Watch tropics closely, models show major hurricane striking Gulf Coast next week

[Reaganfan]

That's the EURO model, pretty reliable, showing a 950 mb hurricane (atleast a Category 3) roaring ashore in the area of the Gulf Oil Spill.

Other computer models have also shown development potential. Not only are waters boiling (as high as 98 degrees over oil slick) but wind shear is forecast to be extremely favorable...so the potential is there that if this verifies...we could be dealing with one hell of a hurricane. Time will tell. Just thought I'd throw this out there.

By the way, it would be named Hurricane Alex.

[Eraserhead]

Oh joy. Can't wait for the wall-to-wall coverage to begin.

[Brandon H]

I don't think I need to state the obvious, but if that happens, especially with the oil spill, we're screwed.

And we're already discussing the 5 year anniversary of Katrina.

[The Mikado]

Color me iffy on the reliability of models 10 days out.  A few days from now if other models start showing the same thing it'll be time to worry.

PS: would Naso (or someone else that understands this better than me) care to say what a hurricane over the oil spill would actually mean?  People say it'd be an unimaginable disaster, but is that just because it'd spread the oil over a wider area or bring more of it inland, or is there something else to it?

[Free Palestine]

Well, that's not good.

[Reaganfan]

Color me iffy on the reliability of models 10 days out.  A few days from now if other models start showing the same thing it'll be time to worry.

PS: would Naso (or someone else that understands this better than me) care to say what a hurricane over the oil spill would actually mean?  People say it'd be an unimaginable disaster, but is that just because it'd spread the oil over a wider area or bring more of it inland, or is there something else to it?

Here's the video podcast I made this morning on the tropics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFvxF1PV3zo

We never had a hurricane over an oil spill. Closest was Henri near a spill back in '79, but never anything like we could have with this.

Scenario #1: No effect. The hurricane moves over the oil. It has no effect on the oil and the oil has no effect on the storm.

Scenario #2: The super heated waters due to the oil (near 98 degrees in some areas) works to allow the hurricane to explosively deepen into a monster storm near the coastline.

Scenario #3: The oil prevents evaporation and weakens the hurricane.

Scenario #4: The hurricane breaks up the oil.

Scenario #5: The hurricane pushes oil ashore and creates not only a hurricane damage disaster, but an even bigger oil disaster.

Your guess is as good as mine.

[Brandon H]

Color me iffy on the reliability of models 10 days out.  A few days from now if other models start showing the same thing it'll be time to worry.

PS: would Naso (or someone else that understands this better than me) care to say what a hurricane over the oil spill would actually mean?  People say it'd be an unimaginable disaster, but is that just because it'd spread the oil over a wider area or bring more of it inland, or is there something else to it?

Just because the oil is on land. I have also been told flood insurance (underwritten by the federal government) would not pay anything if there was oil with the flooding (making BP liable). When Katrina hit, Murphy Oil had a tank (spherical shape) that floated in the flooding and leaked, getting oil on many properties. Murphy ended up buying the properties. But that was only a few square miles. In this case we are talking hundreds or thousands of miles.

[Torie]

The storm might shove a bunch of black muck into the glades/bayou/swamp I think would be the major worry.

[Eraserhead]

How often do they update this junk?

[Reaganfan]

How often do they update this junk?

What junk?

[Thomas D]

Well this is no good. But I'm going to wait until Friday before I start panicing over this. Let's see what the forcast models are showing then. But thanks for the heads up.

[Eraserhead]

How often do they update this junk?

What junk?

The forecast models.

[Eraserhead]

Well this is no good. But I'm going to wait until Friday before I start panicing over this. Let's see what the forcast models are showing then. But thanks for the heads up.

Why would you panic over it?

[Thomas D]

Well this is no good. But I'm going to wait until Friday before I start panicing over this. Let's see what the forcast models are showing then. But thanks for the heads up.

Why would you panic over it?

Fair point. Panic may be an exaggeration. But it's worth keeping an eye on. 

[Eraserhead]

Well this is no good. But I'm going to wait until Friday before I start panicing over this. Let's see what the forcast models are showing then. But thanks for the heads up.

Why would you panic over it?

Fair point. Panic may be an exaggeration. But it's worth keeping an eye on.  

Well, I just mean that if you live in MD, it won't be impacting you directly anyway. Of course, if the worst case scenario did occur and it killed some people/spewed oil all over the place down there/etc. it would be sad but I wouldn't panic over it on a personal level.

[Eraserhead]

Wow, this isn't looking good.
http://www.accuweather.com/blogs/news/story/33107/bp-preparing-for-potential-hur.asp

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Scenario #1: No effect. The hurricane moves over the oil. It has no effect on the oil and the oil has no effect on the storm.

If I was putting money on it - here's where I'd be placing my bet.  The area of the oil spill is negligible compared to the overall size of the potential hurricane.

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Not widespread enough to have any major strengthening effect.

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Same as scenario 2.  Honestly, the 2 would probably cancel each other out.

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o
This deals more with the chemistry aspect, which, my grandpa would be a great help on (he's a chemical engineer who's got half a dozen patents on stuff relating to oil extraction - I should give him a call this week and see what he thinks about this.

[Ban my account ffs!]

The models are updated anywhere from every hour to every 24 hours.  The main U.S. models are updated 4 times daily.. the NAM model which is short term forecasting out to 84 hours and the GFS which is long term out to 384 hours (about 16 days).


The latest European model run has it forming into a rather minimal storm before hitting the central Mexican coast to the west of the Yucatan.  The model still clearly can't make up its mind.