Caribbean/Gulf storm this week; does anybody really know what time it is?

Magic words have appeared in the NHC Tropical Weather Outlook: “Interests in the western Caribbean Sea should monitor the progress of this system.” They also caution “tropical storm watches or warnings could be required later today or tonight … “. That, and the fact a hurricane hunter aircraft is heading in to the system, should tell you it’s time to start paying attention (but not panic and wear out the refresh key, these things evolve in the time frame of a day, not an hour).

For the Caribbean, check again this afternoon, for Florida, don’t worry about it until Monday. The track models are not too scattered, although there isn’t really a firm fix on the circulation (something the aircraft recon should help with). Here are the current track plots as of 6am this morning:

It’s still too early to tell about a U.S. landfall, the best guess forecast at the moment is that the storm will end up crossing Cuba and ending up in the Gulf, but the exact track and if/where it makes landfall (and how strong) are unknown at this point. The latest GFS run showed it as a weak tropical storm making landfall near New Orleans, but since there is no storm center yet, that’s not reliable.

Elsewhere in the Atlantic, subtropical storm Patty is over the Azores, weakening and heading towards Portugal. It will likely bring un-wanted rain to Spain, which is still recovering from catastrophic flooding this week.

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Speaking of time, the US again stupidly did a time zone change this morning, so the country is back on standard time. Just what is standard time? Local standard time should be set so the sun is overhead at noon. Globally, time zones are referenced to the zero degree longitude line, which (for the obvious imperialistic reasons) is centered at the Greenwich Observatory the benighted land south of Hadrian’s Wall known as England. If you think about it for navigation, weather, and astronomical observations it is vital to have a common reference that isn’t subject to the vagaries of time zones and “summer” or “savings” time. Originally known as “Greenwich Mean Time” or GMT, the modern system tied to the atomic clocks is known as Universal Time Coordinated or UTC, and is denoted with the “Z” or “Zulu” as the time zone.

This matters to you because the data collection, computer model runs, and weather forecasts are tied to UTC, which doesn’t change. Tropical forecast advisories are issued at 3Z, 9Z, 15Z, and 21Z. So during the summer, when Eastern Daylight Time is four hours behind UTC, that means the forecasts are issued at 11pm, 5am, 11am, and 5pm. But when we stumble back an hour in the fall, the forecasts come out at 10pm, 4am, 10am, and 4pm.

Likewise, the Tropical Weather Outlooks (monitoring invest areas and disturbances) are offset an hour, now coming out at 7am, 1pm, 7pm, and 1am.

So don’t get caught off guard.

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What’s that, you say, you need another video of Leonid and Friends (Moscow, Kiev), this time with Arturo Sandoval joining in from L.A.? Well, ok …

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