Tropical Storm Isaac Forecast Thoughts… Saturday Night Update – 10pm
August 25, 2012 1 Comment
Good Saturday night! As of 10pm, new model data is out and the latest National Hurricane Center forecast track. The track above has shifted west a tad, and pulls the storm inland Tuesday night about 30 miles west of Destin and moves north to hit the Montgomery area after sunset on Wednesday. The NHC forecasts the storm winds of 105 mph at landfall, weakening to a strong tropical storm over south central Alabama Wednesday evening. Here’s the deal, there’s a good chance it will be much stronger at landfall sometime Tuesday night. Some of our forecast data ramps this thing up to a category 3 or 4 storm before landfall, which would be very problematic.
Remember, the track is going to change some over the next 12 to 36 hours, as the center becomes well established and pulls away from Cuba. Model data is having a tough time because the circulation center has weakened over Cuba and Haiti. The center has now moved off the northern coast of Cuba, but it’s still interacting with land. Big thunderstorms have recently developed near the center, so strengthening may be occurring now. As the storm moves away from Cuba and into the Gulf of Mexico, rapid strengthening is possible. This will likely occur late Sunday, on Monday and Tuesday.
Here’s the new 0z model data. As we noted, model data has shifted west, but there’s a larger spread of possible landfall points. Each line represents a computer model forecast path of Isaac. There’s no doubt that significant impacts are possible along the Alabama Gulf Coast and maybe well into central and west Alabama. The exact landfall point will determined who gets flooding, damaging winds and tornadoes. There are just too many questions right now to give an exact answer.
I would say there is a fair chance of widespread heavy rain, strong winds and tornadoes across all of west and central Alabama sometime Tuesday evening through Wednesday night. Again, there could be some major changes to our forecast, so stay tuned for updates.
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Richard Scott
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rscott@wvuatv.com
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