Tropical Depression Eight / Tropical Storm / Hurricane Gordon

tomcosgrave

A large tropical wave came off the coat of Africa last week, but despite looking like a sure thing to develop into a hurricane, it didn't, due to dry air and wind shear.

Then it fired back up, and finally just today, it got declared as TD 8.
I hadn't been paying attention to the path of the depression, but I have to say I was surprised when I saw it.



What, if any, ramifications will this have for us in Ireland. Can M.T. Cranium or some of the other more expert heads shed any light?

Sponge Bob

Bit far off and a bit weak. If a high builds from the weekend perhaps no ramifications will ensue and it will hopefully dissipate out there or qeunch a volcano in El Hierro or a forest fire in Tenerife where the locals would welcome it.

Harps

Looks like it could give the Azores a bit of a hammering, rain rate is off the scale on tonight's GFS run

maquiladora

Might be worth keeping an eye on this as about 7 GFS ensemble members track this over / close to Ireland. Long way off though.

Edit: This is Tropical Storm Gordon now btw.

tomcosgrave

Maybe this will be the storm like Hurricane Charlie ;-)
Seriously, I hope not.

I've changed the title of the thread now to cover all eventualities!

maquiladora

It was a previous Gordon in 2006 that had a similar track to this that ended up causing some problems here and elsewhere. There were Charley comparisons then too.

tomcosgrave

Interesting development. Looks like we won't take a direct hit, going by the present forecast - but surely there may be some indirect consequences - stuff blown over us as a result?

Rikand

tomcosgrave wrote: »

Interesting development. Looks like we won't take a direct hit, going by the present forecast - but surely there may be some indirect consequences - stuff blown over us as a result?

a bit of sunshine from the azores would be nice

maquiladora

A good few of the GFS ensembles take whatever is left of Gordon to our neck of the woods, so worth keeping an eye on. But it might be more of a rain rather than wind thing if that happened. Long way off though and its likely to go south/dissipate anyway.

Nabber

GFS has it dieing out before reaching Portugal. But too far out to be sure.
It has a nice shape to it all the same.

maquiladora

Nearly all the models are fairly confident of the remains of Gordon falling apart west of Portugal now. The Azores could still be in for some heavy rain and wind though.

Storm 10

This morning on radio Met Eireann said during the forecast that by next weekend it was going to get wet and very windy, is this storm the reason why

maquiladora

Storm 10 wrote: »

This morning on radio Met Eireann said during the forecast that by next weekend it was going to get wet and very windy, is this storm the reason why

Nope, the ECM is just showing another Atlantic low close to Ireland next Friday.

M.T. Cranium

Taking a holiday week (now to next weekend) but as part of that is for storm chasing opportunities I may get to the internet now and again. By the way, this may lead to some interruptions in the regular flow of forecasts on the other thread, don't be alarmed or relieved, as the mood takes you. I will be back.

Now as to Gordon, is there any chance of that holding together and heading towards Ireland? Currently I would estimate 10% with 70% probability of a weakened version hitting Portugal and perhaps 20% of a remnant hitting France, all of which are just subdivisions of the 70% chance of anything getting past 20W, so that reduces to 7% chance hitting Ireland.

What is the most likely outcome? Something like a 30-50 mph wind in southern Portugal in about four to five days' time. What is the worst case scenario? Probably a very strong windstorm hitting northwest Spain and heading on into central France. What is the worst that could possibly happen in Ireland? Rain and wind that would come anyway from the Atlantic low. It's just a bit sexier if it were Gordon (I suppose, but you might prefer Helene).

It's odd how that worked out, not sure if I agree with the OP, but t.d. seven had a long life of little consequence (hmm this is almost autobiographic) and visited many parts of the Caribbean nameless (as an open wave) before suddenly becoming Tropical Storm Helene in the Gulf of Mexico (so t.d. 7 became storm 8, that moved inland in Mexico and is now dissipating); meanwhile, tropical depression 8 formed south of Bermuda and much more rapidly became Tropical Storm Gordon (so t.d. 8 became storm 7). These things occasionally happen, and most active years have a few duds so you get things like tropical depression 14 becoming named storm 12.

There have now been eight named storms with a ninth one making noises off Cape Verde -- and I was raked over the coals on a certain weather forum (not this one) for saying it would be an active year, the cognoscenti said that a developing El Nino would suppress the count. I may have to revise my forecast up from 21 named storms at the rate we are going.

Nine named storms by 20 Aug statistically means 24+ for the season, the median date of the median named storm is 11 September so we could easily be at 12-14 by then. This would make 2012 the second (or outside chance first) busiest season of all recorded data, with 2005 at 28 or something (Greek alphabet five). Mind you, two or three of these have been absolute marginals but this is the new trend in seasonal forecasting, you have to add 2-3 for the marginals. They are finding storms nowadays that nobody would have known about before the 1950s.

Rikand

Cat2 hurricane now - nice

Mr Cumulonimbus

Gordon on the 19th, 20th and this morning.