First depression of the East Pacific season has formed. No threat to land through five days as it moves off to the west-northwest to west.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/
In addition to the basin outlooks, discussions are also in lowercase this year.
Now a bit off into the technical side...
I should also mention that this year their is a change in the availability of some of the behind the scenes information regarding raw storm position data. This is unofficial data that you used to be able to get a hold of.
Previously you could get raw data in the "tcweb" folder on the NHC's server as part of the Automated Tropical Cyclone Forecasting (ATCF) System (http://www.nrlmry.navy.mil/atcf_web/).
The raw ATCF data is here:
ftp://ftp.nhc.noaa.gov/atcf/
There is no more "tcweb" folder available to the public. I heard from someone who talked to the NHC about it and the NHC now has a more secure connection to the Navy. (http://www.nrlmry.navy.mil/TC.html)
The information in the "tcweb" folder was not official until an advisory came out. There were instances where an invest was upgraded to a numbered storm but then the NHC changed their mind. As a result of this kind of confusion, they no longer have that folder. You can still view the "btk" folder for best track data:
ftp://ftp.nhc.noaa.gov/atcf/btk/
The biggest change is that we probably will not know if something is about to be upgraded before it is actually upgraded. I liked the indication of an upgrade with a renumbering file, but those are not public anymore. It just means we have to wait for the official advisory or perhaps it might be updated in the "btk" folder a little sooner still, though again advisory data is what is official in real time. Here is the current best track file for the new depression:
EP, 01, 2014051906, , BEST, 0, 62N, 970W, 20, 1009, DB, 0, , 0, 0, 0, 0,
EP, 01, 2014051912, , BEST, 0, 65N, 978W, 20, 1009, DB, 0, , 0, 0, 0, 0,
EP, 01, 2014051918, , BEST, 0, 71N, 987W, 20, 1009, DB, 0, , 0, 0, 0, 0,
EP, 01, 2014052000, , BEST, 0, 78N, 999W, 20, 1009, DB, 0, , 0, 0, 0, 0,
EP, 01, 2014052006, , BEST, 0, 84N, 1013W, 20, 1008, LO, 0, , 0, 0, 0, 0, 1010, 250, 140, 0, 0, E, 0, , 0, 0, INVEST, S,
EP, 01, 2014052012, , BEST, 0, 90N, 1029W, 20, 1008, LO, 0, , 0, 0, 0, 0, 1010, 250, 140, 0, 0, E, 0, , 0, 0, INVEST, S,
EP, 01, 2014052018, , BEST, 0, 94N, 1043W, 20, 1008, LO, 0, , 0, 0, 0, 0, 1010, 180, 120, 0, 0, E, 0, , 0, 0, INVEST, S,
EP, 01, 2014052100, , BEST, 0, 94N, 1043W, 20, 1007, LO, 0, , 0, 0, 0, 0, 1010, 180, 120, 0, 0, E, 0, , 0, 0, INVEST, S,
EP, 01, 2014052106, , BEST, 0, 94N, 1049W, 20, 1007, LO, 0, , 0, 0, 0, 0, 1010, 180, 120, 0, 0,
EP, 01, 2014052112, , BEST, 0, 95N, 1054W, 20, 1008, LO, 0, , 0, 0, 0, 0, 1009, 150, 120, 0, 0, E, 0, , 0, 0, INVEST, S,
EP, 01, 2014052118, , BEST, 0, 97N, 1059W, 20, 1008, LO, 0, , 0, 0, 0, 0, 1009, 150, 120, 0, 0,
EP, 01, 2014052200, , BEST, 0, 99N, 1063W, 20, 1007, LO, 0, , 0, 0, 0, 0, 1009, 150, 120, 0, 0, E, 0, , 0, 0, INVEST, S,
EP, 01, 2014052206, , BEST, 0, 100N, 1066W, 25, 1007, LO, 0, , 0, 0, 0, 0, 1009, 150, 120, 0, 0, E, 0, , 0, 0, INVEST, S,
EP, 01, 2014052212, , BEST, 0, 101N, 1069W, 25, 1007, LO, 0, , 0, 0, 0, 0, 1009, 180, 120, 0, 0, E, 0, , 0, 0, INVEST, S,
EP, 01, 2014052218, , BEST, 0, 102N, 1072W, 25, 1007, TD, 0, , 0, 0, 0, 0, 1011, 150, 60, 35, 0, E, 0, , 0, 0, ONE, M, 0, , 0, 0, 0, 0, TRANSITIONED, epA22014 to ep012014
EP, 01, 2014052300, , BEST, 0, 105N, 1076W, 25, 1007, TD, 34, NEQ, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1010, 150, 60, 0, 0, E, 0, , 0, 0, ONE, M,
Note the "TRANSITIONED" and "epA22014 to ep012014" fields.
A note about that "A2", which means 92:
A0 - Z9
"Internal disturbance IDs that are experimental" schema is [A-Z][0-9] which is meant to save the Invest series into a permenant 2-char system. For example, 90 -> A0, B0, C0, ... (depending upon how many times the 90 has been recycled).
From: ftp://ftp.nhc.noaa.gov/atcf/archive/README
In theory it should work like this for example:
A0: 90, first 90 of the year
A9: 99, first 99 of the year
B1: 91, second 91 of the year
D9: 99, fourth 99 of the year
It doesn't mean the 90 - 99 numbers are going away, but for archival purposes in the "archive" folder of the ATCF system, they have the letter and number combination. Remember, once you get to 99 you start again at 90. You could have quite a few of the same invest number each year, so this is a good way to archive them. See 2013's invests for example:
ftp://ftp.nhc.noaa.gov/atcf/archive/2013/invests/
In the above best track file for the new depression, it simply says that 2014 East Pacific invest 92E, the first 92E of the season, transitioned into the first tropical cyclone of the season, 01E. I have never seen those fields before. It might be new. I'm not sure if that was posted before, at the same time or after the advisory came out.
You can view model data for the new depression here:
http://hurricanecity.com/models/ |