I’ve been too busy blogging about politics to pay much attention to the doings in tropics over the last 48 hours or so, but suffice it to say, there are now two systems competing for the name “Kyle” — the aforeblogged Invest 93L, now moving away from Puerto Rico and Hispaniola, and a coastal storm off the Carolinas, a.k.a. Invest 94L, which is presently extratropical but which could potentially become subtropical. Both storms are covered in the National Hurricane Center’s latest Tropical Weather Outlook.
Alan Sullivan was bullish yesterday about the coastal storm’s chances, but this morning he doubts that either storm will earn its stripes as a tropical cyclone. In fact, he speculates: “With polar influences expanding so swiftly, there may never be a Kyle at this rate.” Well, not until 2014, at least.
Regardless, the Carolina coastal storm (94L) will produce “STRONG WINDS…COASTAL FLOODING…HIGH SURF…AND DANGEROUS RIP CURRENTS . . . ALONG PORTIONS OF THE U.S. EAST COAST DURING THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS.” The Raleigh News & Observer, the Wilmington Star-News, and the Virginian-Pilot have coverage.
UPDATE: Dr. Jeff Masters has a new, lengthy post on both systems, focusing on 94L.
UPDATE, 5:04 PM EDT: Invest 93L, the one north of Hispaniola, has become Kyle. The official forecast track takes it toward Nova Scotia. More later.
P.S. In case anyone was wondering, this season’s “ACE” — Accumulated Cyclone Energy, a more accurate measurement of seasonal tropical activity than simple storm-counting — is at 115.6 and counting. That slightly-above-normal count easily exceeds last year’s slightly-below-normal 71.7, even though we’re presently five named storms short of last year’s total. It also beats 2006’s ACE of 81.7. (That season had the same number of storms, ten, that we’ve seen so far this year.) Of course, we’re nowhere near the ridiculous 248.1 ACE of the record-shattering 2005 season.
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