The title is a bit misleading, this post couldn’t obviously provide a detailed analysis of the entire tropical climatology for September.  But, what I intend to do is talk a little more about Tropical Storm Erika because the forecasting models are not agreeing with each other, and the expert forecasters at the National Hurricane Center are not agreeing with the forecasting models – well, not all of them anyway.

When reading over the 2am AST update (Public Advisory 2A), I noticed that NHC pointed out that Erika appeared a little less organized and the center was closer to the Leeward Islands than previously forecast.  I really wanted to go back to sleep, but my mind is restless at what possibilities that Erika might have, as well as the surprises, if any, that are in-store.  So, like any geek with weather in the blood I started pulling up websites looking at all kind of great (and geeky) information.

The first thing I looked at was the satellite imagery, which shows that in the past few hours Erika has made a pretty big “wobble”, first to the nortwest and then turning southwest as if it’s taking aim directly on Barbados from the northeast.  I then put away the hurricane forecasting models and starting looking at the “regular” models such as the GFS to see if I could figure out what feature Erika is sliding around on and what it might do next.  The idea is that if there is a ridge of pressure, which I suspected there was, that the tropical storm is riding then it might be easier to figure out where it’s going to go and which hurricane model is validating so far.

From what I can tell, the GFS itself seems to have the best grip on what Erika has done over the past several hours.  But if the GFS validates its future forecast for Erika – then its going to be a short-lived and silly little storm as the GFS model barely even picks up on Erika after 48-hours, but does bring the area of low pressure on a more western forecast track than the other models, perhaps even putting it into the Gulf of Mexico.  So that raised the question – what are the chances (historically) climatologically of a storm located near the Leeward Island in early September making it into the Gulf of Mexico and perhaps even making landfall in Florida.  What I found out – very little chance of that at all.

With some quick searching in my hurricane archives (a database I organized back in my college days) I only found one storm that passed within a few hundreds miles of Erika’s current location in the first days of September and entered the Gulf of Mexico and then made landfall.

In 1901, Tropical Storm Seven moved through the northern Lesser Antilles and the Greater Antilles, it then crossed over Puerto Rico continued over The Dominican Republic and Haiti , tracked south of Cuba and then curved to the north between the Yucatan Peninsula and western Cuba (in that little narrow passage of water) and hit near Pensacola, Florida in early to middle September.

In 1910, the first hurricane of the season formed near Erika’s current location on September 5th.  It tracked just to the south of The Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico and again through that little passageway between the Yucatan Peninsula and the western tip of Cuba and then hit South Padre Island, Texas on the 15th as a category 2 hurricane.  While it did not do extensive damage in 1910, the damage toll would of course be far greater today and the hurricane also flooded the island completely – that would result in billions of dollars in damage today if that were to happen again.

The third hurricane I found was the most interesting one – and infamous as well.  It’s the well-known “Isaac’s Storm”, or better known as the Galveston Hurricane of 1900.  That storm made landfall in Galveston, TX on September 8th, 1900 as a category 4 hurricane and some 6,000 to 12,000 lives were lost.  It was named “Isaac’s Storm” due to the U.S. Weather Bureau’s main forecaster in Galveston at the time – Isaac Cline.  There is a very good and well-documented story about Isaac Cline and his convictions in regards to this hurricane and perhaps I’ll write about it sometime over the long and boring El Niño winter ahead of us.

In any event, I had forgot the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 had happened in the first week of September, 109 years ago this week that event was starting to unfold – interesting.  But, as far as the historical chances of a tropical storm getting into the Gulf of Mexico after being within a few hundred miles of Erika’s current location during the first week of September – it’s a rarity!   All in all, only 4 storms since record keeping began have done it.  It’s far more likely from a historical point-of-view that a storm in this position and time would make land fall along the Carolina coasts, or even more likely than that, it would be pushed back out into the Atlantic Ocean just as the other named storms in the Atlantic (with the exception of our short-lived Florida surprise) have done this year.

Again, the GFS model does want to bring this storm in across much of the same forecast track as a few of the historical examples above.  But, the other models – which have been more reliable this year want to keep Erika further to the east and probably out to sea.  However, those other models turn Erika into a fire-breathing dragon of a hurricane while the GFS kills the storm due to its interaction with upper-level westerlies over the center of the storm as well as it’s interactions with land (if it does take that path).  In any event, I think Erika might be one of the most fun-to-watch tropical storms of the year, from a meteorological point-of-view anyway.

I’m really glad that I stayed up and wrote all that – because now I hear I thunder!   See, there is a method to my madness…perhaps by the time you’ve read this far, I’ll have a few new lightning photos.

Tags: tropical season 2009