Norbert is forming rapidly under ideal conditions and has stalled for now. Norbert has moved westward but it may still be possible for it to head back northeast, especially considering the tropical wave for Marie has stalled with the remnants, which continue to give the California coast a wild gift and a wet one to the northern great plains.

Norbert is being compressed between Marie's tropical wave and the following which could develop into Odalys, which if it does form will almost certainly threaten the Baja peninsula. I am watching this situation intensely due to my location in Santa Rosalia, BCS, about the center of the western shore of the Sea of Cortez.

As you can see from the news, the NHC's persistent forecast that Hawaii would be missed by Lowell was once again misguided and poor forecasting that cost one life and fortunately not much more, at least so far.

Perhaps if we were governed by people who cared (we are supposed to be governed by ourselves...whatever happened to that?)


Some additional thoughts after this update: After studying the tropical waves associated with Lowell, Marie, Norbert, and the following, I have observed what seems to be to be the forcing of the following tropical wave towards Mexico which puts the formation of any system in the nursery where storms like Odile, Norma, Jimena, and others have formed that have affected the peninsula. Normally this has already happened and it appears to be on the same general schedule as 2014, a year which shares storm names with this year (Odile was retired in trade for Odalys). If Odalys forms, it could be steered by the sea surface temperatures that remain along and in fact on both sides of Baja. This could be another year for major damaging storms on the peninsula. The only way it won't be is if conditions change soon, where there looks to be no mechanism to bring about such change.

Just start preparing now.
.....


8 Sep 16:00: Norbert has formed south of puerto San Carlos and east of the southern Mexican border and is presently heading approximately northwest to slightly west of that heading. It is headed almost directly for the cooler waters created by Marie which promise to steer the storm either towards or away from the peninsula. At this point the storm appears to be west of this point so unless Norber hooks a hard right we are looking at a storm that will drift northwest, form as a strong hurricane if sheering forces remain as they are, and remain safely out in the pacific.

These are my preliminary predictions. The NHC, the only thing I follow other than satellite and SSTs, has not even acknowledged Norbert has organized. It has done so quite rapidly and promises to be a strong hurricane. It appears that conditions are and will remain ripe for development of this storm.

It is my estimation that the net effect of this storm will be cooling the seas west of what Marie cooled. This will leave a band of hot water along the pacific coast of the Baja peninsula which, along with the 30+ degC water, will continue to feed thunderstorm formation in the hills and on the water while tropical low pressure waves pass overhead, as is happening today.

I will be keeping a close eye on this storm as well as the conditions on the Sea of Cortez. I have already noticed storms are likely in the entire spanse of the sea from Puerto Penasco to Mazatlan. We experienced our first storm early this morning though it was still an indirect hit as we experienced no lightning nearby and only mild conditions. We were actually sandwiched between storms forming on the sea near Isla Tortuga and those occurring as a result of the air mass and updrafts from the storms in sea, which of course formed in the mountains of the peninsula. We did get a squall from the sea based storms but the wind shifted back and forth after about 30 minutes of wind off the sea.

The storms have gotten mild because of the lack of input energy from the sun due to the day length shortening and angle of incidence decreasing. But they remain dangerous to sailors and in fact have gotten more dangerous because they are smaller, but still just as intense where they do occur.

Good luck to everyone.

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