I'm meteorologist Melissa Nord.
This is an update Saturday midday
on Tropical Storm Ian and what
else is happening in the tropics?
Let me show you the latest on Ian.
This is the 11:00 o'clock
advisory that came in.
Winds are still 65 mph with gusts to another
45 mph with gusts to 60 moving W at 15.
Hurricane Hunters did
investigate it this morning,
and they have more missions,
several more missions scheduled
throughout the day today,
so they'll keep an eye on
what the pressures doing,
where the center of low pressure is
and the winds that are happening.
Inside the storm,
but right now still a little bit of shear
on the West on the eastern side of it.
Otherwise, though,
it is looking slightly more healthy
on satellite than what it was looking
like first thing this morning.
But there's still the same tropical storm.
Watch for Jamaica and Hurricane watch for
the Cayman Islands that are in effect.
Winds are 45 mph,
gusts to 60, moving W at 15.
Let me show you the spaghetti models,
because this really tells a story.
The models are pretty closely clustered.
Over the next couple of days,
but by the time we get in towards
landfall time for a middle of the week,
Wednesday or even Thursday,
there's a pretty big spread and a large
amount of uncertainty for the storm
of where it's going to make landfall.
You notice there's some models that take
it all the way as W as the earmold coast,
some models bring it in towards the Big bend,
and even some models that try
to take it South of Tampa for
that actual landfall location.
These models are predicting where the center,
that's what this graphic is showing you,
where they think the center of
the storm will end up going.
But ultimately,
there are effects from major
hurricanes that are felt hundreds
of miles outside the center, right?
Hurricanes can be really big, large systems.
They are not all very small and compact.
There's only been a few that
have been small and compact,
but this is a big model spread.
OK,
So what you really need to take
away from this is if you're anywhere
along the Gulf Coast of Florida,
you need to be watching this very closely
in the coming days because whoever.
Is in the path of that landfall.
The impacts are going to be significant.
There will be big destruction,
but we don't know exactly where
that landfall is going to be.
It is Saturday.
Landfall may not be until Wednesday
or even Thursday.
Some of the models have it slowing
down a lot more.
So a lot of uncertainty still
with the models and the what the
reason why is they're trying to
get a handle on exactly.
This trough of low pressure,
this dip in the jet stream,
so to speak,
we have a front coming through
North Georgia tomorrow and
behind it a dip in the jet
stream. And models are trying to figure
out how deep is that dip in the jet stream.
What's the orientation of it?
Et cetera, et cetera,
because that will help to steer
Ian in one way or the other.
Tropical systems do not have
their own steering wheels.
They don't know where to go
and can't maneuver themselves
up like a cold front does.
They get steered by larger scale
features in the atmosphere.
So there's the opportunity for
this storm to either move in
towards Florida or Western Florida,
even towards the Panhandle.
We just don't know yet.
And here's an example.
This is the European and.
American models from Saturday morning,
see how they are originally closely,
you know, clustered.
This is showing you what they think
the center of the storm is going to go.
These are the lines of pressure.
We call this MSLP.
But notice already by Tuesday
morning a little bit of a spread
as it's passing over Cuba,
and then a bigger spread beyond that,
the Europeans still trying to take
this in towards Southwest Florida.
Meanwhile,
the American model is trying to
bring this up towards Apalachicola.
So there's a huge spread in
model still on this Saturday,
and that's what I think is
concerning because some people over
the weekend may just think, OK,
well, I saw the truck on Friday.
You know, I know what to expect.
I'm not going to be impacted.
But there's still a lot of
uncertainty with where this will go.
Here's the official cone of uncertainty
from the National Hurricane Center.
This is the 11:00 o'clock
advisory this morning.
That landfall is a major hurricane.
Um.
Will likely be, you know,
really anywhere on the West Coast of Florida.
So we don't really know.
I know you see this line
down the center of that cone,
but the line doesn't mean that
that's where the storm's going to be.
It can be anywhere within that
cone of uncertainty.
And that's just the center of the
storm impacts can be felt well outside of it.
So the main takeaways are this
will have everything in it's it's,
you know toolbox to become a major hurricane.
But where that landfall is that's
still very much uncertain.
So there are going to be significant impacts,
but we don't know where those
will be for North Georgia itself.
Could we see impacts?
You know, it's really too early to say.
Depending on where it makes landfall,
we could either end up with some
rain and some gusty winds,
or we could see nothing at all
but some added cloud cover.
It's really too early to say.
And not just where landfall is,
but what happens with the
storm after landfall.
So that's really what I want you to
take away from it is even though.
Landfalls not until middle of next week.
We have to pay very close
attention and for North Georgia,
we just don't know if we're
going to see any
impacts or not.
Here's the big picture.
There's Ian down in the Caribbean.
We also have three other name
storms out in the Atlantic.
Fiona has battered the Canadian
Maritimes early Saturday and last night.
That'll keep moving northward.
It's post tropical,
not a tropical system anymore and we still
have guests on pulling away from the Azores.
And then Hermine,
which is off the coast of Africa,
one other area with a low
chance of development.
Doesn't look like it'll develop,
but if it were to develop
the next name on the list.
Is Julia.