I still haven't explained the title, "The African wave parade". For me, and for many meteorologists, this is where everything is now starting. We kick it off with Danielle, which is now a category 1 hurricane after briefly weakening and now re-strenghthening. Danielle left right off the African coast just about 4 or 5 days ago, and now right behind it folling the leader of the "parade", is Earl,which was just named only hours ago. The storm is really looking very healthy on satelite images. And now, after both Danielle, and Earl, is a 3rd giant tropical wave which is how Danielle and Earl developed in the first place. I predict this storm becomes TD 8 by Saturday or Sunday, but likely earlier, and models and satelitte images just show more to follow in a very parade fashion... So now that we have the titles out of the way, what about the forecasted track?
Very important, where are all these storms headed... Let's start with Danielle... I've been very careful constantly checking models with this one, which I still believe is forecasted at least slightly incorrect, if not it could be off by a lot... Just a little while ago this storm finally began to turn in more of a NW direction opposed to its original WNW direction. The problem here is the storm was really supposed to turn in that direction close to a day or two ago and is first making its move now, plus models are printing out really weird things with this now...
Sooner or later NOAA and Accuweather.com are going to have to wake up and start worrying about this storm taking the curve that is now being shown on the models. This only started popping up on these models 3-5 hours ago, and seems like more and more models are joining in... looks like the storm will turn NW then NNW like expected, but then after reach a N direction the storm will quickly turn NNW and then NW, before potentially slamming right into the coast... Now since this may be a glitch, and its very new updates I'm giving this about a 30% to at most maybe a 40% chance of affecting the east coast... Now that is very high considering everyone else is giving it between a 3% and 10% chance at most... But I have to consider all possibilities which is why I can't give this a 100% or a 0% but im leaning more toward 0% just because of the confidence NOAA and Accuweather have... So for now expect this storm to take a path not affecting the east coast, but potentially bermuda, but let me be the first to create the idea of this storm curving back west somewhere between NC and ME...
Now onto Earl and soon to be TD 8... Lets start with Earl which interests me just a little bit... Out of all 3 of these storms I think Earl has the second best chance of affecting the United States... More of a chance than Danielle... Right now I give it a 50%, but that can really change in a hurry... By tomorrow it could be a 75% chance or a 30% chance... This storm will continue to move in a westerly fashion as it is doing before becoming a WNW direction just before the Lesser Antilies and Puerto Rico... Then eventually becoming NW but hooking out a good 50-100 miles further to the west than Danielle... This time instead of just moving east of Bermuda, it may just move West, inbetween the U.S. and Bermuda... From there it could brush the U.S. or curve out like Danielle... Now soon to be T.D. 8, gives me the most excitment... For now I'm giving this a 65% chance of an impact on the U.S., so this is really one to watch... Moving in a WSW direction at first, it should quickly move west off the coast of Africa where it will have a fairly easy time developing into T.D. 8, and soon to be Fiona... Once that happens it should continue west... It will be very close to the Lesser Antilies and virgin islands, and may very well have a good chance at brushing them at hurricane strength before making a NW turn toward the Bahamas where from there it has a good chance of potentially brushing the whole east coast at maybe hurricane status... Now this could be weeks away so nothing, not even Danielle is set in stone, but this will be a general direction of the next 3 storms, and check out the pattern...
So the pattern is basically all the storms are moving closer and closer to the coast... Now before I go, just a few other areas of concern. A couple hundred miles east of Nicaragua in the southern caribbean a very broad and large are of thunderstorms has about a 30%-50% chance of developing in the next 48 to 60 hours... Gulf of mexico... a weakening front coming through is creating activity and in the next 48 hours a depression or a weak tropical storm could sprown out from this... If this did happen the storm would most likely head toward Texas and maybe northern Mexico... Finally, a low pressure over parts of florida... One just west of tampa bay and the other to the east of savannah, have about a 20%-40% chance of developing in the next 36-48 hours before its too late... If a depression comes out of the one west of tampa bay, it will most likely move in a NW fashion toward the coast, and if the one to the east of savannah became a depression, you could expect the storm to move to the north and some models have been showing a possible rapid development and quick landfall anywhere from the Carolinas to the Cape over the next couple days... A lot of action... get ready for more and keep checking back here!!!!
-Scott Pecoriello
