Tropical Storm Bertha at 11pm on August 1st
Posted by Chris in Tampa on 8/1/2014, 11:28 pm
I'm not sure how to describe Bertha tonight. If it were not for a sonde the hurricane hunters released not too long before the 11pm advisory, they may have said it no longer had a closed circulation. Based on recon at about 5,000 feet, it didn't appear to have a circulation. But they released a dropsonde which did record some winds from the WSW. Just eyeballing it, it might have been around 1,500 feet or less where the westerly winds were found.

Snippet from the 11pm discussion on August 1st:

"While some convection developed near the estimated center during the
past few hours, the circulation of Bertha remains disorganized. In
fact, the Hurricane Hunter aircraft has been unable to find a center
at 5000 ft this evening. However, surface observations suggested
that there was still a small closed surface circulation when Bertha
moved between Martinique and Dominica a few hours ago. The estimated
center position is on the southwestern edge of the convective
canopy, consistent with the 16 kt of southwesterly shear analyzed by
the SHIPS model. The initial intensity remains 45 kt based on
several SFMR winds of 40-45 kt reported by the aircraft east and
northeast of the center."

A non updating recon image through about 11pm. With one sonde noted and then the decoded sonde below it which is what found the WSW winds. The latest passes by the Air Force hurricane hunters had not found any more westerly winds and the ones they found earlier were very little. You can see at the moment the approximate center the NHC went with (accurate to within 30nm according to the forecast advisory) is on the edge of the convection.



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Tropical Storm Bertha forms from Invest 93L; Watches and warnings issued - Chris in Tampa, 7/31/2014, 10:59 pm
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