadrants during the morning hours. However, with that dry air pocket, the dry air slowly inched its way eastward, and by the evening hours, strong convection and energy potential was limited only to the northern hemisphere and only rainband-type convection exisited in the southern part. As it heads further north and east, the biggest threat from Katia is located in Bermuda, which should experience near tropical strom force winds and up to 10 ft waves. In the U.S, they should experience rough surf in addition to strong rip currents...stay safe surfers! Katia is expected to take the usual path of the Atlantic Greenland/Iceland curvers, out an away without affecting land, although Scotland and the northern parts of Scandanavia may see some impact from the extratropical remnants of Katia.

Tropical Storm Maria
Tropical Storm Katia is not doing as well as it may seem in the forums. Due to strengthening wind shear, the outflow is being disrupted. Katia will have a difficult time sustaining herself as she passes through the shear areas, but due to her fast forward speed (W at 23 mph!), Maria is expected to remain a tropical storm as it heads for Puerto Rico and northwards. As Mr. Lixion Avila said, its deja vu all over again.

Tropical Storm Nate
Nate came as a semi-suprise when it burst in from an invest. Tropical Storm Nate is expected to forage on the warm and healthy waters of the Bay of Camphece. However, Nate is not expected to move much and is expected to be another GOM slugger like Lee. The forecast calls for Nate moving east a touch and then northwest straight into Mexico as a category 1 hurricane. Unfortunately, the high pressure over Texas will block rain off and as such they will not get any drought relief. Nate is a hard one to forecast, and the NHC may be completely whack. The GFS Ensemble Model, shows potential tracks if the current atmospheric conditions were changed slightly using a RNG to generate random numbers close to current. And as you can see, looks like the GFSEM models are also completely whack.

Virgin Islands Tropical Wave
For a short time this AOI was posted in the GTWO at 10%, but has since interacted with Katia's outflow which is pulling the wave apart. Katia is supposed to injure the wave, and Maria is supposed to sweep up any left over particles and convection. This wave is a goner, and as you can see in Lesser Antilles radar mosiac, nothing special is meant to happen other than rain.

Off Africa Wave
This wave that came off of Africa yesterday is not sitting pretty and has some obstacles to tackle. Currently, it has some spin, but there is a lot of dry air in the area. If it does develop, it will have to face the same shear Maria and Katia faced. Probably won't develop, but keep an eye.