Jason Godwin's Weather (and Other Stuff) Blog

After briefly attaining hurricane status this morning, Barry has made landfall near Intracoastal City, LA, and has since weakened back to a tropical storm. Wind gusts to tropical storm force are being felt across south-central Louisiana with New Iberia recently reporting a wind gust to 61 mph. Lafayette has also hit tropical storm force, reporting 40 mph during the past couple of hours. Even as far inland as Baton Rouge has had a few tropical storm force wind gusts. Lake Charles, LA radar at 3:34 p.m. CDT (image source: GR2Analyst). Radar shows that the north and west sides of Barry are largely devoid of convection, but some fairly robust convection exists to the south and southeast of the center. It is hard to get a read on how strong the winds are in this convection as Doppler radar doesn't have a great view of it. As an aside, wind must have a component moving towards or away from the radar for the radar to measure it. In this case, the wind in the region of interest ...

Tropical Storm Barry is about 75 miles south of Morgan City, LA per the 10 p.m. NHC advisory. Barry continues to track very slowly towards the west-northwest, but a turn towards the northwest, then north is expected during the next 12-24 hours. On satellite, Barry is looking a little better organized this evening. Earlier today, the center of circulation was largely exposed with little in the way of deep convection around it. Now, the convection is trying to wrap around the center, and infrared satellite indicates that cloud tops are cooling -- a sign that the convection is getting more intense. GOES-16 Channel 13 "Clean Infrared" image of Tropical Storm Barry (source: College of DuPage ) Despite the northern side being almost totally devoid of convection, gusty winds have made their way onto the Louisiana coast. New Orleans , Houma (Terrebonne Parish), and Patterson (St. Mary Parish) have all reported tropical storm force wind gusts in the past hour. Even Lafayette ...

As of the 10 a.m. CDT advisory, Tropical Storm Barry has maximum sustained winds of 65 mph and minimum pressure of 998 mb. This represents an increase in winds of 15 mph, and a drop in pressure of 7 mb since this time yesterday. Manual surface analysis valid at 10 a.m. CDT Friday showing Tropical Storm Barry. The forecast has not changed that dramatically during the last 24 hours. The official forecast track continues to bring the center of Barry near the Louisiana coast in the vicinity of Morgan City on Saturday morning as a category one hurricane. After landfall, the center should track roughly along the U.S. 90 corridor, bringing it near or just east of Lafayette, then into Central Louisiana. Barry should weaken after making landfall. NHC Official Forecast Track issued at 10 a.m. CDT Friday. The main concern with Barry continues to be rainfall. The slow-moving nature of Barry, combined with already wet soil conditions and high rivers in South Louisiana will result in a v...

NHC this morning initiated advisories on Potential Tropical Cyclone #2 (PTC #2). As of the 10 p.m. CDT advisory, this area of low pressure is not yet a tropical depression, though NHC notes that it is quite close. Indeed, the minimum pressure is now down to 1,009 mb, and winds have ticked up slightly to 30 mph. Nighttime "GeoColor" GOES-16 satellite image of Potential Tropical Cyclone #2  (10:06 p.m. CDT 7/10) As for the forecast, there remains a bit of uncertainty, stemming largely from the fact that we do not yet have a well-defined low-level center of circulation. Nevertheless, the majority of model guidance brings PTC #2 towards the Louisiana coast by Saturday afternoon. In their 10 p.m. discussion, NHC noted that their forecast lies on the west side of the guidance envelope, so it is possible we see an eastward shift in the forecast with time, but one should not count on that , as there has been considerable run-to-run discrepancy with the models (i.e. each run of ...

Over the last few days, we have been tracking Invest 92L. The weak area of low pressure was initially over Georgia, but has now moved out over the northeastern Gulf of Mexico. Conditions are favorable for development, and NHC is forecasting a high chance for tropical cyclone formation during the next 24-48 hours. The Hurricane Hunters are scheduled to fly into the area of low pressure on Wednesday to determine whether a tropical depression (or tropical storm) has formed. NHC Graphical Tropical Weather Outlook - issued 7 PM CDT July 9, 2019 I'm just getting this blog and website up and running again, and I hope to keep some tropical stuff (and other things) going throughout the season, so stay tuned!