Afternoon Update on Ian: NOAA Hurricane Hunters Enroute to Investigate Ian

Visible satellite imagery confirms that Tropical Storm Ian now has a well-defined low-level circulation near 16N/80W, or about 250 miles southwest of Kingston, Jamaica.

Convection appears to be increasing, but slowly, and remains disorganized at this time. It appears some convection is starting to build around the center.

A NOAA Hurricane Hunter mission has just left its base at Lakeland FL.

Not much change in the morning model runs. The European deterministic run takes it to about 85 mph but weakens it before moving it inland just north of Tampa late Wednesday night and early Thursday. The GFS takes it to 125 moh before slowly weakening it as it moves toward a landfall in Apalachee Bay late Thursday into Friday.

The ensembles are tightly clustered until after the storm crosses Cuba. Then the GFS diverges to the left, while the European is more over the northeastern Gulf of Mexico.

The 18z GFS diagnostic looks like it may be more into the Florida Big Bend area, so we might start seeing a little consensus toward that solution that is more in line witn the GFS ensembles.

Still lots of uncertainty in the track forecast.

Shear starts to increase on Tuesday, and by Wednesday should be really taking its toll on the storm.

Drier air starts becoming a problem late Wednesday into Thursday.

It remains over high oceanic heat content waters for quite a while, at least until Wednesday morning as it tracks along the Loop Current in the GUlf f Mexico, which is really warm, around 28-30C.

We will have the new advisory and forecast package shortly and will post it as soon as we have the graphic.

Category: Alabama's Weather, ALL POSTS, Tropical