Stay tuned for monitoring of tropical cyclones Maria and Nate. It is too early in the game to trust any Numerical Weather Prediciton (NWP) model solutions on either cyclone both with regard to future path or intensity.

As of 9AM Thursday Dr. Bob Harts hurricane climatology indicates Nate has a 75% chance of hitting Mexico, and a 14% chance of hitting Texas and Louisiana. Maria is shown as having a 22% chance of being hit and North Carolina an 18% chance. Keep in mind these are NOT forecasts but only based on past history of storms in similiar locations, this is just climatology and the numbers will change. On Nate the top 10 analogs as of this Thursday morning show ONLY ONE of the 10 paths went toward the US (Louisiana). On Maria the top 10 analogs show 3 out of the top 10 tracks hit somewhere in the US (LA,FL,NC).

Nate is the 14th named storm this year, and comes three days before the climatological half-way point of the Atlantic hurricane season, September 10. A typical hurricane season has just 11 named storms, so we've already had 35% more than a whole season's worth of storms before reaching the season's half-way point. If this rate were to hold, 2011 would see 28 named storms, equalling the all-time record set in 2005. Nate's formation date of September 7 puts 2011 in 2nd place for earliest date of arrival of the season's 14th storm. Only the "super mega" hurricane season of 2005 had an earlier formation date of the season's 14th named storm.