Could someone put the tropics back to sleep...?

Happy Sky Watch Friday!! Here's my post!!! (Please visit Tom, Klaus, Sandy and Imac's SKY WATCH BLOG (click here or on the logo) to participate in Sky Watch Fridays. It really is so much fun and interesting to see skies all over the world!!! I highly recommend it!) My Skywatch Friday picture today is in honor of the extremely limited visibility I had this morning while I drove to work. The radiation fog was so thick that in some spots I couldn't see 50 yards in front of me. I certainly couldn't see the "sky".Now, I did not take this picture this morning... but it was taken on a foggy morning, such as today. There are a couple of elements of the shot that I especially love... 1. My anemometer (tool for measuring windspeed) is silhouetted in the sun radiating through the fog. 2. The dew (I'm a big fan of Dew, aren't you?) is evident on the tree in the shot. You cannot have fog without Dew. :O)

Fog is really cloud that forms near the ground, and like cloud, fog forms as a result of condensation. Probably the most common form of fog is radiation fog, so named because it is produced by radiational cooling of the ground. This happens at night, when heat absorbed by the Earth's surface during the day is radiated back into space. The highest degree of radiational cooling occurs on clear nights, when there are no clouds to reradiate the heat back to Earth.

Radiational cooling produces condensation in the air layers immediately above the ground. If only a thin layer of moist air is present, Dew will form; if a thicker layer is present, radiation fog (and dew) will form. [Such as on the day this shot was taken, back in January.]

It is often difficult to predict when dew and fog will occur together. It is possible to have dew without fog, but it is not possible to have fog without dew. The ideal conditions for dew are a still, clear night, high humidity in the air next to the ground, and low humidity in the air above. ~source

OK, enough about the sky, or the lack of sky in my case... onto the active tropical Atlantic. I have been talking a lot in recent days about Fay and Gustav... they are still there and doing their thing... we also now have Tropical Depression 8! TD 8 is hot on the heels of Gustav, but is a larger, currently better looking tropical system. Again, I don't want to in any way discard or detract from Gustav, most models build him into a very dangerous MAJOR hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico after this weekend, with sites set somewhere along the Gulf coast! Louisiana's governor has already declared a State of Emergency, which activates the assistance of the National Guard, no doubt motivated by the lingering memories of the devastation caused by category 3 land-falling Hurricane Katrina back in 2005. The currently barely under hurricane strength (having gained strength overnight), intensifying, most likely future Hurricane Gustav could have a similar course, and I am relieved to hear that they seem to have learned a lesson. Hopefully, it won't have to be tested in the same way, but let's hope everyone has and preparations along the Gulf are hard underway! Gustav is really pulling it together this morning, and with only Jamaica in the way... I expect him to be back at hurricane strength at the next advisory (if not sooner). He should be quite a force by the time he gets up into the Gulf. Currently, they are not forecasting any landfalls between now and then... which means, strengthen, strengthen, strengthen...Of course, there is still TD Fay wreaking havoc and dropping buckets of rain everywhere she goes. Fortunately, she is headed offshore soon and will leave us alone. There is talk that Tropical Storm Fay might have her name placed in the Hall of Retired Storms and we will never again see the name Fay. It's not common for tropical storms to have their names retired, but not unheard of... The last time a tropical storm name was retired was back in 2002 when they retired 2001's Tropical Storm Allison.

Hurricane Allison 1989, having replaced retired Hurricane Alicia, a hurricane that brought heavy damage to southeast Texas, coincidentally caused great damage in the same area. Even more unlikely is that though Hurricane Allison was not retired, another Tropical Storm Allison in 2001 again devastated southeast Texas, with its name retired in 2002 and replaced by Andrea for 2007.

And yes, we have Tropical Depression number 8. Don't get too comfortable with that designation though because I expect that TD 8 will be called Hanna by this afternoon. She is looking very well organized, is in a favorable environment, AND they expect the soon Tropical Storm Hanna will become a hurricane within 3 days.

THE HWRF AND GFDL MODELS ARE MORE AGGRESSIVE...PREDICTING AN INTENSE HURRICANE.

Florida... this looks like yours.

I won't even get into a discussion about the stuff coming off the coast of Africa right now... but... sheesh.

11AM UPDATE:

1100 AM AST THU AUG 28 2008

...HANNA BECOMES EIGHTH TROPICAL STORM OF THE SEASON...

Bingo! Oh, and Gustav's pressure dropped 5mb. You can expect a hurricane classification prior to the next advisory.

Have a lovely day!
~Dewdrop