Fay Update 8/19

First of all, I had a great time today at the Jones County Mitigation Hazards Public Meeting! It was an honor to represent WDAM's weathercenter and to be able to share with others how we "serve the public" during severe weather events. Thank you to all of you who were able to make it out today.
------
One thing is for sure...Fay is different. The whole life cycle of Fay has been a different experience. When the tropical storm was 300 miles south of Florida we still had a forecast cone stretching across the whole state of Florida. Once Fay made landfall we began to see signs of strengthening, which is completely opposite to our science of tropical storms. Now we begin to forecast Fay to doubleback into NE Florida on Thursday, but we still don't have a strong grasp on Fay's track after she begins to move back west.

I am only certain Fay will go down in the books as a rare and abnormal event.

Forecasting Fay:
My eye is still focused on the high pressure just north of "the mitten" of Michigan. A few models are too far south on intializing the High, but GFS seems to be one of the closest models in initialization stage (along with the European). This is interesting because the GFS is one of the few models still showing Fay entering back into the Gulf. Initialization is an important stage in using models to forecast because you must know where a model is starting/beginning before looking into the future.
My thoughts are still similar to yesterday...I still expect this High to move more eastward and cause Fay to cut across the southern edge of Georgia while maintaining a land-only track.

Showers are still in our forecast for tomorrow afternoon (similar to today). Yet again, I am still keeping a close eye on our weekend forecast here in the Pine Belt.

tcade@wdam.com