Hannah Continues To Swirl About.....Eyes On Florida?
Posted: (August 31, 2008 04:29 pm)

Tropical Storm Hannah continues to swirl about across the southern Atlantic this afternoon as she slowly creeps towards the Bahamas. Hannah is continuing to undergo a lot of shear at this time. As a result, the latest satellite images show a very poorly organized storm. I got bo be honest, I really thought by now that she would be getting her act together. But looking at the latest wind fields, tropical storm force winds have just now completely wrapped around the storm! The entire southwestern side was almost wind-freeup until about 6 hours ago! So she has a lot of work to do if she's going to become a serious threat to the United States.

A few positives for strengthening after about 24-48 hours are....1) Hannah is about to move over a ver warm pocket of water and 2) shearing should begin to ease up pretty soon (next 24-48 hours). Also, and im purely speculating here, but it almost seems to me that Gustav may be inhibiting Hannahs strength just a bit as well. Gustav will be over land by this time tomorrow. So if in fact there is some truth to the statement above, after tomorrow it will not have an effect.

As of 5:00pm Tropical Storm Hannah was breathing through a ventilator as she tries to hold on to Tropical Storm strength. Maximum sustained winds were only 45 mph with some higher gusts on the northeastern side of the storm. Like Gustav, this is a very large storm in terms of size as Tropical Storm force winds extend outward over 200 miles from the center of circulation. Which I have to tell you, at this time, its getting very difficult to even spot the exact center of circulation! But again, most of the activity is north and east of the center.

Hannahs forward speed has pretty much remained in tact at about 10 mph off towards the west. Hannah is expected to continue on this track overnight tonight with a decrease in forward speed. Then a slight turn towards the southwest is expected by Tuesday before another turn back towards the northwest on Wednesday and Thursday. This will keep forecasters guessing on exact points of landfall as the storm moves through the southern and central Bahamas. Once it clears the islands, if it holds together, it will then focus in on the United States. At that point is when it may become a CAT 1 or CAT 2 hurricane. But that wont be until the end of the week (Thurs-Fri).

At this time there is still some uncertainty as to where Hannah will go at that point. A few forecast models take Hannah up the eastern seaboard while other slam the storm into Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Even still, there are others that run the storm over Florida. So we'll continue to watch Hannah closely over the next couple of days. Just remembert hat even though you wont hear much about her over the next couple of days she is still out there and will have to be dealt with eventually.