Tropical Update 10/13/12

Let me introduce you to Tropical storm Patty. Yes this is the water vapor image of Tropical storm Patty. Personally we think this is a stretch to consider this a tropical storm... We find it kind of odd that the latest HPC surface analysis map does not even recognize this...

However..officially the National Hurricane Center has this listed as a tropical storm and the name is Patty.. 
We have been being asked if Patty is going to be a threat to the east coast... the answer is quite simply no..  With the conditions that are currently effecting Patty she is not going to last very long...

You can see that shear is increasing pretty much in the general area of where Patty is by looking at the most recent shear tendency map or by looking at the latest shear map. This is pretty much the reason why Patty looks the way Patty does..
The other reason is when you look at the 700 mb vorticity , 500 and 200 mb vorticity levels you notice that these are not vertically stacked...

In other words we have a system that essentially is trying to develop but has very unfavorable conditions to develop in. 

Essentially the system is trapped in very weak flow which essentially means that the system should meander for the next 12-24 hrs. What this also does is makes the system bring cooler waters up from underneath and helps to also disrupt a developing system.. This should open into an open wave as it begins to move southwest ....

Now in addition to Patty we have the following:

This is 98 L. Again, using the same images above we see the 98 L is also very close to some high shear and you can see this on the water vapor image above ..how the system is stretched out and elongated almost in a SW to NE type fashion.. The vorticity also shows this quite well..

Also looking at the same steering currents this should generally move in a NW fashion. This means it will be moving towards a higher shear location as well. 
We do not think at this present time that this system will have an effect on the east coast either as a cold front that will be moving off the east coast should be enough to push this system and keep it out to sea...
Convergence and divergence is decent across this system..

So if the shear off to its NW can decrease we are looking at the potential for a more interesting system at least as far as watching on the satellite. However..if the shear does not decrease ..with elongation stretched out then this may not develop. We will continue to keep an eye on both these systems. This should at least make depression status with in the next 48 hrs. However.. we are not very bullish for tropical storm status until we see that shear begin to relax some....

As far as severe weather is concerned we will be doing an outlook later today for Saturday.. 

This is the only map we have made so far and this is just to show the tracking from 12 Z saturday to 00z Sunday which is actually Saturday evening..

We have seen the words Major Tornado outbreak being forecasted. 
Folks let me stress that something like that is not going to be known a week in advance ... if you see anyone suggesting something like that a week in advance they are simply hyping/wishcasting or forecasting what they want to happen and this is simply wrong. 

People need to be accountable for what they put across to the public. Just because it is on Facebook does not mean it is private. Facebook is public which makes the information public.

There is a real fear out there that people have and it is called Astrophobia where they fear severe weather. We provide counseling to these type of people. So when they see things like Major Tornado Outbreak because of that fear it sends them into a Panic Attack of which they then need to be talked thru and down out of.

Folks there is a reason why we do not issue a severe weather outlook until 24 hrs before...because it is not until this time that the parameters become more "reliable!" Guidance changes every 6 hrs. 
So next time you see a Major tornado Outbreak etc a week in advance or 72 hrs in advance ask yourself how this person knows this with the guidance changing every 6 hrs?