Tropical Storm Agatha, Pacaya volcano kill 15 in Guatemala; oil spill update
Tropical Storm Agatha, the first Eastern Pacific named storm of 2010, was short lived but deadly. Agatha was a tropical storm for just 12 hours, making landfall Saturday on the Pacific coast of Guatemala as a 45 mph tropical storm. However, the storm brought huge amounts of moisture inland that continue to be wrung out as heavy rains by the high mountains of Guatemala and the surrounding nations of Central America. So far, flooding and landslides have killed twelve people in Guatemala, and one person in neighboring El Salvador. According to the excellent Guatemala weather site, climaya.com, rainfall amounts of up to 152 mm (six inches) in 24 hours have occurred in some regions of Guatemala. The National Hurricane Center is warning that rainfall amounts of up to 30 inches may fall the next few days in some mountainous regions near where the storm has dissipated. Adding to the mayhem is fallout from the Pacaya volcano in Guatemala, which began erupting three days ago. At least three people have been killed by the volcano, located about 25 miles south of the capital, Guatemala City. The volcano has destroyed 800 homes with lava and brought moderate ash falls to the capital.
Figure 1. Visible satellite image of Tropical Storm Agatha at landfall. The storm was intensifying right up until landfall, and had an impressive "hot tower" of building cumulonimbus clouds near its center that brought heavy rains to Guatemala.
Figure 2. Flooding in Quetzaltenango, Zone 2, in Guatemala on May 29, 2010, after heavy rains from Tropical Storm Agatha. Image credit: Carlos Diaz, climaya.com
Oil spill update
Light onshore winds out of the south are expected to blow over the northern Gulf of Mexico today through Tuesday, resulting increased threats of oil to the Alabama and Mississippi barrier islands, according to the latest trajectory forecasts from NOAA. Winds are expected to shift to southwesterly on Wednesday and continue through Friday, increasing in force to 10 - 20 knots late in the week as a cold front approaches the Gulf. These persistent and strengthening southwesterly winds will likely bring oil very close to shore from Mississippi to the Florida Panhandle by next weekend.
Oil spill resources
My post, What a hurricane would do the Deepwater Horizon oil spill
My post Wednesday with answers to some of the common questions I get about the spill
My post on the Southwest Florida "Forbidden Zone" where surface oil will rarely go
My post on what oil might do to a hurricane
NOAA trajectory forecasts
Deepwater Horizon Unified Command web site
Oil Spill Academic Task Force
University of South Florida Ocean Circulation Group oil spill forecasts
ROFFS Deepwater Horizon page
Surface current forecasts from NOAA's HYCOM model
Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) imagery from the University of Miami
Join the "Hurricane Haven" with Dr. Jeff Masters: a new Internet radio show
Beginning next week, I'll be experimenting with a live 1-hour Internet radio show called "Hurricane Haven." The show will be aired at 4pm EDT on Tuesdays, with the first show June 1. Listeners will be able to call in and ask questions. Some topics I'll cover on the first show:
1) What's going on in the tropics right now
2) Preview of the coming hurricane season
3) How a hurricane might affect the oil spill
4) How the oil spill might affect a hurricane
5) New advancements in hurricane science presented at this month's AMS Conference on Hurricanes and Tropical Meteorology
6) Haiti's vulnerability to a hurricane this season
I hope you can tune in to the broadcast, which will be at http://www.wunderground.com/wxradio/wubroadcast.h tml. If not, the show will be recorded and stored as a podcast.
I'll probably be back Monday with a quick update. Have a great holiday weekend!
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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Seriously stop ok, we are moving past this and talking about other things
Now that would be simply sad. ¬¬
Good Lord, I remember that. I think that is one of those jfv posts that should be left in our memories.
the anticyclone may push the sub tropical jet just enough to allow agatha to develop into alex.. *(It's moving North East towards west Cuba)*
http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/tropic/real-time/atlantic/winds/wg8shr.html
and a couple of models indicate a small ridge to form over yucatan channel/western cuba/very southern edge of the gulf of mexico, decreasing the shear enough for this thing to grow, or atleast survive.
I'm doing just fine but you seem to be under fire
I've just finished pleasuring myself. How's eveyone's evening?
just 1 of many remarks the idiot has made...lol
It should eventually encompass most of the western Caribbean in 3-4 days, providing favorable conditions.
What's driving me nuts is Agatha deciding that one minute she wants to race under a weak steering flow and position herself over Belize far sooner than expected, and then as soon as she gets there she stalls. It is difficult to tell how long it will take her to get to the gulf.
yes, and the vortcoity at 700MB has really grown.. and it has become more organized at 850mb and stronger
In Summer the Sub-Tropical Jet moves northward to near 32-35N latitude and is usually 30KTS or so in the summer and closer to 60-80KTS in winter.
I didn't know Randy Jackson was here.
I agree.. its drifting towards the North east.. the convection is what is going to move her for now.. but the longer it takes for her to move, the more time she has to develop into what may be our first true atlantic system.
if she sticks around there long enough, development is possible
Now that's something I didn't need to read. :\
Some trouble is possible if ex-Agatha waits around long enough, and moves over water. My forecast is based on my thought that at least one of those things will not happen for her. The situation should be watched though...she has proven to be full of some surprises so far, in terms of her movement.
yep, if her remains stay in the mid levels for awhile, where would she head off to?
Evening Drakoen,
Does the 18z nogaps show any development?
geez get a grip...
The mid-level steering favors a NNE movement towards the Yucatan Channel, possibly over the Caribbean for part of that journey. The shallow-layer steering favors more of a due north movement landlocked over the Yucatan. Right now most of the circulation is in the mid-levels, but the low-level circulation is not moving much and is being stubborn.
if strong convection forms just off shore near the center, it may be forced under that convection, so it may wobble around.. depending on whether or not convection decides to flare up. As of right now though, it is getting "more organized" despite being right on the coast o-O
We have a saying in the tropics: calm down.
Regarding ex Agatha, no I do not have high expectations or, indeed, any expectations at all. There is no immediate threat from the remnants
instead I just wrote Admin...wooo-hooo!!
it worked!! He's gone!!!
Satellite and radar have her around 17.5N, 88.5W, still over Belize. A potential jump of the low-level center eastward is believable, but nothing like that appears to have happened.
CARIBBEAN SEA...
A SURFACE TROUGH ANALYZED FROM THE NORTHERN YUCATAN PENINSULA TO SOUTHERN GUATEMALA IS ALL THAT REMAINS OF AGATHA ACROSS CENTRAL AMERICA THIS EVENING. FURTHERMORE...AN UPPER LEVEL ANTICYCLONIC CIRCULATION IS LOCATED ALOFT OVER EASTERN HONDURAS AND THE NW CARIBBEAN AND THESE FEATURES CONTINUE TO WORK IN TANDEM TO PROVIDE LOW-LEVEL CONVERGENCE AND UPPER LEVEL DIFFLUENCE TO GENERATE SCATTERED SHOWERS AND ISOLATED TSTMS WITHIN 300 NM EAST OF THE SURFACE TROUGH. LOCALLY HEAVY RAINFALL IS CONTINUING THIS EVENING OVER EL-SALVADOR AND WESTERN HONDURAS WHILE MORE WIDELY SCATTERED ACTIVITY SPREADS N-NE OVER THE GULF OF HONDURAS AND NW CARIBBEAN S OF 21N W OF 82W.
With that Northerly flow yes.
lol always there to combat anything I say lmao!
I can't tell much by that radar now since the convection has waned a bit. I still have her just off shore.
redundant
Sorry, couldn't help myself on this one.
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