Tropical Depression Igor is 3495 miles from the State Climate Office’s Hurricane Bunker and Pizza Oven in Bucklick, SC. Igor is drifting west at 10-12 knots this morning, and as of yet, has not been picked up in the easterly Trade Winds. The five day forecast remains little changed with the track nudged more to the north. Igor will trudge west over the weekend and will recurve north Thursday next week and remain a fish storm, excuse me, a fish Hurricane.

Igor is better organized this morning with deeper,better integrated convection. Cloud top temperatures are below -80 degrees C. The official intensity is 30 knots, but I suspect that is too low and Igor will be upgraded to a Tropical Storm later today after the NHC coffee and doughnut social. Igor is finding lessening shear as it moves west. This trend will continue over the weekend and Igor should become a card carrying Hurricane by Monday. The NHC 5 day forecast brings Igor to a 90 knot hurricane by Wednesday.

A quasi-stationary disturbance thingy over the Windward Islands (third image below) looks a tad better organized this morning but not by much. Convection is not that deep and spread hither and yon amongst some banded lower clouds. The forecast paradox (for 2 boats…) is, while the track forecast are in decent agreement taking 92L west-northwest across the Caribbean, the bag of weasels and broken glass, otherwise referred to as the intensity models, show no intensification consensus. This is not an area traditionally ripe for intensification; especially for hurricanes that could threaten the State. The current NHC intensification probability guess is low to medium 92L becomes a named storm. My hunch is no way Barney.

Elsewhere, in the big pond, tropical storm formation is not expected for the next 48-72 hours.

Tropical Storm Igor’s official track (www.nhc.noaa.gov ):

Tropical thingy 92L: