Tropical Storm Bertha...

[DandyDon]

How nice, looks like she's heading more northerly afterall - and may not be even close to the Keys this weekend and may spare the Antilles and T&Cs as well....

The intensity forecast
SSTs will warm quickly to 27°C by Monday morning and 28°C Tuesday morning underneath Bertha, and shear is expected to remain moderately low, in the 10-15 knot range. This should allow Bertha to intensify into a Category 1 hurricane by Tuesday. On Wednesday, Bertha is expected to hit a branch of the subtropical jet stream that will raise shear levels to 15-20 knots. The models have been steadily weakening the trough of low pressure associated with this shear in recent runs, and it now appears that the shear will not be strong enough to weaken Bertha, although it may be able to keep Bertha from intensifying further.

The track forecast
The models are now in better agreement that Bertha will track well north of the northernmost Lesser Antilles Islands, and tropical storm conditions are not likely in the islands. Bertha should continue to the west-northwest through Thursday, when a moderately strong trough of low pressure is forecast to exit the East Coast of the U.S. This trough is expected to turn Bertha to the northwest, and there is the potential for Bertha to affect Bermuda 6-8 days from now. Climatology, and the few models that we have that run out that far--the GFS and the ECMWF--suggest that this trough will be strong enough to fully recurve Bertha so that it misses the U.S. However, long range forecasts of this nature are highly erratic in their reliability, and if this trough is not strong enough to recurve Bertha, the storm may pose a risk to the U.S. East Coast 7-10 days from now.

 

[ONESPEED]

I like this one better....

 

[DandyDon]

Yep, that's more like the good-news forecast we had a couple of days ago - but without scraping the Leeward Antilles and T&Cs.

Since you used the Weather Underground direct image location, your map will change as the forecast changes - learned that the hard way.

 

[kevindwhite]

Bertha needs to stay far far away from the Keys.

 

[ONESPEED]

Bertha needs to stay far far away from the Keys.

Couldn't agree with you more.

 

[DandyDon]

Happy to see that Bertha is back to veering northward. She made Cat-3 yesterday and could have been a (oops, I thot the filters would block that word) if she continued westward across warm waters to mainland, but everything looks pretty rosey for the only Tropical Storm on the world map at the moment as she winds down over cooler waters...!!

Tropical Weather : Weather Underground
Posted by: JeffMasters, 9:39 AM EDT on July 08, 2008
Hurricane Bertha put on a remarkable burst of rapid intensification Monday afternoon, reaching major hurricane status--Category 3--with 120 mph winds and an estimated central pressure of 948 mb. Among early season hurricanes that have formed before August 1, Bertha is the sixth strongest early-season Atlantic hurricane on record. Only 12 early season major hurricanes have formed since record keeping began in 1851, though several were no doubt undocumented before the advent of the aircraft reconnaissance in 1944. Bertha holds the record for the farthest east a major hurricane has formed so early in the season (52°W longitude), easily beating the mark set in 1996 (67°W) by a previous incarnation of Hurricane Bertha. This year's Bertha now holds the record for farthest east formation as a tropical storm, hurricane, and major hurricane, so early in the season.

Bertha may even have intensified to Category 4 status between 1900 and 2300 GMT yesterday. Satellite estimates of the storm's intensity (Figure 2) from both NHC and the University of Wisconsin during that period were 115 knots (135 mph), which would have made Bertha a low-end Category 4 hurricane. However, it is unclear what Bertha's final official intensity maximum will be, since it reached maximum strength in between the official 6-hourly times used by NHC to document a storm's strength.

 

[duoderf]

I'm supposed to be diving in NC all next week, right off morehead city. Any body have a clue how it will affect the weather there? Also supposed to be camping the whole time too....

 

[DandyDon]

You can save this link and check it anytime for updates: 7-Day Forecast for Latitude 34.71N and Longitude -76.71W

Click attached pic for full size of current forecast. Good luck.

 

[DandyDon]

Bertha was kind to have spared the Invade The Keys gathering. Isn't it amazing that she's still in action....