Off on the Gulf

[Riley Smith]

Yeah, I could see it off on the Gulf. Several hundred miles away just before sunrise. All the whole sky was  that tropical blue with no clouds, except afar off to the ESE. There is a spot they're watching and it reminded me of the time Georges was headed our way.  I could see that one too, a band of white in the sky, low on the horizon afar off. and no other clouds under the canopy of heaven. That was the last time the pier was in one piece.
You can see hundreds of miles away in the right conditions. Before sunrise, before the glare and the haze picks up. Before the cumulus get started and it gets really hot. Before the laser in the sky starts zapping, you can see very far. When the sunrays are passing through and not straight down. If you've never experienced the pre-dawn hours of a summer day on the edge of the Gulf, you've missed a fine thing. Almost always it is dead calm and the blue of the sky is reflected in the waters like the mirror it is. A mirror of water stretching out as far as you can see.

It's vicious hot. The grass I mowed is not happy and suffering under the UV. There is very little wind and little to go on when trying to determine exactly WHERE a storm is going. In these conditions, they create their OWN weather. The Hurricane Hunters are supposed to go take a look. Probably more a training flight just yet, than anything. Nothing like what a Cape Verde action is like just yet, but that doesn't mean it can't be a real problem. This one is close in and not a week away. We'll see....

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[Riley Smith]

A depression now...still getting it's act together. Moving 1 mph. I TOLD you there was very little wind. A few showers off the thing would be nice. But I'm not wishing a flood like ONE gave us. SO far it doesn't have a name. Buy your insurance while you still can.

[Riley Smith]

We've been on the edge of it for 1/2 the day, on one side it was cloudy with a shower or two. On the other, blue sky with the edges emphasizing the creeping pace as a veil of cirrus. Darker to the SE and a shower or two just east of us. A little lightning too. Just a summer sky with cumulus and a shower or two. A more serious squall line is approaching though, and looking further to the north in Tennessee, a whole army of reinforcements is headed this way in the form of more moisture. All of this approaches from the North and East as the storm begins to draw fuel. We'd been in a really clear, dry hole in the atmosphere for a few days but it is being pushed out. I wonder if the fish are hungry? Normally just before a big storm they go on a rampage! Depending on what's happening. And this one is shielding the beach as what little wind is from the NE!

Here's the old NOAA site recreated and that I use a lot to keep posted about which way the storm is coming from.

https://www.radarmonster.com/regions/southmissvly/

I'm lucky enough not to have a boat in the water. If I did, I'd be taking action this very minute.

[Riley Smith]

Present projections say it'll graze the coast all the way to TX as a TS maybe. It's not well organized and that dry air is inhibiting it seems to me. The squall line was no joke last night, but we caught a seam and missed the worst of it. Got a rain out of it and that always helps. The lightning was vicious on the seacoast to the SW of us, a constant boom for a while. That wad of clouds is almost to Mexico this morning. I'm making motions to go fish the falling tide for a while and look out on that water.

[Riley Smith]

Strangest storm I've seen...

Looking at the sat shot, the center of the storm is clear or more or less clear. The spiral bands are no joke though, and it is possible that this one spit tornados like tacks. Pensacola is getting one of the leading bands this evening...5pm central. At least, it looks like that might be the edge of the activity. Here 90 miles away, it's clear with some puffy cumulus in the beautiful blue and brutally hot. 91 F in the shade and killing in the sun. Clear sky, low humidity (), and very little wind. What there is, is coming from the North. I got sidetracked almost immediately on the fishing mission this morning by school bus duties. You know, if I gave up my driver's license, I wouldn't have to do that     

[Riley Smith]

A mall band came out of the north. Not a total spiral, just a bit of one. I heard the wind pick up all of a sudden in the shop where I was making a hole punch. It rained for about five minutes, cooled everything off, turning it to steam. Presently you can see out of the patio door for the condensation. To say it was muggy would be exceedingly polite.

[Riley Smith]

It was absolutely awesome this morning. Nice and cool, not oppressively humid, and stars shining in the sky when I left for the shore. I had business with a fishing rod, since I got cancelled yesterday. I love the pre-sunrise on the shore and a great deal of my time is nocturnal this time of the year. It was everything you could ask for. Afar off over the boot of LA I could see lightning.

 WAY OUT...

The storm has become one-sided, with all the activity off the coast of LA and out into the middle of the Gulf, while the center of circulation is  somewhere south of Panama City Beach! 150-200 miles away! Bertha....must be one of the Butt sisters   Weird, but the conditions were right to catch a fish.

The bar has changed due to high water from Arthur or whatever his name was. It has moved much closer to the piers and emphasized that with a deadhead tree to mark it. That has changed the flow, making more of a funnel effect there and hopefully concentrating the fish. I had been itching to find out. And yes, there were fish under the lights. About the third cast with a shrimp lure, and a nice speckled trout nailed it. Nice fat one too! But there was blood getting the hook out. And a few minutes later, a shark showed up. Not big, maybe ten pounds but I've watched that water for years and have never actually seen one. Yes, it has changed.

I switched to a gold spoon and caught two under-sized specks and saw a bigger shark come cruising by. Maybe  four foot. I sure didn't want to lay into that, because it was my last spoon. I tinkered with taking some pictures and sure enough the shark disappeared and I didn't get a pic of it. The fish weren't hungry and I was surprised that I had caught three.

The delay of a day had muted the fishing for two reasons. One there was an actual high and low tide yesterday. Today it is a neap tide with not a whole lot of difference between the high and low. It always slows the fishing down because most of these fish use the current for their feeding. That's what the funnel effect of the rearranged bar means. And two, there was an east wind, and the water was high regardless of what the tide said. Result is the water was high enough for the fish to get in places they don't normally go and it was up in the marsh grass. Not abnormally high, just a very nice level.

So Bertha is proceeding to be a non-event AT THE MOMENT. You have to pay attention to these storms because they evolve and change. A tropical storm is mostly just rain and massive amounts of it if you are in the right place. The center of the Gulf does not concern me, but a couple of years ago one was messing about and those "trains" were lining up and FLOODING one of the neighboring burgs and it hardly rained at all at my house. Anyway, I got to see the Gulf at dawn, see a few sharks, and catch a nice fish for supper. I'd call it a win 

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So this is what the storm looks like. That is non-typical, and changed very much from the first time I commented. Just a cloud bank essentially. A REAL storm will have embedded thunderstorms and a crown of cirrus thrown up by them. Bertha DOES have them but they're in the center of the Gulf. I could see ONE storm out towards the boot of LA and the satellite said there were more much further out.