Tropical Storm Emily: August 4, 2011 01

Tropical Storm Emily is currently sitting stationary just south of Haiti, bringing heavy rains.  Actually, with her stationary movement, Hispaniola, in particular Haiti, is expected to become inundated with heavy rains, possibly exceeding two feet in the most vulnerable areas.  Though some of the world may have already forgotten, Haiti was hit hard by a 7.0 earthquake on Tuesday, January 12, 2010.  Many are still homeless.  The expected flash flooding could be deadly.  A quick look at the satellite shows a very disorganized storm, probably dealing with some shear problems:

For those of you who don't know, shear is a change in wind direction and/or speed with height.  While it is good for severe thunderstorms on land, it is detrimental for hurricane development.  Here are a few computer model spaghetti charts:

Statistical models: Don't perform as well as other models

Dynamical/Consensus/Ensemble models: Much better at track forecasting

All of them together

 The first is the statistical models.  Because they are only single level, they are not as good.  The second is the dynamical models and the ensemble consensus combined.  This is much more accurate than the statistical ones.  Thus, we expect one of these tracks to occur.  Finally, we put them all together to get a feel for the entire situation.  Taking these and a few more models into account, I do have my latest map ready:

Some of the models still try to dissipate Emily once she crosses Haiti, but I am skeptical.  While Emily may touch hurricane status,  this should be rather brief because at this point, I expect these things to happen:

• Emily will be ripped apart by Hispaniola's mountains, almost dissipating her.
• Emily will continue to move over the Bahama islands, which has historically caused storms to struggle.
• Once she is finished, she will be over very warm water, giving her a short time to strengthen
• However, she will quickly move into some strong westerlies, causing shear, making her weaken once and for all.

This will be an interesting scenario to watch.  If she can somehow make it into the Gulf of Mexico, rapid strengthening would occur, potentially birthing a Category four hurricane that could devastate the U.S. coastline.  Stay tuned.