09-24-2008, 01:50 AM
Yeah, I've been watching that one. I just thought it was too early (or maybe it's better to say too difficult) to tell what it is going to do.
All the models are predicting a storm that heads north. But they all depend on this thing first becoming a tropical depression. The reason is that until the storm becomes organized, and hence have a large vertical structure, it's path is going to be affected by low level weather patterns.
You have to remember that at low levels (in terms of altitude), a hurricane is a low pressure center. At it's highest levels, it's a high pressure center (all that air that gets sucked in by the low level center has to go somewhere).
In this particular system's case, there's an upper level low pressure center off to the north that would attract the high altitude high pressure center of the storm. But until it forms one (which will occur once it becomes a tropical depression/storm/hurricane) that won't happen. As a result, it's been moving slowly west. The danger if if it doesn't get it's act together, it may end up in the Gulf.
All the models are predicting a storm that heads north. But they all depend on this thing first becoming a tropical depression. The reason is that until the storm becomes organized, and hence have a large vertical structure, it's path is going to be affected by low level weather patterns.
You have to remember that at low levels (in terms of altitude), a hurricane is a low pressure center. At it's highest levels, it's a high pressure center (all that air that gets sucked in by the low level center has to go somewhere).
In this particular system's case, there's an upper level low pressure center off to the north that would attract the high altitude high pressure center of the storm. But until it forms one (which will occur once it becomes a tropical depression/storm/hurricane) that won't happen. As a result, it's been moving slowly west. The danger if if it doesn't get it's act together, it may end up in the Gulf.