This Gulf STORM Just Got MORE Uncertain...

[00:00:00]Bertha is about to ramp up as it targets the Gulf Coast. In today's video, I'll show you the latest track that soon-to-be tropical storm Bertha is going to take as it targets the Gulf Coast of the United States, plus the latest model data that has brand new numbers on the most likely intensity this storm will reach over the coming days. And if you stay long enough, I've got a look at all of the possibilities, including impacts that this storm could bring right to your doorstep. As promised for quite some time, tropical storm Bertha and home-grown tropical development has made its way to the United States. Welcome in, everybody. My name is Gerald. I'm a meteorologist with a year of TV experience here in Charlotte, North Carolina. Appreciate you joining me and trusting me to give you your forecast today. Let's go ahead and dive right on into the latest information. Now, I will be referring to this as tropical storm Bertha throughout the day today. As of this morning, it is still technically tropical depression two, but I have high confidence it will become a tropical storm at some point today. So, I'm just going to go ahead and refer to it as Bertha from here on forward. Let's go ahead and dive into the latest kind of information on the storm right now, including its current structure. I want to start there. Here's Bertha right now from a longwave infrared satellite point of view. If you don't know what longwave infrared is, basically, this is measuring the temperatures of the cloud tops. And as counterintuitive as it may seem, the brighter the color, the actually colder the clouds are. Think about it. Temperature decreases with height in the atmosphere. So, when these thunderstorms get really tall, they end up being cooler because of that, and that's why the brighter the colors, the stronger the storms that you're seeing.

[00:01:35]And uh we're starting to see some signs that maybe convection is trying to kind of wrap around this center of circulation a little bit more. Uh currently, that area of low pressure is going to be right into there. And uh the storm getting that shrimp head look for sure. If that's the head of your shrimp, uh kind of right here is your tail of it. And that's usually a sign that a system is starting to organize. Now, uh the thing that has been plaguing Bertha for the past couple of days really has been dry air and there is definitely still some of that. I see how some of this convection has been pulsing in nature meaning it kind of flares up and then flares back down for the system to really organize more. It's going to need to maintain that convection uh so it can start to release some latent heat and pull that vortex together, stretch it, and that will in turn kind of lower the pressure values and start that positive feedback loop. Now, the good news for Bertha and the bad news for everybody else is I think it's going to have a good chance of doing that as plenty of warm waters are around. Yeah, some wind shear and dry air, but we know how the Gulf acts uh really anytime of the year let alone right in the heart of hurricane season.

[00:02:37]In terms of current look at um our radar imagery as well. We can go on through that on here as well and kind of get a look at that. In fact, we'll turn off satellite and just look at radar.

[00:02:47]You can very clearly see where that area of spin is and you're starting to see again how radar is filling in a little bit around that uh I don't know if you want to call it the eye per se, but the center of circulation and uh starting to wrap around. So, I think that is a sign that this storm is definitely starting to get its act together a bit and uh is well on its way to a path of strengthening. In terms of the latest track from the National Hurricane Center, here it is in red and you could see that landfall is most likely to take place anywhere into Louisiana or Texas.

[00:03:17]Now, there's a chance uh still that this goes and maybe gets in Alabama and Mississippi, but I'll be honest, I'm feeling pretty confident that this one's going to do something pretty close to this center of track. If I had to lean one direction than the other, I'd say actually it's more likely for it to take a bit of a southern jog from this track as some of our AI model data has suggested. Hey, speaking of that model data, let's go and dive on into it and uh run you on through the latest information. I do want to start with the environment around this storm and kind of what's going to allow it to strengthen over the next couple days and then we'll dive into the track and uh the intensity forecast even more so throughout the video.

[00:03:54]Really quick, literally 10 seconds, go ahead, like the video, and subscribe if this video is helping you plan your week ahead, so you're always up-to-date with the latest model data. All right, back to the forecast. Let's talk about the current environment around Bertha and then jump on into the future environment around the storm. Now, as I said, ocean temperatures are plenty warm enough for intensification and warm enough to support rapid intensification. Uh not to say that's necessarily what will happen as there are other ingredients in the atmosphere that matter, but uh sea surface temperature is very warm and take a look at the future track of Bertha. Uh this is a website, by the way. I know it might not be quite as pretty as the normal graphics I show you, but uh this is a great website to use. Uh this is a Sims. I use it all the time. One of the best tropical sites out there. Uh and anyway though, the future track of this, take a look, goes right over some of the warmest water, if not the warmest waters in the entire Atlantic Ocean, with sea surface temperatures of 30° to 31° C. Uh that's in the upper 80s, folks, there, just offshore of Louisiana, right where the center of this cone goes. Now, um that is definitely going to be part of that. On top of that, the ocean heat content, or how deep the warm water is, is pretty deep out here as well in the Gulf. We have a bit of a warm core eddy coming up from Cuba and getting up towards uh the path of this storm as well. So, that too could fuel this uh a bit more in terms of um intensification. In terms of water vapor, if you tuned in yesterday, uh dry air was a bit of a problem. Starting to see less dry air around the storm now as it's starting to kind of get rid of some of that dry air as I showed you earlier with radar and satellite, uh dry air becoming less of a problem for the storm. Now, still some around, absolutely, but less so than it was yesterday. Again, another reason why I expect the storm to strengthen uh at least a little bit throughout the day today. What about uh wind shear? Well, it is definitely running into a little bit and uh this is going to be a problem for the storm for much of its life cycle as we do have some northerly wind shear.

[00:05:48]Right now, it is in the the kind of moderate to unfavorable category a little bit as you see those red and yellow colors and that will maintain a problem maintain being a problem for the storm for quite some time. But either way, that really I think is going to be the biggest detriment to Bertha as we go ahead into time. Speaking of going ahead into time, let's do that for you and run this out. Now, we'll go ahead and move this out into time. We'll start with the wind shear category. Now, by this evening, notice yeah, there is that northerly wind shear kind of battering the storm. So, because of that, I do expect the system to remain relatively lopsided for much of its life cycle which is actually going to lower the impacts a good bit for at least some people, not everybody, but for some folks as you get that northerly wind shear. If your center of circulation is right here and everything's getting blown to the south, well, that means you're probably not going to see a whole lot up into parts of Alabama, Mississippi, and maybe even the Florida panhandle.

[00:06:43]Now, yes, there will still be showers and storms, but the brunt of the weather or the worst of this tropical system will be on the southerly side. Now, that could be problematic if you live in Texas because if this makes landfall in Texas, there will still have that southern side impacting parts of the United States. But you can see that northerly wind shear remains a concern for some time. This is by Tuesday. Now, by Tuesday, the storm should be closer to New Orleans. So, you could see this is maybe more moderate wind shear compared to heavier shear back out on the eastern side of the system. But either way, there it looks to remain a some resemblance of wind shear through much of the life cycle except for maybe right around here. Now, the big question will be does the storm go into Louisiana and then just die out? But if it doesn't and it can kind of parallel the southern coast, notice by about Wednesday, you get some much more favorable wind shear values here in your Texas. So, that would be something to watch that could maybe allow this storm to strengthen a bit more as the shear could calm down a little bit in that time frame. In terms of humidity values, right now the storm dealing with some of the best moisture it's had so far in its life cycle. You could see definitely some dry air around it here, especially out towards Cuba and up to the north into Alabama, but the system starting to wrap around a lot more moisture than it had over the past 24 to 48 hours. Dry air looks to kind of make a comeback though by about the middle of the week where you could see dry air to the north once again kind of trying to batter the system a little bit. But remember this is going to be a tough forecast for intensity because of a lot of these reasons. Yes, we've got some wind shear, but at other moments the wind shear light ends up. Yeah, we've got dry air, but at other moments it lightens up and at other times it's worse. On top of all of that you've got very warm sea surface temperatures. So folks, the intensity forecast for this one's going to be tough. Now my gut right now because of all of the information, I would say upper end tropical storm to low end hurricane. And when I say low end probably more so in that category one range, but this one has a pretty high ceiling if the ingredients can line up at the right time and this can take advantage of some rapid intensification. Uh but for now I'd say upper end tropical storm, lower end hurricane given the information I just showed you. All right, let's go and jump on over the ensembles take a look at that intensity as well as the potential future track of this one. I'll show you all the possibilities then we'll dive into some hurricane models, some meso scale models and really lay out the impacts of this one's going to bring.

[00:09:03]Let's go and jump into some of that ensemble data and again I apologize it's not quite as pretty as some of the other maps, but hey I'm just using the website capabilities that I have at my disposal.

[00:09:11]I really do think the European ensemble here has the best gauge on possibilities here with Bertha and doing a good job of showing two separate camps with the storm that are going to interact differently depending on how the evolution occurs. Now here are really the two possibilities that we're down to at this point. I think possibility one is the storm stays a bit weaker, gets up to mid grade grade tropical storm and plows into New Orleans and is definitely a troublemaker, but most of the active weather is staying on the southern side.

[00:09:39]So, yes, the southern Louisiana coast would be uh you know, trumps with some pretty heavy rainfall and a flooding threat and sure, maybe a little bit of surge as well uh there at the New Orleans, but that would be a lesser end scenario. Here is the higher end scenario or the ceiling with this storm.

[00:09:53]That would be that it misses uh Louisiana mostly to the south as it takes that southerly turn as a big ridge of high pressure starts to build in over the Red River kind of scooping this up and bringing it uh further west. Uh if that were to happen, then you could see what happens with a lot of the ensemble members as you start to get a camp here on the southern side of maybe about 20% or so of the members that take this up to hurricane status, even category 2 and 1 or 2 and they're uh finding category 3 status and moving this out closer to the south-central Texas coastline uh kind of south of Houston there uh towards Corpus Christi. So, those are really are the two options at this point. I I really think or maybe something kind of in between, but that's the range of possibilities. You can see that as well on the European AI and uh its ensemble members. Now, this one either way keeping the storm weaker, uh but you can see one camp keeping it a weak tropical storm and moving it into Louisiana, the other uh getting it up to upper-grade tropical storm and keeping it further south. The GFS is an idiot. There's no other way to put it. The GFS has struggled with this system from the start. It really has no idea what it's talking about. So, hey, I showed it to you, but I throw that one in the trash.

[00:11:01]Here is the Google AI model, another model I think that has a pretty good handle on this one uh where it shows some of those members keeping this weak and kind of killing it out thanks to dry air and wind shear as it works inland towards the Lake Po- uh Lake Pontchartrain, excuse me. Uh but then there is that other set of members to the south uh that keep this a bit stronger uh and offshore, which would be a bigger problem for parts of Texas. One of my favorite charts uh to show with this setup is going to be this one and uh let me get this to a point that everything shows up better. There it is.

[00:11:31]All right, I had to find the right button.

[00:11:32]Uh I think this chart doing a great job of showing those possibilities as well.

[00:11:35]This is the ensemble view for the Google AI, the one I just showed you, uh but in a slightly different view. So, I want to start with this upper box right here. Uh this is max wind speed forecast in knots uh from those AI models. And you can see here, it might be kind of hard to see, but most of them are in that tropical storm range uh from mid to upper grade tropical storm is what a lot of the model data has there. But, notice how the upper arm below from this or kind of the top 10% of model members do have a chunk of those models that get this up into category one, category two status, and that'll be something to watch. So, I think the ceiling right now probably cat two, that general corridor. I think the floor is basically what we have now, a weak tropical storm, and the most likely scenario, as I said earlier, being kind of somewhere in between, upper tropical storm to low end hurricane. And that might be a little bit above the mean in the models, but given how the Gulf is acting and how the storm is already over-performing what uh models said a couple days ago, I feel pretty safe in making that my forecast right now for max intensity. And you can see that here also on our sea level pressure forecast, where about 10% get this down to hurricane sea level pressures. Most models have keep it in that 990 range for a max intensity uh from a pressure standpoint. All right, that's an update on the ensemble view of things. I think that was important to take a look at. Uh now, let's take a look at well, future radar. Where are we going from here?

[00:12:54]How's the structure of the storm going to change? What do some of the models say for track and impacts? Let's go ahead and dive into all of that.

[00:13:01]Let's start with one of the hurricane models. This is the HWRF model, I think doing a pretty good job on uh showing the storm in the right way. I'm not really going to be able to show you a lot of the global models because honestly, I think they're just doing a bad job with this one, so I don't want to give you information that I think is wrong. Now, we will look at some global model data in terms of rainfall and stuff like that. But, in terms of the evolution of the storm, the hurricane models are the way to go here with um what is uh going to be named uh or be named Bertha, sorry. Had a had a blank uh there for a second. For some reason, I keep wanting to call this Debbie, which was that weak tropical storm that impacted uh the Carolinas. Uh was it 2 years ago now? Um so, I don't know why I would keep wanting to call this one Debbie, but uh I guess it is in a similar place. Either way, back to the part that matters, the forecast. All right, so we'll time this out throughout the day today. Notice uh this morning uh the model here showing some of that dry air, but honestly initializing the storm pretty well, and throughout the day today really wraps around that center, and by the time we get to this evening around 8:00 o'clock, uh notice the storm becoming a a lot more organized with heavy rain wrapping around the center.

[00:14:00]Now, something to note is still that dry air on the northern side of the system.

[00:14:04]I do think that and then some wind shear combined are going to keep this one lopsided, but still some of those outer rain bands impacting the Big Bend of Florida today, up into the Panhandle, gusty winds, heavy rain, all being a concern. Then the storm uh hits what looks like is going to be its max intensity around tomorrow morning on this model. This would probably be a mid- upper grade tropical storm. In fact, if we take a look at uh the wind speeds here, notice these are just raw wind speeds. These are not uh wind gusts. You could see those values getting in that 50-mph range here in parts of the uh if you want to call it the eye wall, we could call it that. And uh keep going ahead in time. I guess here is really more max strength whenever it gets uh closer to hurricane status um by what would be tomorrow evening on Tuesday. So, this model again keeping that as the max wind speed. And then uh something I'm kind of disagreeing with a little bit more, but is absolutely possible, is uh this model kind of shreds the storm a little bit. Honestly, it it hits some wind shear, and what happens here is that low-level circulation uh just kind of gets ripped apart by that dry air and wind shear, moves inland into Florida and Alabama, and there's really not much left of the storm after that.

[00:15:12]You could see as it marches east, it kind of fizzles out, which uh is it a possibility? That absolutely is a possibility. It's one of the options on the table. I happen to believe that that area of circulation will stay a little bit further south, but if the trends continue with something like this model shows, then hey, maybe this one kind of ramps up big time in the next 24 to 48 hours and then fizzles out as that dry air and wind shear kind of battered a little bit from the north. So, a very real possibility there and I'll show you the wind speeds one more time. You can see how that kind of works on in. Now, with a setup like this, I will say by tomorrow we definitely could see a little bit of storm surge, not a lot, but enough that it would be annoying out here in the parts of the Florida panhandle as this will be winds out of the south, so maybe some light surge 1 to 3 ft. Definitely coastal flooding at the very least if you don't even want to call it surge, you just want to call it coastal flooding.

[00:15:59]It might be a better way to categorize that, but then if it does what the model says here and just kind of fizzles out, then problems will not be as widespread into Louisiana, although I will say that um heavy rain would still be a bit of a concern further west from there. You can see how some of that rain still getting into southern Louisiana, but then kind of fizzles out a little bit. All right, that's one model. Let's take a look at another one. Give you another option on the table here and uh keep on rolling through the data.

[00:16:27]All right, the HMON, another one of those hurricane models doing a good job at showing maybe the higher-end scenario with the southerly track for places further west towards Texas. Last model really didn't show much for those areas.

[00:16:37]This model uh doing a better job at showing potential impacts down the road if the storm maintains itself over the next 48 hours and doesn't just fall apart off the coast like the last model showed. All right, so basically all of our data agrees the storm's going to strengthen today and into tomorrow. So, I really think the next 24 to 48 hours the storm is going to start to ramp up.

[00:16:53]Yes, there's some wind shear as I smack my desk as hard as I possibly can. Sorry if you heard that. Um but uh remember warm sea surface temperatures, that moisture field starting to increase, the storm definitely uh getting a little bit more organized over the next 24 to 36 hours. This is by tomorrow evening on Tuesday. Uh you can see a well-defined tropical system here about maybe 50 to 100 mi uh south of Pensacola and Mobile, Alabama. And if I turn on the winds on this one, you can see that yeah, pretty strong in here. Remember, these are just raw winds. These are not wind gusts.

[00:17:25]This model showing an upper end tropical storm, lower end hurricane. And you keep that moving eastbound and it keeps that strength a bit more. In fact, look at the max wind start to pick up here. It shows 85 mph by overnight tomorrow into Wednesday. So, that would be rapid intensification over the next 36 hours is what the HMON here shows. And then kind of parallels this into Louisiana.

[00:17:46]So, keeps that southerly track. Now, it does start to get beaten a little bit here by some dry air returning by Wednesday. So, a trend that we've seen in both the past two models is a max intensity actually in the near term on approach to Louisiana.

[00:17:59]So, that is something definitely interesting of note to keep in mind.

[00:18:03]And then shows it kind of getting ripped apart a little bit on the way to Texas, which is interesting because it's different than what the ensemble show.

[00:18:10]Like I just had kind of plopped there for you earlier on.

[00:18:15]And you can see with future radar how that general path plays out. So, I'll tell you it's a tough one to figure out this one is. Good old Bertha is going to be the death of some meteorologist, I think. But either way I think to kind of give you a couple maybe not final points here cuz we've got more to talk about. But a couple points from this little segment where we've talked about the hurricane models is all agree and I agree that this will strengthen over the next 36 hours. Then kind of maybe hits a bit of a lull and starts to degrade a bit on approach to Louisiana.

[00:18:43]And then we'll see what happens after that. But a lot of the data kind of conflicting here for sure. Will be interesting to see what ends up happening. All right, let's give you those final points and talk about rainfall that this storm could bring before I let you go.

[00:18:55]To talk about the rainfall forecast, I actually need to zoom on out because folks outside of Bertha, as ironic as it is going to be, are likely to have a bigger rainfall threat than areas that are actually going to see the worst of the storm down to the south. So, let me give you an update on our low level vorticity. This is our spin map. You can clearly see Bertha spinning away down to the south here on the European model.

[00:19:16]The European kind of doing what that first hurricane model I showed you did, which is fizzle this out over land over the next couple days. Again, something you definitely to watch and to keep in mind. But further to the north, something I want you to be mindful of is a stalled out front on the way to the eastern United States by about Thursday.

[00:19:34]This actually going to be a bigger rainfall maker than Bertha just because of the way that the wind shear and the dry air is impacting the storm. This looks to hang out over the Carolinas and the coastal sections of the East Coast.

[00:19:45]Obviously, coastal sections of the East Coast, right? It's the coast, Gerald.

[00:19:48]Duh.

[00:19:49]But anyway, that stalled out front, you could see just keeping in the exact same place for an extended period of time. So folks, the rainfall threat actually over the next week going to be the highest in the Carolinas and you could see that here with future rainfall totals showing up here on the model. Look at some of these numbers up towards Raleigh and into Virginia Beach, Elizabeth City, showing some places near 10 inches of rain through the 26th, through the end of this week. Now most of that falling in the later half of the week you could see relatively dry-ish to [laughter] today and tomorrow, but then really ramping up there and we'll want to watch where that stalled out front as I've talked a lot about that over the past week or so and how that would be a problem for the end of the month. And then to the south with Bertha, some pretty good rainfall maybe into the Florida panhandle, but after that, the forecast gets really tricky for places like Texas to be honest with you.

[00:20:40]I mean I feel pretty good about this storm the next 36 hours, but does it fall apart over Louisiana? Does it stay offshore and move further out towards Texas?

[00:20:49]That is something to figure out. I'll tell you maybe throughout the video today my mind has changed a little bit on the southerly track. While it still may make that, growing odds that maybe max intensity is actually here in the near term. But hey, I showed you all the data today and there's a lot of conflicting pieces. So go easy on me the next couple days.

[00:21:08]All right, here's your main forecast points for today. Bertha to form well later today or maybe already today depending on when you're watching this.

[00:21:15]Just want to make that the main headline though. Most likely max intensity is upper end tropical storm, low end hurricane. I feel good about that. I think the question is when does it do that? Does it do that in the near term or further out towards Texas? Honestly leaning now maybe closer to the mid term or the near term rather kind of maybe sometime tomorrow or even a very early Wednesday could see that max intensity on approach to Louisiana before some wind shear and drier catches back up to it. Intensity forecast is the highest uncertainty for Texas. As I just said, I think I made that a pretty good point here at the end of the video. That is going to be tough to figure out. Folks, if you like the video well like it, subscribe, hit the bell for the latest notifications. Hype it up down below and let me know where you're watching from as well and we'll keep talking about Bertha here obviously and by tomorrow going to have to talk a lot more about that Carolina rainfall threat. But that is something that luckily we can talk more about as we get into tomorrow because that looks more of a late week problem. But definitely wanted to keep you updated on Bertha here this morning / afternoon / evening / whenever you are watching this video. All righty folks, that's all I've got for you in today's forecast. Appreciate you staying with me here and trusting me to give it to you and I'll see you all next time with another brand new update.