Invest 99 was the little engine that couldn’t. From the first day that we started tracking it, it appeared to struggle for survival. That said, a good part of forecasting a tropical systems track is in the computer generated models. These models in the early stages of a system often create a windshield wiper effect where they keep bouncing back and forth between two points. usually, the final result is someplace in between all the runs. A lot of this information is obtained by NOAA planes risking their lives flying into the storms. The information from these planes is invaluable. Even with all the computer models, manual observations, satellites and radar, sometimes systems do what they want and when they want. In the case of 99L, since it was so weak the models had a rough time trying to find a starting point. The two main models the GFS and the Euro were battling it out to see who could win. In almost every run, our own GFS seems to have had the solution all along but it was discounted because nobody thought it made any sense. Most of the other models were saying we were going to get slammed. Forecasters are often put in a position of either alerting the public of a potential threat or saying everything is going to be fine. When the vast majority of models say everything is not going to be fine, you have to listen to the majority.
