TS Alex Possible Texas Threat?

Since the last time the blog was updated was for the approach of Hurricane Ike back in 2008, the potential threat from Alex seems to be a good place to start up again.

The first tropical cyclone of the 2010 season is presenting forecasters with anything but an easy forecast. As of 10pm Alex has re-emerged into the southern gulf and is centered at 19.4N/91.3W, or about 470 miles east-southeast of Tampico, MX. Maximum sustained winds are near 45 mph. Movement is to the west-northwest at 7 mph.

The forecast track over the next 36 hours or so looks pretty good with Alex expected to continue to generally move off to the northwest; however as we get into day 3 and beyond there remains a great amount of uncertainly in regards to the future track Alex will take. At this time the storm is expected to begin to interact with a ridge of high pressure forecast to be located across the northern Gulf of Mexico. The main question remains how strong the ridge across the northern gulf will be as we see a trough of low pressure drive south across the eastern US. A weaker ridge will allow for Alex to turn more to the northwest and north and head toward the middle to upper Texas coast. A stronger ridge, which the NHC forecast is currently based on will turn Alex more toward the west-northwest and then west into the northern Mexican coast about 150 miles south of Brownsville.

This uncertainty is reflected in the dynamic models, four of which (GFS, GFDL, HWRF, and CMC) calling for a Texas landfall while the NOGAPS and ECMWF take the storm into northern Mexico. Interestingly enough, the best preforming models at the 3-4 day range last season were the GFS and the CMC (Canadian) with these models forecasting a middle to upper Texas coast landfall Thursday or Friday of this week. The current NHC track is slightly further north but still takes Alex into the northern Mexican coastline; however, another item to consider is the right bias associated with land-falling gulf storms. It would not surprise me if we see the NHC continue a northward adjustment to future tracks if the dynamics models start to trend closer to the GFS and CMC which at this time remain the northern outliers.

Therefore having said all this, it would be a safe bet to start looking over your hurricane preparedness plans just to be on the safe side.

Below is the current NHC forecast track along with the 00z dynamic models and a link to Dr. Jeff Masters blog on Alex which is a very interesting read and has some more statistics regarding which models preformed the best last year.

10pm NHC Track


00z Models


http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/article.html