• Sailing is all about the Weather.

    Big into the exploration of Atlantic Hurricanes since Katrina came uninvited into his world, James (Jim) Gurley (JamesG161) has followed every Tropical Storm birthed in Atlantic, Gulf and Caribbean waters since. Being a boater, he knows that we often need more time to prepare than we get from the TV weather folk. Jim relies on the science of storm development to share early warning info with friends and fellow boaters.

    Early in 2018, Jim and John Shepard, (JSSailem) started to chat about the weather data available. John asked Jim to help forecast Pacific NW storms, and this morphed into discussions on weather forecasting.

    For John, sailing in the PNW is sometimes hit and miss. One day is ugly, then a string of beautiful days but no wind, followed by a series of blue-sky days and 12 knot breezes. Being ready for those great sailing days means you need to look to the Pacific Ocean and what is brewing. John has been into Pacific NW Weather since the 1970’s when his first PNW November storm hit bringing more than 40 days and 40 nights of continual rain.

    Together we want to share information, new APPs, safety, and thoughts about letting the weather help you. Identify some of the resources for sailors and help prepare you for your next sailboat outing.

    It is far better to go out on the water knowing what to expect in weather terms, than to be out on the water and see dark ominous clouds suddenly appear, unprepared.

Use of the term “invest” and a number

Mar 20, 2011
623
Hunter 31_83-87 New Orleans
guys, this is a curiosity question for me for the guys that know/track weather systems. When did the term Invest/number come into use? Is this something new? Having grown up all my life on the gulf coast, I don’t recall the use of this terminology. Is this something insurance companies use to for determining when to close down insurance underwriting? The practice in the gulf is typically to stop underwriting policies if there is a “named tropical storm” once it enters the gulf. Does the term “invest/no.” Allow for earlier “naming”?

Thanks, Jerry
 
Jun 1, 2015
217
Macgregor 26d Trailer Estates, Fl
I think I’ve learned it is short for investigation and means there is a weather pattern that bears investigating but does not have enough formation to even be a storm, much less a tropical storm, depression, hurricane, etc.

There are others here that I hope will jump in with a much better technical answer.
 
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Gunni

.
Mar 16, 2010
5,937
Beneteau 411 Oceanis Annapolis
Hurricane prediction, tracking, and research has become a multi-agency effort. The “invest” just indicates that the weather system has triggered the effort:
Invest:
A weather system for which a tropical cyclone forecast center (NHC, CPHC, or JTWC) is interested in collecting specialized data sets (e.g., microwave imagery) and/or running model guidance. Once a system has been designated as an invest, data collection and processing is initiated on a number of government and academic web sites, including the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and the University of Wisconsin Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies (UW-CIMSS). The designation of a system as an invest does not correspond to any particular likelihood of development of the system into a tropical cyclone; operational products such as the Tropical Weather Outlook or the JTWC/TCFA should be consulted for this purpose.
 
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Mar 20, 2011
623
Hunter 31_83-87 New Orleans
Thanks. Thought it may have been related to insurance underwriting.
 
Feb 14, 2014
7,400
Hunter 430 Waveland, MS
INVESTigation means global modeling has started. Numbering is sequential for the season, starting at 90. They are different for EAST Pacific and Atlantic.
They added this new term this year
Potential Tropical Cyclone = PTC
INVEST => PTC => named Tropical Storm.
Jim....
 
Mar 20, 2011
623
Hunter 31_83-87 New Orleans
Thanks, Jim. Working oil/gas for years I understand no underwriting when TS named in GoM. Thought new invest terminology may have been a way to push this timeline up.