Fay Still Alive and Kicking

Fay has made the turn west after making it into the Atlantic as a moderate Tropical Storm. Fay intensified only minimally to 60 mph before making landfall once again in northeast Florida. Currently it is in the middle of the peninsula moving towards the Gulf of Mexico, shown below:






A ridge of high pressure has built in from the north and east forcing Fay to move westward. This ridge should hold on for the next few days continuing this motion. Any southward component looks unlikely as an upper-level low (Orange 'L' below) is situated over northwest Arkansas funneling the upper-level winds northward over Arkansas and Mississippi. The ridge (Yellow line) is built in a southeast to northwest fashion from the Atlantic into the Ohio Valley. Thus, the steering currently should force Fay either to the west or slightly north for the next 3 days while Fay moves very slowly. Once Fay reaches Mississippi however, it will begin to be impacted by the upper-level low in Arkansas which has been cut off and is not moving very much. This will force Fay to the north and likely northeast as a trough of low pressure (Purple arrow in MN) dives in from the northwest breaking apart the ridge.




Fay never became a hurricane in its lifetime, and even with another two landfalls (thus two more times over the Gulf of Mexico) forecasted, it shouldn't strengthen enough to reach hurricane status in the future. However, Fay will be remembered throughout the state of Florida as EVERY location will be impacted by it before its departure. Flooding rainfall approaching 30 inches has been estimated by doppler radar, and Melbourne, Florida was above 18 inches of rain in their rain gauge. Lucky for Florida, the soil type, flat surface, and proximity to the ocean, allows the rainfall to be mostly soaked up or flow into the ocean before catastrophic flooding can occur. Also, without steep hills or valleys, flash flooding and fast flowing water is not as likely. Thus, damage and deaths have been on the low side even though the rainfall has been so high. For instance, if this storm had parked over Houston, it would be been devastating (remember: Allison).



The tropical season has not even reached its peak yet, and we are to 6 named storms! With 10 being the average, we are definitely above normal. The European and Canadian models are forecasting more systems to continue to move west from Africa and show a new system in the Caribbean or Bahamas within the week. I will go more into this in a future blog later today.