Waaaay out in the eastern Atlantic sits TS Vince. Definitely not going to be a bother unless you live in Portugal or Spain. Just over a month and a half left in this year’s season, and Wilma is the last name left before NHC starts digging into the greek alphabet. Will we reach that record setting Alpha2005? Stay tuned and find out…
No slacking off yet
The NHC is calling this subtropical depression 22
SUBTROPICAL INSTEAD OF TROPICAL DUE TO THE INTERACTION WITH A LARGE-MID/UPPER LEVEL LOW SOUTH OF THE CYCLONE.
Forecast has it reaching tropical storm in a couple of days, but looks like it will be staying out in the ocean and heading to the northeast US. After all the rain they’ve had this weekend, they might get another drenching next weekend.
From today’s 5PM discussion:
THE DEPRESSION REMAINS IN DEEP-LAYER EASTERLY FLOW NORTH OF THE MID/UPPER-LEVEL LOW WITH ABOUT 15 KT OF SHEAR. THE SHIPS MODEL SUGGESTS THAT THE SYSTEM WILL UNDERGO PULSES OF SHEAR DURING THE NEXT THREE DAYS…AND THEN UNDERGO SIGNIFICANT SHEAR AFTER THREE DAYS. THE GFDL AND THE LARGE-SCALE MODELS ALL LOSE THE SYSTEM IN 36-72 HR. ALL OF THIS…COMBINED WITH SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURES OF 26C-27C ALONG THE FORECAST TRACK…SUGGEST THE CYCLONE COULD STRUGGLE TO INTENSIFY. THE INTENSITY FORECAST CALLS FOR MODEST STRENGTHENING A LITTLE ABOVE THAT OF THE SHIPS MODEL… WITH A PEAK INTENSITY OF 50 KT IN 48 KT. THE NEW INTENSITY FORECAST CALLS FOR A FASTER WEAKENING AFTER 72 HR THAN THE PREVIOUS PACKAGE. IF THE LARGE-SCALE MODELS ARE CORRECT ON THE FORMATION OF THE SECOND LOW…OR IF THE SHIPS MODEL IS RIGHT ABOUT THE SHEAR… THE CYCLONE COULD WEAKEN EVEN FASTER. THERE IS STILL A CHANCE THE SYSTEM COULD FULLY TRANSITION TO A TROPICAL CYCLONE DURING THE NEXT 36-48 HR.
Sun Ultra 10 vs dual P II 450
How does a Sun Ultra 10 box compare with a dual Pentium II 450 box in terms of performance? We’ve been looking to replace this server for some time now, but since there is never any budget for this kind of thing, I’ve been relegated to scavenging hand-me down servers. One possibility is to take a Dell PowerEdge 6300 with dual P II Xeon 450s and see if I can turn it into a quad processor unit with the CPUs from this box. Another possibility replace this server with a Sun Ultra 10. I wonder if I can install Fedora on an Ultra 10…
Nope, x86 and PowerPC only…looks like I’ll be stuck with Solaris. I wonder how well Solaris 10 runs on an Ultra 10. Maybe if I’m lucky I’ll be able to scavenge enough parts to beef it up some.
According to Distributed.net‘s speed pages, a dual P II 450 will crunch RC5-72 keys at 1,825,164.00 keys/s (I think that’s probably this machine…). A dual UltraSPARC II 400 MHz does 1,134,165.67 keys/s.
Maybe I should try to set up the quad PII box…What I really need to do is scrounge up a better machine.
Tammy sprouts offshore
This morning when I woke up, they were just talking about the system in the Bahamas potentially becoming a tropical depression. I get out of the shower and it gets turned into TS Tammy with a center just off the coast of Florida. Good grief.
Fortunately, it’s not forecast to have much time to get any stronger than a tropical storm, so I expect the rest of the week to be breezy and rainy.
From today’s 0730 discussion:
TROPICAL STORM TAMMY IS MOVING FAIRLY RAPIDLY TOWARD THE NORTH-NORTHWEST…WITH ESTIMATED INITIAL MOTION OF 335/14 BASED PRIMARILY ON RADAR FIXES. THE STEERING IS BEING PROVIDED BY THE SOUTHERLY FLOW IN BETWEEN A DEVELOPING MID/UPPER LEVEL LOW IN THE EASTERN GULF OF MEXICO AND A RIDGE OVER THE WESTERN ATLANTIC. THE DYNAMICAL MODELS FORECAST THE LOW OVER THE GULF TO DEEPEN SOMEWHAT WHILE THE RIDGE OVER THE MID-ATLANTIC COAST MOVES OFFSHORE. THEREFORE… ONLY A SUBTLE BEND TO THE WEST IN THE HEADING DURING THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS IS FORECAST… WITH A GRADUAL DECREASE IN FORWARD SPEED. DUE TO THE ANGLE OF APPROACH OF THE CENTER OF TAMMY TO THE COASTLINE… IT IS DIFFICULT TO SPECIFY THE LANDFALL TIME OR LOCATION OF THE CENTER. HOWEVER… IT IS MORE IMPORTANT TO FOCUS ON THE LARGE AREA OF WINDS AND CONVECTION TO THE NORTH AND EAST OF THE CENTER… WHICH NECESSITATES A TROPICAL STORM WARNING FOR A LONG STRETCH OF COASTLINE. SINCE TAMMY IS UNDER MODERATE SOUTHERLY SHEAR… ONLY SLIGHT STRENGTHENING APPEARS LIKELY… AND THE ASYMMETRIC CLOUD PATTERN WILL PROBABLY PERSIST.
It’s a bird, it’s a plane…
It’s SuperNala!
A Drs. Foster & Smith catalog mysteriously appeared in our mail box a few weeks ago. With Hallowe’en coming, the wife decided the Superman costume was too cute to pass up and decided we needed to go Hallowe’en’ing with the dog. So here’s Nala all dressed up in her Hallowe’en costume. Fit needs to be adjusted a little bit, and she’s planning to get some red cloth to make a skirt out of (Nala is a girl after all).
Of course, all this has led to the wife wanting to plan a dog Howlowe’en party for some of our dog owning friends and maybe even dog owning neighbours.
There’s even a pumpkin by the front door waiting to be carved into a jack-o-lantern.