Key
West is normally a festive place particularly leading up to Labor Day. Tonight it is a different place. Webcams show only a few cars on the road on
only a few brave souls on the streets.
Any partying is being done indoors.
It has been a rainy and windy day in Key West with gusts frequently up
to 40 mph. Peak gust occurred at 1:22
p.m. with winds to 47 mph.
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| Image from a webcam in Key West, FL. Image Credit: WebcamViews.com |
Isaac
took a turn to the west-northwest for much of the day taking it through the
Florida Straits. It passed south of Key
West late this afternoon instead of going through the Keys. At 8 p.m. EDT on Sunday, the storm was
located about 60 miles southwest of Key West moving west-northwest at 15
mph. Maximum sustained winds were about
65 mph making it a tropical storm.
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| Key West radar as of 8 p.m. EDT August 26, 2012. Image Credit: NOAA/NWS. |
Dry
air has been moving into the storm from the southwest for most of the day. However, tonight it appears that a central
dense overcast is forming over or near the storm's center. The National Hurricane Center has noted a
slight increase in the winds. A gradual
strengthening is expected until Isaac makes landfall late Tuesday or early
Wednesday.
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| Enhanced satellite picture using the water vapor channel. Image Credit: NESDIS. |
This
afternoon many of the computer simulations used to forecast the storm’s future
were shifting the track farther west. A
couple of simulations not shown below were still forecasting the system to make
landfall in the Florida panhandle.
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| Computer simulations of Isaac's future path initialized from the 18z data. Image Credit: NCAR. |
The
spread in the simulations has left the forecasters at the National Hurricane
Center little choice but to warn a large area of the coast. Hurricane warnings were in effect from east
of Morgan City, LA, to Destin, FL with a hurricane watch to Indian Pass, FL.
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| Isaac forecast from the National Hurricane Center as of 8 pm EDT August 26, 2012. |
A
broad trough in the upper atmosphere is forecast to dip south into the eastern
part of the country over the next few days.
This will create a weakness in the subtropical ridge with centers near
Bermuda and over Colorado. The storm
should turn northward in response to this and make landfall somewhere between
Panama City, FL, and New Orleans, LA.
I
confess that I am leaning more to the ECMWF simulation even though many of the
ensemble simulations have the storm near New Orleans at landfall. Isaac has managed to surprise forecasters at
times. However, the National Hurricane
Center forecasters have done a fine job with a difficult storm.
The
story of Isaac will not end with landfall.
All of the simulations show that the trough will not steer the storm to
the northeast. Instead it will be left
behind to drift slowly northward as a tropical rainstorm. This may bring another legacy to this storm
in the form of flooding rainfall into the Labor Day weekend. Isaac may still have life for some time to
come.
