The National Hurricane Center has downgraded Erika to a tropical depression, and it is expected that the storm will be further reduced to a mere low within a day.  NHC’s wording in their latest discussion is pretty straight-forward in that they do not believe that Erika will be able to regain any organized activity and restrengthen any time soon, if any at all at some point in the future.  And while the official track forecast has been off, kudos to NHC forecasters for going against the hurricane model guidance and getting the weakening trend right thus far!

Despite that, the models are showing that Erika’s future might be brighter than expected.  The GFS was the biggest player in accurately calling for Erika’s weakening, while the HWRF and GFDL didn’t pick up on this until model runs late yesterday.  But, all three of those models are showing that Erika may well form back into an organized system, possibly still (strictly according the model runs) having a chance to restrengthen by as early as 72 hours.

One thing that seems to be in agreement by all is that Erika is about done with her westward stride and once the system is at about 20N it will start moving in a more northerly direction, keeping either the re-intensification or the continuing low pressure system (whatever the case will be) at sea over the Atlantic Ocean as its pushed north-northeast by high pressure that will be dominate over the eastern half of the United States.

I don’t believe that NHC has entirely written off Erika as they would have to be cautious in doing so since even the GFS (the only model that forecast Erika to weaken and move in a more westerly direction) is now also agreeing that Erika will re-intensify.  But it does appear that even if the storm is able to pull itself back together and go through a strengthening period, that it will not be a direct threat to land in the United States.

Tags: tropical season 2009