TS Irene

 For far more info about Irene, I encourage you to read the discussions provided by the National Hurricane Center, http://www.nhc.noaa.gov

For now, Irene has a lot of qualities that are healthy -- in that Irene will likely strengthen -- and a few that, for now, are not so healthy.

Animated GIF: Click to animate this image

You see most of the convection (thunderstorm activity) on the north side of Irene. As you animate it (click on it to animate) you will see this better. The southern part of the storm system, rotating cyclonically, or counterclockwise, is fairly void of sustained convection in the bottom semi-circle. But, if you look closely, you will see the high level cirrus clouds flowing out and away from the storm system in a clockwise, or anti-cyclonic, direction.. That is the upper level high pressure that is formed over the system. The analysis over the region shows a nice ridge (high pressure) over this area and that will allow the hurricane to "vent" well. This will coincide with the low levels sucking in air at a greater rate, lowering pressures and increasing winds. As this process continues, thunderstorms should wrap around the center in a more evenly fashion. This will all serve to strengthen the tropical storm -- likely to be a hurricane soon (sustained winds exceeding 74mph.)

The tough part of this forecast is that by the time it really gets going, it will likely move over quite a bit of land, and mountain laden lands at that. The more land, the more friction a tropical system encounters as well as time away from its main source of fuel, warm water. This weakens the storm substantially. Mountainous lands can really tear apart a tropical storm. If the storm moves over Cuba, that can really spell the end of Irene as that terrain is very volatile to a tropical system.

Here are the model solution possibilities of the track of this storm ..

"Spaghetti Plot": Various model solutions of the track of Irene

  As you can see, there is quite a bit of spread, and none of this really handles well the ability of Irene to stay healthy while over land. Any more time over land and the track beyond the Dominican and Haiti can be completely disrupted. If it moves over water more than land, or more quickly over the land, well, this could be serious trouble for Florida (or maybe the Gulf Coast or GA/SC.) The upper level pattern appears to be very favorable for strengthening and the ocean water temps in the area (and heat content, too) are more than sufficient.

So now we wait. We wait to see if 1) Will Irene finally wrap convection completely around the center of circulation and 2) will it encounter quite a bit of mountainous land or not and 3) How will it steer in next 3-5 days. .