After what has been a rather quiet hurricane season as far as the United States is concerned, something made me sit up today and take notice. It is the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) model for next weekend.
The model, you may or may not remember, did exceptionally well with hurricane Sandy last year in the medium range and it has impressive skill with tropical cyclone genesis (formation). The other medium range model we watch is the Global Forecast System (GFS) but it has had an exceptionally bad track record with forecasting tropical cyclone genesis this year, especially in the tropical Atlantic.
While it is too early to tell what the details of development will be with this potential Gulf of Mexico system, it will certainly be something I will be watching in each successive model run of both the ECMWF and GFS, and maybe eventually in the satellite images for possible development. Remember, this is still a long way out so don’t get hung up on the details. Right now this is just a signal in the model that something could develop. It’s also a reminder that we still have a ways to go before hurricane season is over.
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Meteorologist Craig Setzer is the longest on-air degreed meteorologist at CBS4 and myTV33 news. His experience in the #1 hurricane market in the country makes him uniquely qualified to cover them and inform you. Few meteorologists in the South Florida market have the education and experience to cover hurricanes and severe weather like Craig does.
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