I wanted to look into Twitter incident regarding Hurricane Dorian and Alabama to show that NWS Birmingham had zero intentions to become political when correcting some people on Dorian forecast, but it is still akin to poking a nest full of angry hornets. Thus, I would rather leave it for a while. Thus, it’s worth reflecting the whole span of Dorian’s life from a tropical wave to a dying extratropical cyclone.

Dorian began its journey as a tropical wave that became tropical depression on Aug. 24 in western North Atlantic. It became a small tropical storm and named Dorian later that day according to NASA’s Hurricane and Typhoon Updates blog. Little did they know that tiny tropical storm would someday become one of the most intense Atlantic hurricanes on record.

Dorian became a hurricane on Aug. 28 near U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico’s eastern coasts. Dorian continued intensifying over few days even though it surpassed major hurricane (Cat. 3) threshold a couple days after first gaining hurricane status. During the Labor Day weekend, Dorian became Cat. 5 hurricane while still intensifying. By the time Dorian slowed down on intensification, it maxed out at 185 mph sustained winds with gusts over 200 mph. Meanwhile, Dorian made landfalls at Abaco and Grand Bahama where it was lodged until early hours of Sept. 4.

Once it was free to move north of devastated Bahamas, it was already weakened to Cat. 2, but it also expanded in size. While raking the East Coast over next few days, Dorian dropped several tornadoes and heavy rain in the Carolinas. On Sept. 7, Dorian began transitioning to a powerful extra-tropical cyclone with fronts while still retaining hurricane-force winds.

I am a trained spotter and weather enthusiast who spent years enjoying learning about weather. I provide my thoughts and commentaries, sometimes with light humor.