Trying to forecast where hydra-headed Tropical Storm Isaac might go, this far out, is hard.
Here’s the latest model run I'm looking at right now (don’t worry about the security certificate warning – the website is safe).
This afternoon was a bit more sobering. In its afternoon update, the National Hurricane Center warns that Isaac has no defined center at the moment, but several centers, mutually rotating about each other. Indeed, that seems to be true. And there might also be some tilt to the storm too, towards colder air (which, oddly-enough, seems to be to the south, over South America).
The San Juan/Virgin Islands radar showed one of the rotational centers being just off the Puerto Rico/Dominican Republic coast, but the upper air outflow is as far south as Aruba, and even farther south. So, basically, the storm is everywhere over the eastern Caribbean (but still not powerful yet).
So, forecasting a path is hard. The NOGAPS model is now just about on the consensus path.
The consensus path leads the storm through the Keys to just off the Naples, FL coast. It is likely that air travel to Tampa will be disrupted Monday afternoon and evening as the storm makes its closest approach to the city. It would rain pretty hard on Monday, with some wind, but Tampa wouldn’t take a direct hit. Then, the storm would continue on its path into the Gulf of Mexico, heading towards a New Orleans landfall. There is plenty of opportunity for air travel flight disruptions, as panicked people try to get out of the way of the storm.
Still hoping for more westward movement of the storm. Nothing is settled yet.
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