🎉Humberto Saves The Day

It was a wild weekend of tropics watching to say the least.

Humberto raced to cat 5 status, the second one of the season.

Meanwhile, the split in the models went from the fork in the road solution, about half toward the Carolinas and the other half out-to-sea, to a consensus of no direct U.S. impacts.

So why am I praising a storm that achieved Cat. 5 status? More on that to come.

As it stands Monday evening, Humberto, a hurricane AND Imelda, a tropical storm are in close proximity in between the Bahamas and Bermuda.

It’s so wild to have two named storms that close together.

Imelda is expected to make a sharp turn east. Bermuda will have to watch this.

As for the U.S., dangerous beach conditions will continue for much of the week ahead as the tandem storms churn up the Atlantic.

So you may remember on Friday models looked like this.

Today they look like this.

I mentioned Friday when I was doing the evening news that data was everything. We needed more. Hurricane Hunter missions increased over the weekend into and around both storms collecting VITAL data on the storms and the environment.

I want to show you one mission in particular.

This is when the tides began turning and confidence for the out-to-sea solution was growing.

Gonzo, NOAA’s Gulfstream jet, flew a mission over the weekend from Lakeland that went around Humberto and then around the disturbance that would become Imelda and back.

Gonzo is the small plane in the picture and flies around the storm at approximately 40,000 feet.

After the data was ingested into the forecast models more and more models favored interaction with Humberto and the out-to-sea scenario.

Ultimately, because Imelda was slower, it thankfully missed its ride (the dip in the jetstream) to the Carolinas and because Humberto was stronger it would grab his partner and pull her away from the U.S.

Until we receive the the critical data from the hurricane hunters there are just too many questions that can’t be answered.

Garbage in garbage out is what we always say when referring to the data. If the limited data going into the models is wrong or incomplete, the forecast likely won’t be correct either.

Let me know if there is anything you want to see discussed in a future newsletter entry. My email is jkegges@wkmg.com.

Don’t forget to tune into the nightly weather livestream every Monday through Friday (NOW AT 9:30 p.m.) on the News 6 YouTube channel and ClickOrlando.com. Come with questions or comments!

Catch you soon!

Jonathan

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One last thing. This is a two-way street. I/we are here for you. Any ideas? Like or hate something?

Have any questions? Let me know. Shoot me an email at jkegges@wkmg.com. Find me on Facebook or X.

We’re in this together. We have families here, too. You’re going to get the same info we give to them. Thank you for your trust. We don’t take that responsibility lightly.

OK, now I’m done.

Talk to you soon!

- Jonathan