Pine Island Weather Blog

In case you’re wondering where all the rain is coming from, it’s the result of Invest 94L, a system which appears to be gradually organizing itself into something tropical. Per the NHC discussion, the center is located 100 nautical miles off Naples and has shown a gradual increase in organization throughout the day. This is also evident on the satellite imagery.

Should this develop into a tropical cyclone it should provide little more than some rain for us though that rain may be heavy at times and be accompanied by some gusty winds. The current modelling shows pretty good good consensus that that storm, no matter what it’s status should move across the Gulf and make landfall in the area around Louisiana.

I’ll be working onthe main weatherstation PC throughout the day so you’ll probably see some strangeness today mostly in the form of data not updating in a timely manner.

Anolecam01 (the Skycam) will be down for the next few days. I’ve reached the point of not wanting to have to deal with the continual lockups and a new camera is on the way. Thanks for you patience!

As expected TD 3 is now TS Bonnie. Bonnie is moving quickly along it’s forecast track and is expected to bring some breezy conditions and rain to our area but otherwise have little impact. Intensity forecasts still keep Bonnie below hurricane strength for it’s duration. It is currently very poorly organized and there is some question as to whether it even has a closed circulation in some quarters.

Our area is under a Tropical Storm Warning, but as noted I have a high confidence that the local impact will be minimal.

Forecast Track 07/22/2010 08:00

Tropical Depression 3 has formed in the Caribbean and is currently forecast to move steadily across the Florida Straight and into the Gulf of Mexico. Confidence in the forecast track seems fairly high at this point. Less certain, as always, is the intensity forecast. the NHC is calling for it to reach TS strength but not to intensify much further. Most of the models show little intensification of the next several days with some showing a decrease in intensity. For us I expect this to be little more than a rain event at this time. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this upgraded to a TS either later today or early tomorrow.