Wednesday's Look at the Tropics

Written by: Brian Neudorff

The good news is we haven't added any more storms in 24 hours, the bad news we still have the same ones we had yesterday, but there have been some changes.

First I want to start with tropical storm Hanna, mainly because it will impact the U.S. in the short term and could also have an impact on our forecast for Western New York.

As of 11 a.m. Hanna was still poorly organized. The National Hurricane Center in their 11 a.m. discussion point out that Hanna's circulation is poorly defined, and the heavy thunderstorms are away from its center limited to its eastern side. Conditions are expected to improve but the structural damage Hanna has sustained dealing with wind shear and the island of Haiti may have been too much. It is still expected to reorganize and intensify in the coming days but it may not be the storm we once thought it would be and that is definitely good news for those living in the Carolinas. It is also farther east than was forecasted and this could help spare the Western Bahamas, Eastern Coast of Florida and Georgia, but that makes landfall closer to the South Carolina/ North Carolina border as a borderline category 1 hurricane or tropical storm.

Tropical Storm Ike is looking good in the open waters of the Atlantic. It should strengthen into a hurricane later today and could be one by the 2 p.m. EDT update. From there it will remain over open water and not impact land until Saturday morning when it passes north of Puerto Rico and then the island of Hispaniola. This will still need to be watched cause it could be a major Hurricane that could impact Florida.

Then there is tropical storm Josephine that is expected to be no threat to land and drift through the Atlantic. Right now, Josephine is not expected to strengthen much as we go into next week.