Atlantic Hurricane Katia to Form This Week

While both flooding and recovery continues in the wake of Hurricane Irene, the National Hurricane Center is expecting a hurricane to form well out in the Atlantic this week.

The hurricane will be called Katia (assuming that no other named storms form first) and will face a long trek westward across the Atlantic. Even by the middle of the holiday weekend, it will be 600 to 800 miles to east of the U.S. coast and would pose no immediate threat. It will even be to the east of the Leeward and Windward islands (most likely to the northeast).

In other words, it's much too early to project whether the hurricane would ever pose a direct threat to any of these regions (including the U.S.), and computer forecast models indicate that it might turn northward before approaching these areas.

Again, it's too early to know for sure.

What is much more certain is that we're nearing the peak of hurricane season, which is roughly in the middle of September.

This allows for the possibility that before Katia's ultimate track is determined, a different tropical storm or hurricane could develop and become a more immediate threat to land. The regions of possible development would be the western Atlantic, Caribbean, and Gulf of Mexico, with the Gulf being the most likely location for development.

Forecast models are predicting a low pressure system to develop this week in the Gulf, which would need to be monitored for tropical development. If it were to develop and reach tropical storm or hurricane strengthen, then it would be called Tropical Storm or Hurricane Lee.

Nothing is certain about the prospects of tropical development in the Gulf, but the point is this: Even though the next hurricane will likely be in the distant, non-threatening eastern Atlantic, we need to stay alert.

 

 

 

Comments

[aghastinny]

08:00 PM on 08/31/2011

Oh no, another big wind is coming. Not the hurricane, but the media coverage of same. Can everyone please dial it down a bit this time? Please? Just the facts please, not the breathless predictions of doom.

[JC LAngelle]

02:11 PM on 08/31/2011

EXCLUSIVE: 3D mesh animation of incoming tropical system, see:

SUBJ: TROPICAL STORM KATIA

http://hurricanebuoy.blogspot.com

[nyonfoot]

05:45 PM on 08/30/2011

Better to be prepared. Hurricanes will only get stronger and worse.

[sobe123]

01:07 PM on 08/30/2011

Irene destroyed my trip last weekend to Dallas. I'm set to go to Puerto Rico for Labor Day weekend I am now hoping Katia is not going to ruin this trip. The ladies certainly are not being very lady like lately.

[nova72]

11:16 AM on 08/30/2011

Yes the climate changes all the time be more specific. I bet earthquakes and volcanoes are related to global warming too.

[liberalking37]

09:49 AM on 08/30/2011

To all the climate change deniers,what do you think now?

[IthinkThereforeIam2]

09:31 PM on 08/30/2011

I think it is hurricane season. It happens every year about this time.

[LeFlaneur]

09:53 PM on 09/05/2011

I'm a big believer in climate change and I think it's hurricane season too. Climate change looks at trends over the long term. A couple hurricanes tell you nothing.