Gabrielle continues to bypass Bermuda, two new disturbances causing angst in the Atlantic. Supertyphoon Ragasa continues towards the coast of China, skirting the northern Philippines.
The big tropical threat continues to be Supertyphoon Ragasa, which is over the islands of the Luzon Straits this morning as a Category 5 storm on the Saffir Simpson scale. Effects on the sparsely populated islands will be devastating.
Although spared the powerful core of the storm, both Taiwan and the northern Philippines are being hit with the outer rand bands and fringes of the storm, triggering evacuations and some coastal damage. Impacts are likely in the 10’s of millions of dollars to the relatively impoverished areas of northern Luzon. But the main story is yet to come: the forecast track has the powerful storm passing just south of the Hong Kong/Macao conglomeration on the Mainland:
On this track the significantly weaker but still dangerous storm will only put Hong Kong on the fringes, inflicting around $10 Billion in impacts. But any northward wobbles or intensity variations could easily double or triple the damage levels.
The Atlantic is much more colorful this morning, with Hurricane Gabrielle bypassing Bermuda and two blobs of doom in the form of tropical waves crossing the central ocean. The only significant impacts of Gabrielle are waves, and the inevitable rip current cautions are going up along the East Coast, including just north and south of the Frogmore area …
The two disturbances (they are not yet Invest areas – see this for an explanation) and global model runs are likely to cause some angst. Here is what GFS is showing next Sunday at 8am:
If that verifies, that’s a problem. Some model runs show a storm hitting North Carolina (and up the mid-Atlantic states), but, again, these are outlooks for a storm that doesn’t exist yet so have to be viewed with a healthy tinge of skepticism.
The European model shows a very different scenario: a weaker system off of the Bahamas, with the stronger system out in the realm of the fish:
As usual during hurricane season, until there is an actual vortex to track, not worth getting too excited about since as you should know by now, these blogs come and often go without spinning up, or don’t go where the outlooks indicate. As long as you have a hurricane plan your fine. In the southeast or northern Caribbean, if you’ve raided your stash of Mountain Dew and Cheetos (or, if your neck is a somewhat ruddier shade than normal humans, Beer and Beef Jerky), probably worth topping off the supply, check your plans, don’t panic, for sure don’t hamsterkauf, but know what you will do if something wicked this way comes. Otherwise, check back tomorrow to see if we have invests and something real to track.
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