[Updates follow original entry; latest as of 2:30 am EDT Tuesday July 8]
BERTHA
As illustrated by this satellite image from the NASA Earth Science Office, Bertha has intensified dramatically since yesterday, now officially a high-end Category 1 ...
... but it still remains far from land.
And the only land area in play for a potential direct impact in the *foreseeable* future is Bermuda.
In an interesting coincidence, 1996's Bertha also became a hurricane on July 7!
Recognizing the standard caveats (pre-satellite-era lack of info; modern era NHC subjectivity) ... and if I'm correctly gleaning from the NOAA map below on which I've done my best to precisely place the point where Bertha was designated a hurricane this morning ...
It's unprecedented in the historical record for a tropical cyclone to reach hurricane intensity this far east in the tropical Atlantic this early in the season (or in all of July for that matter).
The map shows all July storms; red track lines indicate hurricane intensity (Cat 1-2).
The only July hurricane farther east was later in the month, and that one was outside the tropics, in fact unusually far north, becoming a hurricane at nearly 40N (Danny in 2003).
[Click image for larger version.]
GULF OF MEXICO
Although there's been another blow-up of convection (rain & thunderstorms) in the western Gulf of Mexico, reminiscent of the one early Saturday, conditions are unfavorable for this system to pull a stunt like Humberto and Lorenzo did last year in the western Gulf and suddenly become a hurricane.
Its main effect is therefore expected to continue to be rainfall, and lots of it. This means additional drought relief for extreme southern Texas. What we don't want is too much to fall too quickly, though, and the NWS has now issued flood advisories for the areas west of Brownsville.
I haven't seen any reports on the wire -- yet -- of serious flooding south of the border, and hopefully that will continue, but with the heaviest rain continuing to fall in Mexico, the threat still exists there, and it will increase if that area of downpours south of Brownsville remains concentrated and persistent.
[Image source: GRLevelX]
UPDATE 4PM EDT MONDAY JULY 7
This season's first classic MODIS satellite image of the eye and inner core of a hurricane is in, and it's nice to be able to marvel at the sight without any land areas being imminently threatened. There's nothing particularly unique about the features in this image, but these high-resolution images are always spectacular to look at!
(Yellow lines indicate latitude and longitude; this is a crop of the full image, which can be seen by clicking here -- for maximum effect, don't resize image to fit screen.)
The National Hurricane Center will almost certainly bump up the official intensity on their next advisory.
[Image source: Naval Research Laboratory]
For those of you who have posted comments about your concern in regard to the Caribbean, Bertha is not headed in that direction. The only land area currently in the potential path during the next five days is Bermuda, but it's too early to know exactly how much impact will occur there.
UPDATE 5PM EDT MONDAY
NHC has upped the official intensity to a low-end Category 3, which makes Bertha the first major (Cat 3+) hurricane of the season.
UPDATE 2:30 AM EDT TUESDAY
Bertha is still a healthy major hurricane, but that ironically is good news. As I noted in a comment in response to readers' questions, by becoming a stronger and deeper circulation, it has felt the influence of a mid and upper level trough and has been tugged a bit farther north, rather than being steered by the low-level flow as is typical of weaker, shallower circulations, in this case more westerly.
This in turn has decreased the probability of it having a significant direct impact upon land. At the risk of jinxing it, the chance of a U.S. landfall appears to now be virtually nil.
In addition, the odds have increased for the core of the hurricane to miss Bermuda to the east. It's too early to be sure of that, and folks living in or traveling to Bermuda still need to monitor the latest forecast; that's the latest trend, though.
With that Gulf system, here are the latest rainfall totals north of the border, with yet another batch of heavy rain at this hour south of the border.
[Click on rainfall map for larger version.]
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