AderynCoch

14.7

It's bloody freezing outside. I remember it getting down to about 6C or 7C in late August 2010, but that's it.

Just bucketed it down like nobody's business, probably even more intense than the squall line a couple of weeks back. Rumbles of thunder too.

1st July 2007? Almost sounds plausible.

Still a tropical storm! Isaac has foregone wind speed for wind radii, rather like Ike four years ago but then Ike had already been a powerful major hurricane before entering the Gulf of Mexico. I can't see past Category 2 now, but the large wind field will still make storm surge a threat.

Another thing to bear in mind is that although Katrina was Cat. 3 at landfall (sustained Cat. 4 winds were experienced just prior to the eye touching the coast), it was a very large storm which had just come down from Cat. 5 and so the storm surge was still Category 5-equivalent - hence the unbelievable amount of destruction caused in comparison to other Category 3 landfalls. Camille made landfall as a Cat. 5 storm in 1969 (sustained winds estimated at 190mph!) and yet Katrina matched it with regards to storm surge and the scenes of devastation along the Gulf Coast. Storm surge is usually the main cause of destruction when it comes to hurricanes in this area A storm strengthening to Cat. 3 is still very dangerous of course, but Katrina was no ordinary Cat. 3 hurricane when it hit the Gulf Coast.

It's definitely possible now that the forecast track has shifted westwards over the past 24 hours, but a lot depends on how potent the current actually is. Right now it's not as potent as it was when Katrina and Rita went beserk in 2005, according to the following article.: http://www.wwltv.com...-167382495.html Meteorologists watch loop current as Isaac moves through Gulf Ashley Rodrigue / Eyewitness News All eyes have not been on Tropical Storm Isaac at the National Weather Service in Slidell. Some are on the atmosphere around the storm, including the water, which meteorologists say is just as important as the storm itself. NWS Meteorologist Mike Koziara said, "The oceanic heat content is sort of like an ignition source, a fuel source." And that can be found in the loop current. The loop current is a ribbon of warm water that wraps from the Caribbean Sea, around Cuba, through the Florida Straights and up the East Coast. The loop's high temperature can boost a storm's strength and Isaac is headed right for it. "It could be a player, it could be a big player," said Koziara, "The problem with nature is, the deck constantly gets shuffled for us." Even though Isaac's path is predicted to go across the loop current, meteorologists here say the stars sort of have to align in order for Isaac to do what Hurricane Katrina did in 2005. Koziara said, "You had a very large area of warm oceanic heat content in the southeastern Gulf in 2005 and Katrina was a hurricane in intensifying mode and it moved over this area of high oceanic heat content and it was able to ingest all this heat energy." That boosted the storm to a Category 5. But today, the water isn't that warm, the loop isn't that wide and Isaac isn't that organized. So for now, at the National Weather Service in Slidell, "The jury's still out on Isaac," said Koziara. Forecasters want to remind people that just like the path of a storm can change, so can the warmth of the loop and its size. Certainly not much of a Loop Current anomaly apparent on the latest SST charts. If I recall correctly it was at 32C+ when Katrina passed over it.

Having said that, there's definitely some convection going down at the moment:

Though the centre of circulation has moved offshore from Cuba, it's still too close to the island for it to really get organised and become a hurricane. Passage through the Floriday Keys and into the Gulf of Mexico is looking very likely, and this is when Isaac should start to strengthen significantly as it moves clear of land and into a favourable environment for intensification.

Still far too early to tell where it's going to make its turn, or how strong it will be by that point. It seems to me that the forecast track has been gradually shifting eastwards - if this keeps up it may miss Florida altogether. In the short term Isaac will pass over or very close to the mountainous terrain of Hispaniola, so a lot will depend on how much weaker and more disorganised the storm ends up afterwards.

August has been decent here, but these past few days have been a total letdown (heatwave fail). It would certainly be running in the "very good" category if the heat didn't get shunted away, but as it is a "decent" August can't compensate for an utterly dreadful June and July. An "absolutely bonkers good" August would be something like 1995.

Indeed. An absolute travesty of a day.

Not too bad today in the sunshine. Looks like it's back to July 2010 ricidulousness tomorrow though.

Sorry to keep banging on, but this really is a vile episode of weather. I could have been enjoying a balmy Friday evening with a gorgeous sunset, but instead I'm soaked and shivering from torrential rain. Funny how this disgusting front has no problem moving over us but now that it's here, it won't budge! Bloody typical.

So there we have it - a disgusting, nightmarish July 2010-style scenario on the cards. I guess it was too much to expect a horrible stagnant front not to ruin proceedings. Vomit-inducing stuff.

I probably am overdoing the doom-mongering, but I've been here so many times that my automatic response to these situations is one of considerable doubt. If only everything was a bit farther west...

NW-SE splits are supposed to happen now and then, but these past few summers have been ridiculous. It never used to be this hard to get high temperatures in summer, even with a NW-SE split (sometimes the split would confine the heat to the SE, but other times it would be far enough north not to matter here). Of course favourable synoptics have occurred fairly recently (September/October 2011, May 2012) but for now they remain elusive during the summer quarter.

These comments aren't reassuring me. It looks like tenterhooks yet again. Like late July, a slow-moving front has to turn up and ruin things. Just as I was starting to like this August, I'm reminded that it's still ridiculously hard to get a share a pie when the high temperatures arrive. After the last few summers it got so bad I actually started wishing against hot spells, as the weather would inevitably be worse than what came before!

That must be the same system which passed through here about 3:15pm. I haven't seen rain that heavy for a long time. The streets briefly turned into rivers.

I'm starting to worry. This weekend has "SE vs the rest" written all over it. Someone please tell me I'm wrong.

Well I for one am glad we're finally getting some sustained warmth (and it's only been warm rather than hot). Nothing will atone for the disastrous June and July I've suffered, but at least I don't have to wait until autumn for a decent warm spell this year.

True, but if the CET is running close to 17C by mid-month it will hard to achieve.

So there goes my guess by the looks of things (15.5), but I'm more than happy with the trade-off that we finally have an August putting up a real fight. It will be hard for the second half of the month to be as warm as the first though (August shows a daily cooling trend between July and September).

Another good cell passing through here. Not much in the way of visible lightning (it's harder to pick up in broad daylight) but the thunder is very impressive. Massive raindrops too.

Now it's started belting it down.