Earth Bound Misfit has a piece of world-class snark that the DNC should pay attention to: So, Will George Clooney Talk to an Empty Suit at the Democrats’ Convention?.

Mike Konczai actually runs the numbers and pays attention to the policies that candidates propose. In a moment of almost heroic self-sacrifice, he listened to the Mittser’s speech at the GOP convention and concludes that: Romney Will Solve the Crisis with the Exact Same GOP Plan of 2008, 2006, 2004….

This would be plan that led to adding $10+ trillion dollars to the deficit, produced fewer jobs than were necessary to for the new workers entering the workforce, and created the conditions that resulted in the global financial meltdown.

They believe that ‘a rising tide raises all boats’ so they had the banks foreclose on the ‘boats’ of the bottom 80% of Americans, and now they want to take their ‘life preservers’.

Position: 23.4N 61.7W [10PM CDT 0300 UTC].
Movement: Northwest [325°] near 10 mph [17 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 60 mph [ 95 kph].
Wind Gusts: 75 mph [120 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 205 miles [335 km].
Minimum central pressure: 998 mb.

Currently about 435 miles [ 700 km] North of the Leeward Islands.

The storm has encountered wind shear on the north side, and is slowing as a result of changes in the steering pattern.

Here’s the link for NOAA’s latest satellite images.

[For the latest information click on the storm symbol, or go to the CATEGORIES drop-down box below the CALENDAR and select “Hurricanes” for all of the posts related to storms on this site.]

Position: 49.7N 33.6W [ 4PM CDT 2100 UTC].
Movement: Northeast [035°] near 47 mph [76 kph].
Maximum sustained winds: 50 mph [ 80 kph].
Wind Gusts: 65 mph [100 kph].
Tropical Storm Wind Radius: 140 miles [220 km].
Minimum central pressure: 1002 mb.

Currently about 965 miles [1550 km] East of Cape Race, Newfoundland.

Kirk has become a post-tropical cyclone, and this is the final advisory from the NHC.

Here’s the link for NOAA’s latest satellite images.

[For the latest information click on the storm symbol, or go to the CATEGORIES drop-down box below the CALENDAR and select “Hurricanes” for all of the posts related to storms on this site.]

Jeff Masters outlines some unanswered questions about Isaac and I want to talk about one of them:

2. What’s the deal with these super-sized Category 1 and 2 hurricanes that have been hitting the U.S.? The past three landfalling hurricanes in the U.S.–Isaac (2012), Irene (2011), and Ike (2008)–have all been exceptionally large, among the top ten on record for horizontal extent of tropical storm-force winds. Each of these storms had an unusually low pressure characteristic of a storm one full Saffir-Simpson category stronger. Is this the new normal for U.S. hurricanes?

I said that Isaac was weird, this is really what I was talking about. The inability to establish an accurate track for the storm is related, but not the real issue.

The minimum pressure is an indicator of what the storm will do, which is why you may notice that there may be an up or down arrow after the pressure. If the arrow points up, indicating that the pressure is rising, you can expect that it is weakening and the wind speed will drop.

If you look at the 10PM Day 7 for Issac, it was a Tropical Storm with 70mph winds and a pressure of 979mb. Compare that to the 10PM Day 3 for Kirk which was a Category 2 with 100mph winds and a pressure of 980mb. This should not happen.

This was the problem with the tracking models. Isaac’s pressure said it should have been affected by the trough building in from the East, but that didn’t happen. That’s why the track kept moving West, because Isaac was totally ignoring the trough.

Kirk, OTOH, was pulled out into the Atlantic and away from land as the result of being pulled by a trough, and it looks like Leslie will follow, but Isaac only seem to respond to ridges of high pressure.

I didn’t remember the two earlier storms that were mentioned, probably because they didn’t directly affect me, but Isaac did. Dr Masters did notice that all of the storms had names beginning with “I” and wondered if they would also be the only storms to hit the US.