Excerpt:
"The official forecast track may not be perfect. It might go left, and it might go to the right," said Richard Knabb, the hurricane center's science and operations officer. "It's a slow-moving system, so it has a lot of time to take a slightly different path than what we're forecasting."
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/caribbean/sfl-jeanne,0,6144569.story?coll=sfla-news-caribbean
Jeanne's path unclear, but South Florida is vulnerable
By Ken Kaye
Sun-Sentinel
Posted September 22 2004, 11:49 PM EDT
By Ken Kaye
Sun-Sentinel
Posted September 22 2004, 11:49 PM EDT
| Hurricane Jeanne might eventually head toward the Carolinas, but along the way it could get uncomfortably close to South Florida and already is producing pounding waves and dangerous rip currents, particularly in Palm Beach County. By this morning, the storm, which left at least 1,000 dead in Haiti, was to be in the Atlantic about 650 miles east of Boca Raton. It was projected to draw within 300 miles of the South Florida shoreline by Saturday.
The problem is, the track remains uncertain, mainly because Jeanne is crawling so slowly and has the potential to spin in any direction, said the National Hurricane Center in Miami-Dade County. "Anytime a hurricane moves slow, it's very hard to forecast its track and intensity," said center meteorologist Krissy Williams. "Everyone from South Florida to the Outer Banks should monitor this storm over the weekend." Late Wednesday, Jeanne was about 470 miles east of Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas, drifting west at 4 mph with sustained winds of 100 mph, making it a Category 2. Jeanne might churn close enough to the central and northern Bahamas that hurricane watches and warnings might need to be posted by Friday, forecasters said. Those islands also are seeing large swells. The threat of Tropical Storm Lisa has diminished considerably. Still in the distant Atlantic, it weakened to 50 mph on Wednesday and was expected to turn north and pose no threat to land. For now, forecasters are confident that Jeanne will slide around the perimeter of a high-pressure ridge over the Atlantic and arc toward North Carolina. It could curve out to sea and miss land altogether. However, over the next three days, the system was to continue meandering west, putting all of South Florida in its potential path, according to the hurricane center's cone of error. The future track calls for the system to be about 200 miles east of Daytona Beach on Sunday, approaching Wilmington, N.C., on Monday. "The official forecast track may not be perfect. It might go left, and it might go to the right," said Richard Knabb, the hurricane center's science and operations officer. "It's a slow-moving system, so it has a lot of time to take a slightly different path than what we're forecasting." This is the second time the region has been in Jeanne's sights, as the storm initially aimed in this direction last Thursday, then looped around the western Atlantic. After briefly building into a hurricane last week, then deflating, Jeanne grew back to hurricane strength on Tuesday. As a tropical storm, Jeanne triggered deadly flooding in Haiti over the weekend. Meanwhile, Hurricane Karl continued marching north toward cooler waters. It was not expected to pose a major threat to land. Ken Kaye can be reached at kkaye@sun-sentinel.com or 954-385-7911. | ||||||||||||||||
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