August 2020:

[Katdaddy]

Quick check-in to see the latest. Checked the satellite to see Laura just off the tip of Cuba and located more W than expected. I see the cone shifting back W later this morning which the models are indicating. Off to bed to get more rest before the long day ahead.

[Scott747]

They don't update the cone on intermediate advisories. They will at 4.

[don]

I think the Houston/Galveston area will be under a Hurricane watch at the 5AM advisory.

[Cpv17]

With the way the EPS has been, these shifts west aren’t a surprise for many of us. But we’ll see what the NHC says. I still have doubts they’ll shift the cone very much.

[Andrew]

ECMWF ensemble shifted south and now only about 10 of them go east of Galveston.

[Waded]

Eric Webb forecasting a cat 3-4 making landfall between Port O'Connor and Freeport.

https://twitter.com/webberweather/statu ... 6883759105

I fear the city will enter a state of pandemonium as the sun rises as officials really start to raise the alarm in the face of an inevitably intensifying hurricane.

I hope officials remember the lessons of Rita, Ike, and Harvey. I hope the citizens remember. I fear Laura will be a bigger challenge than those prior storms, due to just how short a time frame the city has to prepare. A day and a half just isn't enough. Speaking anecdotally, I know my coworkers have been blowing it off. Even got an email saying the "hurricane hysteria" was looking like it will go east of us this past weekend. None of them thought we really were going to get a storm. So many cried wolfs in the past, and even this year, and Houston had been hanging around as seemingly an outlier solution until suddenly, maybe, it wasn't. What was Space City Weather posting a few days ago? A 5 percent probability?

Hopefully the models will swing back east during the daytime like they have been (sorry, Jefferson County, its thousands vs millions). It doesn't seem as likely as this time around, though.

[Belmer]

EPS ensembles... all (but maybe one or two) avoid Louisiana.

Yet Laura still looks south of them all. Laura's fast pace westward, a stronger Bermuda ridge the Euro is forecasting, I wouldn't rule the Freeport area out either putting Houston in the dirty quadrant of the storm. Either way, it's an ugly scenario direct landfall or not.

[Kingwood36]

Looks like they are going to wait till the 10 am advisory to shift the cone because they didnt at the 4 am

[weatherguy425]

4 AM Track -

• watch expanded southwest
• slight nudge west in the track

[Scott747]

I give up.

[weatherguy425]

CRUCIAL text from the advisory discussion.

[Belmer]

I'd be surprised if mandatory evacuations weren't issued before noon for those along the coast.


FWIW: 06z ICON is further west than yesterday runs. High Island landfall.

[Scott747]

They have to get over this bs about not wanting to make such a large shift.

And then admit that it likely will be needed. We're inside of 48 hrs.

[Andrew]

Man, I hope the NHC is right about not overreacting to the change in models overnight. Hopefully, the day/night trend continues and the 12z suite shifts east.

[Belmer]

06z GFS coming in with a much stronger ridge. Very similar to the 00z Euro.

GFS makes landfall near Port Arthur. Just ever so slightly west from the 00z run.

[Andrew]

Yea 06Z was the most easterly global model and now it's west of the border and the nhc.

[christinac2016]

Laura
We need Ed Emmett to tell us to hunker down.

Ike and Rita were no joke. If Laura is comparable then we’re in for a doozie

[weatherguy425]

06Z GEFSV2 (new GFS) has many members along the upper Texas coast and, if anything, has trended a hair south and west.

[unome]

NHC Audio Podcasts Archive https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/audio/archive/

Current will be here, when available https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/audio/

I am listening to tv mets say the track "could move as far west as the left or right side of the cone" - actually, it could move outside the cone... the cone has nothing to do with the current storm or conditions or model errors or forecaster trepidation to change a forecast track

https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutcone.shtml

https://youtu.be/04QRN5gUe08

[srainhoutx]

Too close for comfort with the 06Z HMON.