TLDR: Major hurricane Beryl now passing due south of Barbados on track to hit Grenada/St Vincent and the Grenadines hard. NHC upgraded the thing in the Gulf to Tropical Storm Chris briefly, heavy rain in Mexico. Those praying for rain in coastal GA and SC Lowcountry can STOP NOW!
First, Beryl is still a major hurricane. It is undergoing an eyewall replacement cycle and the latest recon flight found two eyewalls, an inner decaying eyewall and a newer, stronger outer one. This is fairly typical for strong storms, and has caused the peak winds to decrease some. Here is an animation of Infrared (still dark over the storm) from the last couple of hours showing the formerly clear eye becoming obscured as the process unfolds …
Don’t let these details fool you: this is a powerful storm and likely to cause major damage in the small but intense swath of peak winds that will be passing over Grenada and the Grenadines today, as well as St Vincent to the north and Tobago to the south. Barbados and St Lucia will likely “just” see tropical storm conditions – but will still see some impacts.
Looking at the forecast, the track still side swipes Jamaica during the day Wednesday on the way to landfall on the Yucatan peninsula, likely by that time down to “only” a Category two storm. Very small wobbles we simply can’t forecast this far out can cause impacts on Jamaica to range from “breezy/rainy day” to a “significant damage” event so prepare accordingly. The resort areas of northern Belize and southern Quintana Roo are likely to take a hit if this holds, but remember that four to five day forecasts have a lot of potential error, and the storm track (which shifted south in this cycle) will likely shift around some more.
In the southern Gulf of Mexico, the ugly mess of clouds got organized enough for NHC to call it a depression and then found a small region of maybe tropical storm force winds so upgraded it to Tropical Storm Chris (AL032024). I’m skeptical, but they’re in charge. The main threat from Chris is rain and flooding, especially in the light of this being the third big rain episode in that area in recent weeks.
Finally, the invest area AL96 that is lurking behind Hurricane Beryl is given a 70% chance of development over the next seven days. The intensity guidance isn’t terribly enthusiastic, it faces less conducive conditions than Beryl (which cooled down the surface a bit). Here are the track models, it should continue to follow in Beryl’s wake.
For those of you in the Mainland US and Florida, none of these storms are any factor at the moment. Beryl might maybe possibly on the fringes of reasonable analysis present a problem to Texas in a week or so, but recent track model runs have shifted south. AL96 isn’t likely to develop into a threat, but Puerto Rico and the USVI should probably check the Tropical Weather Outlooks occasionally over the next week as usual just in case.
On a local Georgia and SC Lowcountry specific note, a cold front is stalling out along the Georgia/South Carolina coast tonight, and the models are indicating some significant rain totals, so much that the WSFO Charleston has issued a Flood Watch for today and tonight. The latest QPF (Quantitative Precipitation Forecast) isn’t as high as it was last night, but still a goodly amount of rain so beware of flooding in the usual spots. Hopefully it will be a “soaking rain” rather than quick deluges that mostly runs off.
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How much of the naming of Alberto and Chris might be attributable to climate change politics?
I don’t think it’s politics exactly, I think it is a couple of things. First, we have much better data on these storms – finer resolution, and more frequent. So we’re catching small pockets of high winds that only exist for a brief period of time. In the past we were only looking at the average behavior of the overall storm. Another issue that is related is that while NHC strives to use the best science, they aren’t strictly speaking a scientific organization: their job is watch and warning. So, if you think it might be a tropical storm, you’re going to call it one because you never want to be low. If you warn on a tropical storm and no tropical storm winds were observed, fine and good. If you don’t warn and tropical storm winds are observed, you failed and will potentially catch flak for it.
The problem comes later when people use data that was designed for watch and warning, and try to use it as a scientific data set looking for trends. It’s double hard, first because of the changes in observing systems over time, and second because that’s not really what it was designed for (and don’t get me started on “named storm” policies in insurance!).
Good points, thanks. Yeah, you never want to fall on the side of too little urgency. And I’m amazed at how far we’ve come on understanding and forecasting these beasts. I just wonder if there might be a wee bit of pressure to reach or exceed the predicted number of named storms. Thanks for your insights. I’m learning so much.