Fred is a hurricane, but his future is dim
Tropical Storm Fred became a hurricane overnight, the second of the season, getting much better organized and doubling its top sustained winds to around 105 mph - Category 2 on the Saffir-Simpson scale. It's promising to get even stronger today.
But forecasters at the National Hurricane Center don't hold out much hope this storm will survive for long as a hurricane. It's about to run into southwesterly wind shear, drier air and cooler waters to the north. That will throw a wrench into the works, with rapid weakening to follow. And it's not likely to make it to our side of the Atlantic, either.
Fred was about 500 miles southwest of the Cape Verde Islands this morning, in the far eastern Atlantic.
Here is the latest advisory. Here is the forecast storm track. And here is the view from space.
Comments
Do you "weather whores" ever listen to yourselves?
"But forecasters at the National Hurricane Center don't hold out much hope this storm will survive for long as a hurricane."
Hold out hope? You people actually hope for stronger hurricanes?
"And it's not likely to make it to our side of the Atlantic, either."
I think you left out "...darn it!!!!" from that sentence, didn't you?
Seriously. There's little question that those of you who have staked your reputations on the calls you made, several years ago, for "more and stronger hurricanes every year due to global warming" are now beside yourselves, verging on suicidal, as this hurricane season continues the downward trend in "hyper global warming influenced weather."
Stop rooting for the hurricanes, you idiot, and start demonstrating some concern for human beings, who are perfectly happy to do without "major" hurricanes and are also quite pleased that "Fred" is going to blow himself out far away in the Atlantic.
FR: My goodness. Such language. Well, first, you're right. We do tend to anthropomorphize these storms, perhaps because they're given human names. You do it, yourself, in your comments. And we do sometimes treat them as living things, with births, growth, decline and death. That suggests that their "survival" is somehow "good," and their dissipation "bad." It's a tendency that needs to be curbed. But I reject your suggestion that I have somehow "staked my reputation" on hurricane forecasts related to global warming. I am neither a meteorologist nor a climatologist, and I have made no predictions about global warming or hurricanes. So I have no "stake" in global warming forecasts, either this year or any other. Finally, I do not "root" for hurricanes. When they threaten land and people and property, our posts provide as much information as we can about where the danger is, and how severe it is, and where readers can find more information. If we did not care about people, we wouldn't pay any attention to these storms at all. This one, fortunately, threatens only fish.
Posted by: Undergraduate | September 9, 2009 10:14 AM