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Tropical Trio on the way?

Posted by Andy Johnson under Daily updates

As expected, we have entered a very active period in the tropical Atlantic. Hurricane Danielle has become a large hurricane and is currently the strongest feature. There is good news for Bermuda.,however. All tropical storm watches and warnings were cancelled for the island Sunday afternoon. The main problem will be large swells generated first by Danielle and later by Earl which will cause an extended period of huge wave all over the western Atlantic Ocean. Big waves will affect most of the east coast of the U.S. over the next week with the likelihood of rip currents. Danielle will recurve and become a huge extratropical storm over the north Atlantic in the next 3 to 5 days.

The main concern will now be Earl. Earl could be a dangerous category 3 hurricane off of the eastern seaboard during the upcoming week. Danielle is moving through a weakness in the Bermuda-Azores high. Ironically, as Danielle becomes a monster extratropical storm in the far north Atlantic, she will indirectly cause relative pressures to rise off the east coast of the U.S. This effect will allow Earl to come much farther west than Danielle did and could allow Earl to threaten the east coat of the  U.S. by mid-week. In addition, eventually the remains of Danielle will move back to the west south of Greenland which could induce a blocking pattern north of Earl mid-week. This may allow Earl to sit for a long time off of the east coast. Usually storms accelerate northward off of the middle Atlantic but this may not be the case with Earl.

In addition, another system (Invest 97L) will likely become a depression and possible Tropical Storm Fiona over the next days. Due to the rapid movement of Invest 97L and the outflow from Earl as he strengthens, Invest 97L will not likely achieve the same strength as Earl will achieve. There is the possibility of a Fujiwhara effect where two storms rotate around each other or Earl could eventually absorb 97 L (future Fiona?).

Another strong tropical wave just coming off of Africa is also a candidate for becoming a tropical cyclone this week The distubance in the Caribbean remains unorganized. The low in the Gulf is non-tropical and will be moving northward onshore by Sunday and Monday.

The enhanced satellite view below shows that although Danielle is the largest current system, cloud tops are cooling. The coldest cloud tops (magenta colors) are now associated with Earl as he strengthens in purely tropical waters.

Wave height are already picking up. Waves near Danielle are more than 25′ high. The buoy west of Bermuda is reported 9.2′ swells on Sunday afternoon.

The Bermuda radar shown below indicates that the outer bands of rain with Danielle are affecting Bermuda as they rotate from the north-northeast to the south-southwest.

The long range GFS model below is valid for Friday at 9:00 AM. Remember that there are large errors this far in advance. However, the general trend is that the remains of Danielle will be a mega-storm in the north Atlantic, Earl will be very strong off or near the east coast of the U.S. and Fiona? may be overshadowed by Earl.