Tropical Storm Sara

[TPAwx]

GEFS has a cluster moving over the Yucatán into the Gulf to the FL central West Coast, and a second moving over Western Cuba into South FL.

[vpbob21]

4 hours ago, beanskip said:

Why are we dissecting 204 hour panels for a storm that hasn't formed yet and is forecast to behave like a drunken frat guy in the Caribbean for 3 days before eventually, possibly emerging into the Gulf? 

Probably because of how high the ceiling is for this.  If it can avoid going over land early on, given the SST's and lack of shear, I have to think cat 5 is very possible, if not likely. 

Will be interesting to see what the hurricane models will crank out once they start running.  Wouldn't be surprised to see at least one of them go sub 900mb.

[NoCORH4L]

So basically we all can agree that FLA USA will be getting another storm, cat 1 and can always go up from there

[cptcatz]

So 2024 already has the earliest cat 5 on record.  Anyone know what the latest cat 5 is of now?

Edit: nevermind, it was easy to look up. There's only been one cat 5 ever in November on record. 1932 Cuba hurricane was a cat 5 on November 6. So this could break that record if it does reach that intensity.

[Floydbuster]

38 minutes ago, cptcatz said:

So 2024 already has the earliest cat 5 on record.  Anyone know what the latest cat 5 is of now?

Edit: nevermind, it was easy to look up. There's only been one cat 5 ever in November on record. 1932 Cuba hurricane was a cat 5 on November 6. So this could break that record if it does reach that intensity.

 

1932 was the year my Grandmother was born. She is 92 years old. Her name is Sara. 

[TPAwx]

Well this GFS op goes to 922 before heading to the NE Yucatán.  Assume this ends up between Ft Myers and Marco later in the run.

[hawkeye_wx]

The model trend is toward a farther west track.  The non-GFS models had already trended to a track with significant Yucatan interaction.  Tonight's GFS, while still east of the other models, now also shows a track into the Yucatan.  The major difference between the GFS and other models is how quickly the system organizes.  The GFS is much more aggressive, exploding the storm by Thursday night.  Other models keep it weaker and drift it farther to the west before stalling.

[Windspeed]

I'm bullish on this TC. This could be an intense hit on Yucatán or Western Cuba if it doesn't stay in the Straits. As for Florida, though SSTs are a tick AN, they're still down around ~26°C west of the Peninsula. I imagine a strong TC will begin to lose some punch tracking NE across the Eastern GOM. Obviously, a further south track keeps the TC over 27-28°C SSTs, especially around the Keys. But that likely includes land interaction with Cuba, so hopefully still a weaker solution. As far as atmospheric setup when this future TC would hook into the westerlies, though there would be increasing shear values north of the Straits, the mid-level steering flow may align with upper SW flow, so the TC would likely still be in a favorable environment and ventilated / divergent pattern, even if SSTs are decreasing as the system moves NE. Still a long way to go to iron out specifics as far as a Florida hit or miss, but it's becoming increasingly probable that a hurricane forms and makes landfall early next week somewhere in the NW Caribbean and/or Eastern GOM. Given the environment, the initial landfall will most likely be an intense one. Not to prey on the Yucatán, but obviously Florida would benefit if a landfall occurs there first.

[GaWx]

GEFS through 0Z run continue to look scarey for W FL, especially Tampa south and centered on Ft. Myers. If this hits the Conus as a H, it would tie 1886, 1985, and 2020 for the alltime record of 6 H hits! What an awful season for the US. The weak La Niña on a RONI basis showed once again why weak Niña has averaged the most dangerous for the US. Hoping for El Niño next year.

[Brian5671]

6Z GFS is into the Yucatan which would likely spare FL from anything big.

[ineedsnow]

2 minutes ago, Brian5671 said:

6Z GFS is into the Yucatan which would likely spare FL from anything big.

Almost all 6z GEFS members are north of that 

[Hotair]

That euro is not great news for the FL southwest coast.  we have only ever had 3 canes come into Florida in November this would be the 4th in history. 

[michaelmantis]

Flying into Florida (Orlando) a week from Friday in the afternoon. From looking at the model runs this looks like a Wednesday or Thursday impact?

Wasn’t expecting to be thinking about a hurricane around Thanksgiving week.

if I’m understanding things right, the entire path once it gets away from the Yucatán is dependent on the troughs coming out of the Central, United States, correct?

[hooralph]

38 minutes ago, michaelmantis said:

Flying into Florida (Orlando) a week from Friday in the afternoon. From looking at the model runs this looks like a Wednesday or Thursday impact?

Wasn’t expecting to be thinking about a hurricane around Thanksgiving week.

if I’m understanding things right, the entire path once it gets away from the Yucatán is dependent on the troughs coming out of the Central, United States, correct?

 

I'm tracking this like "ha ha.. wow... November hurricane." And then I remembered I'm supposed to be in Orlando Tue-Thu next week...

[wxeyeNH]

47 minutes ago, michaelmantis said:

Flying into Florida (Orlando) a week from Friday in the afternoon. From looking at the model runs this looks like a Wednesday or Thursday impact?

Wasn’t expecting to be thinking about a hurricane around Thanksgiving week.

if I’m understanding things right, the entire path once it gets away from the Yucatán is dependent on the troughs coming out of the Central, United States, correct?

Depends on how strong it gets.  Depends on if it moves enough west to travel over the parts of the Yucatán.  Depends on the trough speed and how far it digs south.  Many things would have to come together.  Impossible to predict details a week away.

[beanskip]

12z GFS following the trend of other models -- moving the storm inland over Honduras. No chance of those early-week Cat 4 solutions if that happens. 

[hawkeye_wx]

This system is trending away from being a powerful hurricane over the open Caribbean and toward being a rain maker for Central America.  The GFS has abandoned its earlier scenario of a quicker spin-up and stall (or even an eastward track) over the open water.  The system is pretty broad and weak this morning, and south of earlier GFS runs.  The ICON and AI Euro are showing a scrape of Honduras followed by Sara getting buried deep in the Yucatan.

[Brian5671]

1 minute ago, hawkeye_wx said:

This system is trending away from being a powerful hurricane over the open Caribbean and toward being a rain maker for Central America.  The GFS has abandoned its earlier scenario.  Now it is delaying organization and burying it in Honduras.  The ICON and AI Euro are showing a scrape of Honduras followed by Sara getting buried deep in the Yucatan.

While we all want to track a storm this is music to the ears for Florida residents

[olafminesaw]

5 minutes ago, hawkeye_wx said:

This system is trending away from being a powerful hurricane over the open Caribbean and toward being a rain maker for Central America.  The GFS has abandoned its earlier scenario.  Now it is delaying organization and burying it in Honduras.  The ICON and AI Euro are showing a scrape of Honduras followed by Sara getting buried deep in the Yucatan.

Agreed. All major models (Euro, Icon GFS, UKMET), now make landfall somewhere in Central America. A track into the Gulf after landfall is now more of a 50/50 proposition at this point as well.

[Brian5671]

7 minutes ago, olafminesaw said:

Agreed. All major models (Euro, Icon GFS, UKMET), now make landfall somewhere in Central America. A track into the Gulf after landfall is now more of a 50/50 proposition at this point as well.

Might not be much of anything left by then...

[TPAwx]

GEFS has two main clusters.  Largest into Central America, other to NE tip of Yucatán or just East and across Gulf to far SW FL. 

[hawkeye_wx]

And now the Euro stalls this system on the Honduras coast and never develops it much.  24-48 hours ago this was looking pretty exciting to track, but it has come crashing down from that perspective.

[WxWatcher007]

Still very concerned about flooding in that region should it get buried.

[hawkeye_wx]

The Euro still brings this system back to life in the gulf after a long trek across the Yucatan.  Florida gets a solid storm with rain and wind.

[GaWx]

13 minutes ago, WxWatcher007 said:

Still very concerned about flooding in that region should it get buried.

In 2020 Eta and Iota lead to horrific river based flooding in especially Honduras and Guatemala even though those storms were moving at a halfway decent pace. The damage included very heavy ag losses like coffee. The coffee crop in that area of Central America (especially in W Honduras, Guatemala and N Nicaragua) is one of the most concentrated in the world outside of Minas Gerais (in Brazil). Even though they were major hurricanes, the damage/casualties from wind and surge were nothing like that from the flooding. More flooding would be awful. Things like this only cause increases in folks trying to migrate to the US and other better locations.

[RU848789]

47 minutes ago, hawkeye_wx said:

The Euro still brings this system back to life in the gulf after a long trek across the Yucatan.  Florida gets a solid storm with rain and wind.

Yep, looks like a Cat 1 if one believes a 7-day op run...GFS shows nada and CMC has a weak low near LA by then.  Very hard to glean much from this suite.  

[Normandy]

1 hour ago, hawkeye_wx said:

And now the Euro stalls this system on the Honduras coast and never develops it much.  24-48 hours ago this was looking pretty exciting to track, but it has come crashing down from that perspective.

Land interaction looks to save us here.  It’s already getting very far south

[cptcatz]

Seems like modeling at this point is pointless. We know it's gonna head west towards the Honduras coast. Whether it hangs out just off shore or just on shore will make all the difference with the rest of the track, and I don't think there's any way to know for sure until it gets there. It's kinda pointless to say GFS shows nada (after getting shredded by the Honduras mountains) or Euro shows a hurricane in Florida (after barely staying off shore), since those scenarios are entirely dependent on the miniscule track errors of land interaction. 

[GaWx]

1 hour ago, WxWatcher007 said:

Still very concerned about flooding in that region should it get buried.

These 12Z model runs all have 20”+ of rainfall over part of N Honduras: GFS, Euro, Icon, and CMC. Add to that the 6Z Euro-AIFS. This is the kind of rainfall that can lead to another flooding disaster, especially if the track is a little further south. This kind of resembles the Mitch track, which also caused a flooding disaster there and nearby and resulted in 11K++ deaths. FL would likely only be a minor concern in comparison:

 

[olafminesaw]

The GEFS illustrated the two scenarios well from an intensity perspective. Still need to watch and see if models trend back East.