Tropical Weather Update - October 31, 2020

October 31, 2020

Happy Halloween! It's also a full moon today, called the Blue Moon. The area of interest I mentioned on Thursday was designated Invest 96L on Friday and it now has a 90% chance of development over the next 2 days. 

So the question is, where is it going to go? Right now the models are in two camps. The HWRF, Euro, UKMET, Canadian, ICON (German), and ACCESS (Australian) models all take 96L into Central America as do most of the spaghetti models. The majority if not all of the Euro ensembles take it into Central America as well. From there a few members bring a system back north around next Wednesday or Thursday but I can't tell if it's the same storm or the models picking up on something new although they may be hinting at some agreement with the GFS. The GFS has the storm stall in the southwest Caribbean for a few days and then brings it north across Cuba next Friday and then into Florida. The GFS ensembles have the same general solution, although there may be a few weak members that take the storm into Central America. So I guess there really aren't two camps, the GFS is sort of a lone ranger.

Spaghetti Models:

Euro Ensembles:

GFS Ensembles:

All the models that take the storm into Central America have the storm racing into the coast on Monday or Tuesday while the GFS slows it down and stalls it in the Caribbean. It would seem like maybe the GFS is out to lunch on this and shouldn't be trusted but I don't think that's the case. I could easily dismiss the operational GFS, but with the majority of the GFS ensembles in agreement that has me paying attention. The GFS ensembles were the first to pick up on what ultimately happened to Zeta. I missed it because I didn't understand what it was showing at the time. When Zeta came northwest then I realized what I had been seeing. This version of the GEFS has been fairly reliable this year, so with a signal this strong I think it needs to be considered as equally likely as the other solutions. Either way we'll know in a few days, we'll have to watch to see how the models change as well.

That is it for today. Get out and enjoy the cool weather!

Chris