Hurricane Hanna Heading Here! Tropics Bubbling Up!

Hanna has been upgraded to Hurricane status overnight.
This is the GFM model I mentioned yesterday, still on target with a direct hit from Hanna on Saturday. While the storm be in a diminished form, much like Gustav is today... it will still pose a threat for flooding rain, strong winds, and isolated tornadoes.
While there is a lot of anxiety in this region since Isabel, this will not be the same storm. For starters, it's not nearly as strong, nor projected to get much stronger.
Secondly, the track takes it into South Carolina and brings it up from a longer trip over land. The wind flow may provide some surge of water up the Chesapeake, but both South and North Carolina will take the main hit with water. Check out the tracks below.

First the Spaghetti Plot here shows more models than yesterday bringing this into Maryland. The bulk do have it to our west, but these hurricane models don't handle mid latitude winds that well. The GFS (seen above, and here in red line) does have it much closer to Baltimore.
The National Hurricane Center Forecast Cone considers all models, and perhaps the bias I have mentioned all summer. There is a trend of these storms to ride to the right side of the forecast track... although Gustav did buck the trend. The range of possibilities is wide on Saturday, but below you can see the NHC forecast taking Hanna here Saturday!
As Gustave winds down to Tropical Depression status this morning, it still may dump anywhere from 6 to 20 inches of rain in the deep south. Yet Look at all the activity in the Atlantic below. I think the popcorn might be ready in the microwave.... Ike's track takes it into the Bahamas in TEN may be named Josephine by the end of today.

The Chill of April

So much for 70s and spring- at least for now. This is a classic delicate balancing act of seasonal shifts that takes place every year. While you might think, or say, or hear about how strange the weather is, it's not. I hate to burst the bubble, but extremes this time of the year are the norm. A range of temps 15 degrees above and below normal can give nearly a 30 point swing in one week! Just last Tuesday it was 52F, and Friday hit 78F. Today we are back into the low 50s with a chance of frost. And so goes the week ahead, as you can see here. It will be interesting to see how this actually plays out- but for now, a nice warm up should be here by Thursday.

So this brings me back to the environmental discussion. As Earth Day approaches (April 22) and we roll through spring, you will be inundated with how dramatic the warming is on the planet. This after record cold and snow across much of the nation- even a fresh foot+ of snow in Minnesota last week. Sure, it's spring and as the sun returns to the arctic some of their ice will melt.
Hurricane Expert Pulls Back on Global Warming Connection
June brings Hurricane season which has been subject to dire outlooks since the 2004 and 2005 seasons. Last year failed to produce the results of an active forecast, and only 1 hurricane has hit the US in the past 2 years. So are we due? Perhaps. But now an article in the Houston Chronicle shows that Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has changed his argument for the link of Global Warming to increased Hurricane Activity. This is most profound since he has been one of the leaders of that charge. Did you read the 2008 Hurricane Outlook I posted last week? That was from Dr. William Gray- the lead tropical forecaster who himself testified to congress after 2005's Katrina and Wilma scared the public. Dr. Gray has been steadfast for decades that, contrary to pop culture- we are in the middle of a natural 30 year upswing in activity. We are in the peak now, which is expected slow down in the next decade.

Beijing Pollution Problem:

The numbers are up!

Temperatures and Hurricanes
First: Our temperatures...It's been an interesting ride this week with our marine layer. While just about every morning has had fog, each afternoon has punched a bigger hole in the cloud deck. As a result- our temperatures have jumped each day.
Mon: 47F
Tue: 51F
Wed: 61F
Considering that our normal high is 63F- this has been a big improvement. Now we get the flip side. We can thank the cold front (producing severe storms out west in the Mississippi Valley) for shifting our winds and bringing us back above normal by this afternoon. Think of it this way- our sun angle now - nearly 3 weeks after the Spring Equinox- is roughly equivalent to the sun angle 3 weeks before the Fall Equinox. That is early September when normal high temperatures are 82F. That does not happen often in April since the ground and water is still warming up from it's winter chill. However there is solar support- so low 70s are pretty likely once we get the sun back out.
Tension in the Tropics:
An increase in the 2008 hurricane forecast was released by Dr. William Gray yesterday. Essentially the Hurricane guru gave a 69% chance that a major hurricane will strike the US this season (June 1- Nov. 30). That breaks down to 45% along the east coast and Florida Peninsula, and 44% through the Gulf Coast to Brownsville, TX. More details below..
It should be noted that most tropical experts agree that we are in a normal 30 year cycle of increased tropical activity. The extremes 2004 and 2005 are not expected to repeat, and as I wrote yesterday- there are other factors such as African dust storms that could inhibit storm formation.

Tropical Cyclone Forecast for 2008

(1950-2000 Averages in parenthesis)

• Named Storms 15 (9.6)*
• Named Storm Days 80 (49.1)
• Hurricanes 8 (5.9)
• Hurricane Days 40 (24.5)
• Intense Hurricanes 4 (2.3)
• Intense Hurricane Days 9 (5.0)
• Net Tropical Cyclone Activity 160 (100%)

* Numbers in ( ) represent average year totals based on 1950-2000 data.