Tropical weather
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Estimates of the agricultural losses in Puerto Rico continue to rise following the passage of Tropical Storm Erika a few days ago. The current estimates are for losses in excess of $20 million. Caribbean Business reported here that the most damaged crops, particularly due to Erika’s winds, are plantains and bananas, while losses have also been…
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My friend Chris Robbins has a great post on the string of hurricanes that is moving through the eastern and central Pacific Ocean today in his blog at iweathernet.com. You can read it and see some images of all the storms at https://www.iweathernet.com/tropical/historic-hurricane-outbreak-in-central-eastern-pacific. The unusually warm water associated with both the “blob” of warm water that…
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The latest forecasts show that Erika is not likely to return from the dead and become a tropical storm again, but the moisture is still there and will bring lots of rain to Florida and southeastern Georgia. The remains are now known as investigation 90L and the model runs for where it goes are shown…
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The National Hurricane Center reported this morning that Erika no longer has a closed low pressure center and is in the process of dissipating. The combination of wind shear and the mountains of Hispaniola knocked the socks off the already weak circulation. But the remnants of Erika will continue to move along the projected path…
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As expected, the movement of TS Erika over Hispaniola along with vertical wind shear has caused Erika to weaken. Hurricane forecasters now expect that it may drop below tropical storm levels and become a tropical depression tomorrow. The circulation has tracked more to the west than the models were predicting, which has caused some changes in…
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The last 30 days have been very wet in parts of Florida, although the southern tip is quite dry and is in extreme drought. The map below from https://water.weather.gov/precip shows that some areas of western Florida north and south of Tampa have an excess of 8 inches in just the last month. If the path…
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Earlier today I wrote about the difficulty that hurricane forecasters were having in making a good forecast on where Erika is going. Here’s a little more information to show you just how tough it can be. Hurricane forecasters, like weather forecasters and climate modelers, use a variety of computer models to simulate what the future…