T.S. Karen

[Josh Morgerman]

Josh,
The middle weeks of October is the best period for Florida and the eastern GOM in an average season. Late September into early October we usually see the end of the C.V. or deep tropical atlantic type storms, the problem is like whats occuring these days with Karen they very rarely make across the atlantic because of strong westerly shear and recurving too early.. The next week to ten days is somewhat of a transition period between these breeding areas. Late October into early November you get more development toward the SW Caribbean. These storms tend to go west or rapidly NE and miss the U.S. You can get some real monsters in late October, like Hattie 1961, <920mb Mitch 1998 905MB and of course Wilma 882mb. Except for Wilma most of the monster late October prefer to strike central America.

In addition, Oct. 10-20 is the climatological time for the first big "cold" front to sweep through S. Florida and into the Caribbean. When that upper trough pulls up it can leave behind vorticity on the end of the front in the Carib; leading to slow development; especially if a tropical wave gets mixed into the stew. In checking, many of the October developments in the Carib. are preceded a couple of days before by record or near record low temps. in Miami (low 60s).

Wow, interesting stuff-- I'd never thought of early October as being a "transitional" period, but it makes a lot of sense. I'll keep an extra-sharp eye peeled during that middle part of October, therefore.

Thanks for these explanations, Jim and Rich!

 

[Stuart Robinson]

TS Karen seems to be toast now - I can not see any convection within 250 miles of the low level swirl that was the centre. I expect the NHC to downgrade this to a TD before calling it off full stop - shear wins (every time)

 

[cdcollura]

Hurricane chasing?

NOT!!

LOL - This season 2007 just sucks donkey A--

1). Shear - Shear - Shear and more shear. So sick of that word, sounds like "ridge" in May.

2). Hurricanes the DO hit the US develop in less than 12 hours and come in at night.

3). The "good stuff" is in Nicaragua or so far south, bad chasing, or in a place where you can get mugged / assasinated.

We still have October...

Oh, back to the thread, Karen is now a remnant low (the TD advisory was generous) ;-(

Big disappointment - I want my money back!!

 

[Josh Morgerman]

The season has been good to me, as I got to chase Dean on the Yucatan, and that was very cool. But, yeah, it's been lame from a USA-based perspective.

Moving forward... The only place I'm looking now is the Caribbean-- as discussed above. Every major that has hit the USA in October since 1950 came from the Caribbean (or just outside of it): King 1950, Hazel 1954, Hilda 1964, Opal 1995, Wilma 2005. I’m completely ignoring the Atlantic E of 60W—doesn’t matter to me what happens there.

 

[Jim Leonard]

GOM development

We all may want to pay attention on the GOM next week as the models are showing a low developing as it crosses Florida on its way westward. Some models develop this system quite rapidly. The steering flow looks like this could be a upper Texas to western Louisiana storm. The way it looks atm. this is a cold core system so it maybe be a slow developmental process.

 

[Josh Morgerman]

We all may want to pay attention on the GOM next week as the models are showing a low developing as it crosses Florida on its way westward. Some models develop this system quite rapidly. The steering flow looks like this could be a upper Texas to western Louisiana storm. The way it looks atm. this is a cold core system so it maybe be a slow developmental process.

Good call. It seems all of the models are picking up on this now, and there's been a lot of discussion about it this morning in other forums.

A lot of folks are saying this will be another one of these irritating hybrid features-- a la TD 10. What do you think about its chances for transitioning to a pure-tropical low?

P.S. Should someone start a new thread? I keep forgetting this one's about Karen.

 

[Stuart Robinson]

I think that a generic Tropical forecast thread would be a good idea, in order to discuss model output etc. Once we get to a TD then we can start a new thread to host that storm system.

 

[Josh Morgerman]

I think that a generic Tropical forecast thread would be a good idea, in order to discuss model output etc. Once we get to a TD then we can start a new thread to host that storm system.

Yeah, I have a thread like that going on Eastern US Wx. It's an all-purpose tropical thread to discuss convective flare-ups and model outputs until discrete systems (Invests, TDs, etc.) are designated-- then those systems get their own threads.

 

[Josh Morgerman]

Back to Karen... It's not entirely dead and some of the models are bringing it back to life as a significant cyclone in a few days. The NHC leaves the door open in the latest TWO:

THE REMNANTS OF KAREN...LOCATED A COUPLE HUNDRED EAST OF LEEWARD ISLANDS...ARE INTERACTING WITH AN UPPER-LEVEL TROUGH...WHICH IS PRODUCING A LARGE AREA OF DISORGANIZED SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS. UPPER-LEVEL WINDS ARE CURRENTLY UNFAVORABLE FOR REGENERATION OF THIS SYSTEM...BUT THEY COULD BECOME A LITTLE MORE FAVORABLE DURING THE NEXT DAY OR TWO AS THIS SYSTEM MOVES NORTHWESTWARD AT 10 TO 15 MPH.

 

[Josh Morgerman]

From the NHC's 2:05 pm EDT TWD. They put a low center at ~16N 58W-- which is quite a bit SW of the last advisory position. I'm not suggesting SW motion-- simply that the system is disorganized and it could be a new low center is trying to form:

SECOND...THE REMNANTS OF KAREN...LOCATED A COUPLE HUNDRED EAST OF LEEWARD ISLANDS... WHICH ARE INTERACTING WITH AN UPPER-LEVEL TROUGH. THIS IS PRODUCING A LARGE AREA OF DISORGANIZED SHOWERS AND TSTMS. A SFC TROUGH IS ANALYZED IN THIS AREA AND RUNS FROM THE WINDWARD ISLANDS ALL THE WAY NE TO 21N51W. A WEAK 1012 MB LOW IS ALONG THE TROUGH AXIS NEAR 16N58W. VIS SATELLITE IMAGERY SHOWS A SWIRL OF LOW CLOUDS RELATED TO THIS LOW. UPPER-LEVEL WINDS ARE CURRENTLY UNFAVORABLE FOR REGENERATION OF THIS SYSTEM...BUT THEY COULD BECOME A LITTLE MORE FAVORABLE DURING THE NEXT DAY OR TWO AS THIS SYSTEM MOVES NORTHWESTWARD AT 10 TO 15 MPH.​

 

[aaron.burkham]

Im seeing a Karen re-generation, everything looks like its coming into play(maybe).