Tropical Storm Bonnie making landfall in South FL..Next stop New Orleans
Despite strong southeasterly upper-level wind shear, Bonnie still made landfall in South Florida as a weak tropical storm with maximum sustained winds of 35 knots. As seen in the IR image at left, most of the convection is north of the center of circulation, with only the most robust rain bands producing tropical storm-force winds. Given the 30-50 knots of 300-200 mb flow above Bonnie and over the eastern Gulf of Mexico, there is very little convection to the southeast of the circulation, so conditions should improve rather quickly today over southeast FL...especially given the fairly quick forward speed of around 16 knots to the west-northwest. The RUC analysis
at left shows the strongly southeasterly
shear between a strong antcyclone over the eastern U.S. and slow-moving upper-level low in the Gulf of Mexico that is currently ripping Bonnie apart, and will continue to do so when the center moves out over the Gulf. This shear will prevent Bonnie from strengthening despite the warm ocean waters, and may even cause a weakening below tropical storm strength prior to landfall in southeast Louisiana early Sunday morning as indicated by a majority of the models. Still though, the GFDL intensifies Bonnie to a moderate tropical storm strength after re-emergence over the Gulf of Mexico, with maximum sustained winds of 45 knots at landfall, especially to the north and northeast of the center given the expected continuance of southeasterly shear. Therefore, the NHC has issued tropical storm warnings across southwest Florida for today, and from the extreme western Florida Panhandle through most of southeast Louisiana for Saturday night and early Sunday. TVN storm chasers will likely be streaming live video of Bonnie at landfall (assuming everyone isn't in SD chasing the anticipated tornado outbreak), so be sure to check out the Live page over the next few days!
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