>Tropical Depression four to make landfall on Fla. Panhandle as T.S Claudette

This beautiful sat image shows the strong core convection of this system and this to me looks like Tropical Storm Claudette…

The ball of convection, tall, cold cloud tops and with, light shear and bath-water warmth to tap, this is a perfect set up and example of the danger of in-close development is. I give full credit to AccuWeather.com Meteorologist Joe Bastardi who has ranted about this system posing danger to the Gulf Coast by late in the weekend, when literally no one else was on to this.. I admit like the Weather Channel, other sources and myself have been focusing more on Ana and Bill without looking closer to the US where this tropical wave ran through the straits and then started to form banding features as well as an increase in convection which has showed signs of inward rotation and the formation of a closed surface low pressure.

Landfall is expected around the Appalachicola area on the Florida Panhandle by late Sunday as a 45 mph tropical storm, expected from this is heavy, tropical rains, 35-55 mph winds (higher gusts), strongest on the coast with minimal damage, biggest impact should be from flooding caused by flooding…

Rapid Intensification burst?

If this system had longer over the water of 85-88 degrees and with the conducive atmosphere to go with it, this system may have threatened hurricane status… I wouldn’t be surprised even if this system strengthened it’s winds as it makes final approach through this afternoon though if it had another night spent in an atmosphere of light shear and shelf waters near 90 degrees, nocturnal influences may have beefed up the vertical heights and explosiveness in it’s core surrounding thunderstorms and therefore tightening it’s wind field in towards the center as it’s surrounded to the north and east by land, perhaps ending up as a strong tropical storm and producing wind gusts as high as 70 mph… but too little too late for this system and it will make landfall likely as a weak to moderate tropical storm..

We shall wait and see… Coming later, I shall discussion the latest across the rest of the tropics as it continues to ramp up. But don’t think this is us going for a 20-30 day ramp up, increased convection and upward motion across the Atlantic was seen first in the southwest Pacific, then eastern Pacific and now Atlantic and it will pass and become quiet once again. Until that quiet time, we may have seen a few hurricanes develop and 1 or two make landfall in the US. Ana continues to struggle with an exposed surface low, but this storm is one to watch as it survives very hostile environment, if this thing breaks away from the high concentration of air as it pushes west, northwest into the Caribbean, it could go to hurricane status very fast.. More on Bill later.

Thanks for reading.

-Mark