Erika, Andrew, Danny and Fred
The last few weeks the Atlantic hurricane season has got more active.
Danny never really got started, was blown apart by sheer, but no doubt spawned a lot of thunderstorms.
Flooding from Erika has resulted in numerous deaths in Domincan Republic.
Erika has fallen apart, but again there will be a lot of thunderstorms along its path. There is a lot of moisture in the atmosphere.
Erika
Early forecasts had the most likely track heading over Hispanola, Then curving, but likely being blown apart by sheer from strong upper atmosphere winds related to El Nino.
This is in fact very close to what actually has happened.
Track forecast
The weather models started to suggest the storm would curve more northerly. This all involves really complex systems that stretch over thousands of miles.
So the models most likely path was more northerly, and that might take it on a path to hit Florida.
At one point the most likely track was heading all up the east coast of Florida, without making landfall. If it had held together it might of intensified over hot water with low windsheer and been a major storm at landfall in the Carolinas.
Throughout this period there was always the possibility of heading over Hispanola, but it wasn't the most likely path.
Andrew
Andrew formed in a similar season to 2015 with a high El Nino.
It took a more northerly track, steered north of the Caribbean, then turned straight into Florida.
I think a comparison of Andrew and Erika, Danny too, would be interesting.
Fred
Hurricane names run on a six year cycle. So, there are six lists, that repeat every six years.
If a storm becomes significant in some way, usually the more intense and damaging storms that hit land, the name gets retired from the list and is forever associated with that storm.
So, we have Fred. Now for me, Fred means Fiery Fred Trueman, Yorkshire and England fast bolwer. I never saw him play, but often heard him commentating on test matches.
So some day we will see a Fiery Fred storm.
A storm named Fred has just formed. Like Erika, there is a fair amount of uncertainty on what path it takes and how intense it will get.
More information
Michael Johnston has also been blogging about the recent storms.