| Rather indepth: https://noaanhc.wordpress.com/2015/09/10/after-further-review-tropical-storm-erika/ Although more focused on later in the track and not the Lesser Antilles. Although to be fair, in thinking about it further, Dominica never did get anything close to tropical storm force winds from what I have seen. And watches and warnings apply to wind, even though I guess the public might see them more as whether you will see an impact of some sort or not, rather than what they actually are, relating only to wind and nothing to do with rain or surge. They did warn the day before about up to 8 inches of rain for the Leeward Islands, which extend southward to, and including, Dominica. And they only got a little bit more than that. By 11am the NHC was up to 12 inches after the rain on Dominica: "RAINFALL: Erika is expected to produce total rainfall accumulations of 4 to 8 inches with maximum amounts of 12 inches possible across portions of the Leeward Islands, the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and the southeast Bahamas through Saturday. Dominica reported nearly 9 inches of rainfall overnight, with significant flooding occurring on the island." But I do still wish they discussed the southward movement more in the discussions. They are really important as the NHC says in their blog. "Anyone whose job it is to communicate the forecast needs to make the TCD mandatory reading on every forecast cycle." Actually, I think they did pretty good longer term in communicating uncertainty. I always got the impression of the uncertainty late in the period. A Florida hurricane, or anything else other than the expectation of a lot of rain, was way up in the air until after Hispaniola. In the end we didn't get much rain at all, but no complaints here! Any southeast hype on anything else was the media. Tropical Storm Watch: "An announcement that sustained winds of 34 to 63 knots (39 to 73 mph or 63 to 118 km/hr) are possible within the specified area within 48 hours in association with a tropical, subtropical, or post-tropical cyclone." Tropical Storm Warning: "An announcement that sustained winds of 34 to 63 knots (39 to 73 mph or 63 to 118 km/hr) are expected somewhere within the specified area within 36 hours in association with a tropical, subtropical, or post-tropical cyclone." NHC Glossary: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutgloss.shtml |