Florida Sea Base News

Good Saturday morning.  I hope you have an enjoyable week-end planned.  I’m going to spend some time with my son today and my wife tomorrow.  Sue and I may be able to visit with my son’s wife and the grandbaby tomorrow.  They have been on a road trip to Lubbock, Texas so we will have to see what their energy level is like.  Plus Sue is still weak from her former stomach flu.  (Me too actually, but I am about 2 days more recovered than Sue.)

On Friday, Laura Kuras and Christy Clemenson worked with Rescue Diver students Kyle Moran and Michael Runowich at the Florida Sea Base.  Captain Rich called me around lunch time Friday.  He is planning on a long road trip starting Monday.  He will be driving around the USA looking for schooners and sailboats for the Florida Sea Base sailing programs.

I could have missed something, but all I saw on the Key West and Miami radars yesterday was blue skies.  It was cool (high in the low to mid 70s) and breezy.  The wind is going to continue at 15 knots from the N or NE for the next several days.  The temperatures will creep back into the 80s and the chance of light showers will increase.  Tropical disturbance Invest 96L is churning near Nicaragua and may effect the Florida Sea Base next week.  Dr. Masters made this post yesterday (emphasis is mine):

Forecast for 96L
The moderate wind shear and warm waters should allow some modest development of 96L over the next few days, though this will be slowed by the dry air to the storm’s east. The models are quite enthusiastic about developing 96L into a tropical depression, and our top four reliable models for forecasting genesis–the ECMWF, GFS, UKMET, and NOGAPS–have all been predicting formation of a tropical depression by Monday in one or more of their runs over the past day. 96L is in an area of weak steering currents, and will move little over the next three days. On Tuesday and Wednesday, a strong trough of low pressure will be passing over the Eastern U.S., and this trough has the potential to turn 96L northwards into Cuba. This is more likely to happen if 96L is stronger and deeper, and thus able to “feel” the upper-level winds the trough will bring. The 12Z run of the GFS model and 00Z runs of the ECMWF and UKMET models predict 96L will develop into a tropical storm that hits Western Cuba on Wednesday or Thursday, and potentially affecting the Cayman Islands, South Florida, and the Bahamas as well. If 96L remains a weak and shallow system, it is more likely to stay trapped in the Western Caribbean and make landfall in Nicaragua. This is the solution of the NOGAPS model, which has 96L moving ashore on Tuesday over Nicaragua as a weak system. NHC gave 96L a 30% chance of developing into a tropical depression by Sunday in their 8 am Tropical Weather Outlook. A hurricane hunter mission is scheduled to investigate 96L Saturday afternoon.

I believe the Hurricane Hunters are scheduled to fly into 96L this morning.  If so, Dr. Masters will likely post an update sometime this afternoon that MAY give us a better idea of the forecast for this system.

I am going to take tomorrow morning off, maybe Monday morning too.  If anything of consequence happens I will let you know when I know.

Stay safe.

Capt. Steve
Winding things down in the metroplex