Tropical Storm Lee lingers off Louisiana coast
Tropical Storm Lee continues to bring heavy rain, moderately strong wind gusts, and tornado risk to the Gulf Coast states east of Texas. Lee is 55 miles south of Lafayette, Louisiana, and is drifting almost due north at 4 mph. Lee's central pressure dropped to 988 mb since this morning, but has maximum sustained wind speeds that have decreased to 50mph. The National Hurricane Center has extended the tropical storm warning eastward to Destin, Florida. Since this morning, New Orleans Lakefront Airport has received about another inch of rain for a storm total of 6.87 inches. Rainfall estimates from radar suggest some locations, especially close to the coast, might have already seen up to 8 inches of rain from Tropical Storm Lee. Although the New Orleans area is in a dry slot of the storm, more rain can be expected through the night in the form of isolated storms with heavy downpours. Louisiana's Jefferson Parish officials ordered a mandatory evacuation for three towns earlier today: Lafitte, Crown Point, and Barataria. Heavy rain and tidal surge pushed the water of Bayou Barataria into the surrounding low-lying areas, and officials warned that if residents didn't leave, they might become stranded for a couple of days.
Figure 1. Infrared satellite of Tropical Storm Lee captured around 6pm EDT. Source: NOAA.
Forecast for Tropical Storm Lee
Lee's forecast hasn't changed much since this morning. Dry air is being pulled in from the west, which is giving the storm a very subtropical appearance, and is mitigating intensification. Earlier today, two centers of circulation were visible in satellite and confirmed by Hurricane Hunters. The centers were rotating around each other in full Fujiwara fashion, and although they were scientifically interesting, it meant that there was no clear center of circulation, and probably helped to weaken storm. The National Hurricane Center expects that Lee will come ashore in Louisiana later this evening and linger over the region until Monday, when it will finally be pushed north by a mid-latitude wave.
Lee's tornado threat
A tornado watch is in effect for southern Louisiana and portions of Mississippi, Alabama, and the western Florida Panhandle until 10pm CDT. The forecast is for small and short-lived tornadoes, but the threat for tornado damage is still there. A PhD student at Georgia Tech (and my former group member), James Belanger, runs a skillful model to predict the number of tornadoes that a tropical cyclone could produce. The model uses variables such as the size of the storm, the maximum wind speed, and moisture. For the 2008 hurricane season, the model accurately predicted the number of tornadoes that would be spawned from a quite a few tropical cyclones, including Hurricane Dolly, Tropical Storm Edouard, Tropical Storm Fay, and Hurricane Ike. Given today's forecast track and intensity, Belanger's model is forecasting 30-40 tornadoes could be spawned from Tropical Storm Lee, mainly in the Southeast states east of and including Louisiana.
Interestingly, although the nose of dry air that's being pulled in from drought-stricken Texas (visible in the satellite image above) is acting to keep the storm weak, it's also playing a role in the number of tornadoes that could be spawned from Lee. The dry air is a crucial component for the storm to develop discrete, isolated thunderstorm cells (versus a large shield of heavy rain). The discrete cells, just like during severe weather season, are the storms that are most capable of producing a tornado.
Angela
Reader Comments
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Kosher salt.
Love you too, CRS. And a few others, heh heh heh...
Oh great. :/
Will this won't be good in the BOC if this happens........a lot of time to become a big one.........Nearly every model is showing the same thing.
I dont see any models, as of yet, that take this storm ashore with the exception of a couple that take it over Bermuda. Are you getting a longer range Nogaps ?? The one Im looking at takes it right at Central Fl. but it still has not made it inland on a run.
Hmm is right
lowerbamagirl
Quoting HCW:
MOB: 1 Sw Lillian [Baldwin Co, AL] law enforcement reports TORNADO at 03:25 AM CDT -- several trees down along rosalia ave near us hwy 98. possible tornado.
MOB: 2 Sw Pensacola [Escambia Co, FL] fire dept/rescue reports TORNADO at 03:11 AM CDT -- fire rescue reports residential structure damaged with trees down at 5525 garcon blvd, pensacola, f
MOB: Perdido Bay [Escambia Co, FL] law enforcement reports TORNADO at 03:25 AM CDT -- a house damaged near perido bay. possible tornado
MOB: 2 Sw Lillian [Baldwin Co, AL] law enforcement reports TORNADO at 03:25 AM CDT -- a camper flipped over at the koa campground. a house damaged on county road 99. possible tornado
That's a little scary for me as we are between Elberta and Lillian. Thought I had my weather radio on alert before I went to bed, but had set it wrong. I kind of wondered this morning when it hadn't gone off once!
live just off of 95 north...didnt even know about it...gees!!
Interesting..finally!
That showed NO exit and everything moves WEST
Depends on the movement of the Previous-TS-Argueably-LowPressure-Trough-Relocatio n of Lee.
what does that mean?
I thought the precipitation shield would have made it farther west. Sorry you didn't get more.
Agreed. The bowling alley is closed. Looks like the Nogaps is picking up on it.
There is no exit out to sea for in 8-10 days....everything must move WEST
Glad I dont live in your town
the 00Z run rode it up the east coast to make landfall in NC
My sister told me her friend (they live in S.E. Virginia) is still without power from Irene. I was like "you've got to be kidding". The conditions weren't even that bad there (40 mph gusts and rain).
I haven't ventured out yet this morning to see what it looks like around here. Took the kids to Pirate's Cove yesterday afternoon to get them out of the house for a while. Three drunk/stupid guys went out in a small boat, and near as we could tell from the shore, the ended up crashing into a pier in Orange Beach. People never cease to amaze me!
Reporting minimal rain amounts (don't have a weather station, yet), just enough to moisten the ground but we will take what we can.
I woke up about 2 am local time and went poke my head outside and heard the wonderful Sondheim of water flowing down the rain chain we have over our entry way. It seemed especially soothing after such a long time of not having heard the water.
Most of what's on the road and sidewalks is evaporating quickly, but I have a small puddle near our entryway where a low spot in the concrete collects water as evidence of last night's precipitation, but I bet that is gone by the afternoon unless we get more.
I was speaking of this run.. But there is support for a more westerly motion now.
looks to be a very nasty couiple of weeks along the n gom...not only 1 but possible 2 by the 13th?? tropics are a blowin up!!
But dropped on the 48hr and 72 hr charts
Bob was a Cat 2 and then a Cat 1 when it hit in 1991. It took weeks to get the power back on in some places. So many trees went down that the most time consuming thing was removing the trees and branches. Once that was cleaned up then fixing the poles went quickly. I had no power for a week, and was cooking out of a wok over a fire. We shopped in stores where they'd let us in in little groups with a flashlight. Most refridgerator systems were being run by generators. Gas stations on the main thoroughfares were the first to come back, so there were lines of people filling their cars and there containers so they could keep their generators running.
During the storm a group of us went out to see what was going on up the street. Suddenly the transformers on top of the utility poles started exploding, one after another, coming right towards us. I don't remember how I got back to the house, but suddenly I was there. Don't remember my feet touching the ground. There was a golf course down the road the other way. Two of my friends were walking some dogs that had to go out, and they came flying back as well. They said some trees were going down right around them. When we went to look after the storm it was like a giant bowling ball had gone down all the fairways as all the trees had fallen in the same direction.
I remember seeing so many trees right that had fallen right beside houses and cars, and thought how lucky the area had been, for if those trees fell just a few more degrees to the left or right, the damage would have been tremendous.
We need these people... I look forward to reading the Darwin awards each year... and without them... nothing to read :)
poorly. experience tells me...weeks, months. After Frances, Jeanne and Wilma so many in S FL without power for weeks, some a couple of months!
ROFL...but he does live in mine! things were quite interesting at times yesterday and last night.
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