Alberto Non-Update

Really, the only thing that changed since we spoke last has been the time and the position of our Subtropical Storm Alberto. It's beginning to move to the north and will curve around to the northwest and will make landfall on Monday between Biloxi and Panama City. The 5 day track is below.

The thunderstorms associated with Alberto is to the right of the storm and based on a radar image I saw, once the rain comes in here tonight it's going to stay for a while.

A flood watch has been issued for pretty much all the state of Florida and a tropical storm watch has been issued for Tampa, Pensacola, Mobile, Gulfport and New Orleans. Those will be upgraded to warnings later this afternoon.

The key messages and satellite image is below.

DISCUSSION... At this hour, Alberto is partially tropical and non-tropical. . A tropical cyclone is a warm cyclone with a warm core or mostly wet air all the way around the system. A sub-tropical cyclone is partially tropical and partially non-tropical. The tropical part as you've guessed contains of very heavy rain and moist conditions fueled by the very warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico and a lot of thunderstorm activity is along and to the east of that as shown in the image below.

The non-tropical portion has an upper level trough of low pressure overhead and what that does is providing dry air a way into the system and that way the cyclone has a really tough time developing or getting lungs so to speak. Tropical cyclones tend to have high pressures overhead them instead of low pressures.

Imagine yourself being a forecaster at the National Hurricane Center and the first part of the forecasting process is to identify the center, that's the easy part of this. Very exposed in the center with just a few clouds in a circular shape.

You'll also notice that almost all the thunderstorms are along and to the east of the center so Cuba, Florida and Georgia are going to get very heavy amounts of rain from this and once again, rain is the primary threat with this. 

FORECAST... For the past three or four days, most of the models take Alberto and put the center between New Orleans and Panama City but remember from the discussion portion that people to the right of where Alberto makes landfall are going to have much greater impacts then to the left. 

Alberto will begin to move to the north and northwest with time. It has about 36 hours after Saturday afternoon with low winds in the atmosphere and moist air to work with to strengthen perhaps. 

Regardless, the odds of Alberto becoming a hurricane are relatively small and all the impacts will be to the east. In order from most to least likely, here are the threats:

Very heavy rain up to 12 inches in spots
Gusty winds, perhaps damaging in the central Gulf Coast
Tornadoes/waterspouts popping up (One or more tornado watches will be issued)
Lightning (Not very common in tropical cyclones)

If the models come to validate, Alberto will be making landfall sometime Monday and will slow down causing heavy rain in the southeast.

NASCAR Up For Sale Potentially. My Thoughts?

Two weeks ago, most of us read a report that NASCAR after being in control for 70 years with Bill France, Bill France Jr and Brian France might be up for sale amid loss of fan interest and TV ratings.


Disclaimer: I'm a old school NASCAR fan (anything up until about 10 years ago) and personally think there are several things wrong with how the sport is ran.

- Length of Races.

With the exception of some races (Daytona, Talladega, Darlington, Coke 600, Road Course Races,  and Richmond) people will not watch the sport for three or four hours at a time on Sunday afternoons. About 20 years ago, Dover and Rockingham addressed the issue by reducing their 500 mile races to 400 mile ones, since they were both one mile tracks, 100 laps were cut off.

I believe in order to get our generation to watch (High schoolers) to watch races on a constant basis they've seriously got to consider shortening some of these non historical races. Do you really want to watch 500 miles around Texas?

- NBC/FOX TV Deal

When NBC and FOX announced that they were going to reunite to cover the whole NASCAR season much like they did from 2001-06 many people were excited and rightfully so. The problem is that neither network shows that they really care about the viewers nor the race itself because both the networks have had their issues. With Jeff Burton's nearly nonexistent commentary and Darrell Waltrip's love affair with Kyle Busch and Jeff Gordon's saying "look at this" every damn time something is happening.

NBC's problems
FOX's problems

Back in the day, race fans even if they were not going to the track knew they were going to get awesome coverage every weekend in the 1990's. ESPN's example is here

Skip around portions of the race and tell me even before that historic race you would not be excited to see it with them is delusional. It was like friends at a BBQ on Sundays. Sadly it is not that anymore.

TNN's example (This is presently known as the Paramount Network)

- Too much technology

How many times have you've seen a driver had a great race only to be messed up by fuel issues? In 2012, NASCAR announced that they were switching from carburetors to fuel injection systems. This didn't take long to have issues with drivers.

Kenny Wallace Duel
Tony Stewart Phoenix
Brad Keselowski Texas

At least three issues in the first seven races of 2012 and it occasionally pops back up. Also back in the 1980s instead of going directly to a mechanic or putting a computer chip back in, you get underneath the car and get grease on yourself and you would be proud as hell if you got the issue fixed yourself.

With technology, every teenager gets less and less interested in watching races or being a car guru. There are exceptions I'm aware.

- Season is too long

Unfortunately the video I intended to use for this example was deleted but Kyle Petty in 2012 said we have way too many races and I agree with the statement he made. There have been 36 races for the last 18 years and now NASCAR won't announce attendance figures, I wonder why...

In 2016, only 20 percent of seats were sold at the Brickyard, From 1994-2007, Indianapolis was the most attended track. What changed?

- The addition of Chicagoland and Kentucky to the schedule.
- In 2008, there was a major tire issue that NASCAR essentially made the race heat races themselves.
- Muggy weather in late July

I think for a sport like NASCAR to continue to the next generation, they need to cut down from 36 to about 28 races. Look at IndyCar/Formula 1 and NHRA are the greedy and return to a race track twice? They know better than to do that. What can go?

All of these racetracks have two races, one can be taken off
- Pocono
- Kansas
- Texas
- Phoenix
- Las Vegas
- Dover
- Spring Richmond
- Michigan

That leaves 28 races, the season can still start in February but either end in October or be stretched out to November still. 36 races are way too many especially cookie cutters like most of those above.

- Caution Clocks/Stages

Formally known as debris cautions, these stop the race after a certain number of laps to bunch up the field. I completely understand the reason why they do this with short attention spans but with NASCAR not doing this until now, why?? Here are examples where it ruined people's days for either a car brushing the wall or no debris.

Tony Stewart 2007 Phoenix
Kasey Kahne 2009 Fontana
Carl Edwards 2016 Homestead

In 1992, Kyle Petty led 484 of 492 laps at Rockingham, did they throw a debris caution once? Nope. Everyone wasn't as good as him that day and they went onto the next race, not cry and complain.

- Chase for the Cup/Points System

Take a look at Matt Kenseth's 2003 Championship season. 1 win but 25 top tens and an average finish of 10.6 but with ONLY one win many people cried and moaned until NASCAR announced that they were going to start with a playoff the following year.

Initially, the reception was mostly positive but quickly fell out of favor with changes in 2007, 2011 and 2014. My issues with those are:

- 16 drivers is an insane number, they need to go back to ten. Even in those ten, there are only three or four drivers realistically able to win the championship.

- The point system changes every other race it seems like. Hell, I'm 17 and if I can't keep up with it how is anybody going to understand?

How about go back to where it was from 1949-2003 and let the driver with the most points win the championship or the driver with the most wins? Not that hard. Keep it simple. The simpler, the better for new fans to understand.


- Also NASCAR can never make their mind about rules. Not going to get into detail but watch a race and you'll see.

- Toyota in, Dodge out

If NASCAR is an American sport then why is a Japanese manufacturer competing?? When Toyota was going to enter the top level in 2007, most people gave Toyota the black eye so to speak and rightfully so. Races in America=Only American cars right?

Dodge after a 15 year absence returned to NASCAR in 2001 with the advice of one of the best crew chiefs of all time, Ray Evernham. After little success though its first 11 years back and with Evernham, Petty and Penske all leaving the manufacturer, Dodge in 2012 stated it wouldn't be back in 2013.

I watched the announcement live and couldn't believe it. I will admit, Dodge is my favorite car but this hurt NASCAR racing in bigger ways then expected.


Closing Thoughts:

Everything evolves and after 70 years of control from the France family, it's time to experiment with new owners. Hopefully, the sport will start to see its faults and fix them one step at a time and will start catering to NASCAR fans, not TV networks or the average person channel surfing on the weekend.

NASCAR needs to take a long, hard look at itself or its next chapter can be far less than desirable.

Thoughts?

Flood Watch Issued Though Monday

* From the National Weather Service in Melbourne.

Flood Watch
National Weather Service Melbourne FL
400 PM EDT Fri May 25 2018

...FLOOD WATCH IN EFFECT FROM SATURDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH THE
HOLIDAY WEEKEND...

...FLOOD WATCH IN EFFECT FROM SATURDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH MONDAY
EVENING...

The National Weather Service in Melbourne has issued a

* Flood Watch for a portion of east central Florida, including
  the following areas, Coastal Volusia County, Indian River,
  Inland Volusia County, Martin, Northern Brevard County,
  Northern Lake County, Okeechobee, Orange, Osceola, Seminole,
  Southern Brevard County, Southern Lake County, and St. Lucie.

* From Saturday afternoon through Monday evening

* A prolonged period of heavy rainfall potential is expected
  across the area as Alberto moves northward through the Gulf of
  Mexico and pulls deep tropical moisture over east central
  Florida. Widespread rainfall amounts of 3 to 5 inches are
  possible. Storm total rainfall amounts may reach up to 6 to 8
  inches in localized by Monday. This will cause a concern for
  flooding across east central Florida, especially in areas that
  received heavy rainfall earlier this month.

* Heavy rainfall will have the potential to cause flooding on
  roadways and in low-lying and poor drainage areas. Do not drive
  across flooded roadways.

PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...

A Flood Watch means there is a potential for flooding based on
current forecasts. You should monitor later forecasts and be
alert for possible Flood Warnings. Those living in areas prone to
flooding should be prepared to take action should flooding
develop.

First Storm Of The Year

Almost two weeks ago, I stated that there was a pre-season storm to be named the last three years. Make it four because..

We have a new subtropical storm and its name is Alberto. The first storm of the 2018 Atlantic Hurricane Season has formed east of Cancun in a very weak steering environment. That's important because in about a day, it's going to move more to the north and northwest and eventually make landfall in the gulf coast somewhere as a fully tropical storm.


DISCUSSION... At this hour, Alberto is partially tropical and non-tropical. . A tropical cyclone is a warm cyclone with a warm core or mostly wet air all the way around the system. A sub-tropical cyclone is partially tropical and partially non-tropical. The tropical part as you've guessed contains of very heavy rain and moist conditions fueled by the very warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico and a lot of thunderstorm activity is along and to the east of that as shown in the image below.

 The non-tropical portion has an upper level trough of low pressure overhead and what that does is providing dry air a way into the system and that way the cyclone has a really tough time developing or getting lungs so to speak. Tropical cyclones tend to have high pressures overhead them instead of low pressures.

Imagine yourself being a forecaster at the National Hurricane Center and the first part of the forecasting process is to identify the center, that's the easy part of this. Very exposed in the center with just a few clouds in a circular shape.

You'll also notice that almost all the thunderstorms are along and to the east of the center so Cuba, Florida and Georgia are going to get very heavy amounts of rain from this and once again, rain is the primary threat with this. The key messages from the NHC are below.

Right now, an aircraft is en route to the storm and will be back with information regarding Alberto sometime tonight. After that, the computer models that predict storms will have a much more detailed understanding and will be able to produce more accurate forecasts.

FORECAST... For the past three or four days, most of the models take Alberto and put the center between New Orleans and Panama City but remember from the discussion portion that people to the right of where Alberto makes landfall are going to have much greater impacts then to the left. 

Alberto is sitting and spinning right now because there is nothing yet to pick him up and steer to the north but in the next day, Alberto will begin to move to the north and northwest with time. It has about 36 hours after Saturday afternoon with low winds in the atmosphere and moist air to work with to strengthen perhaps. 

Regardless, the odds of Alberto becoming a hurricane are relatively small and all the impacts will be to the east. In order from most to least likely, here are the threats:

Very heavy rain up to 12 inches in spots
Gusty winds, perhaps damaging in the central Gulf Coast
Tornadoes/waterspouts popping up (One or more tornado watches will be issued)
Lightning (Not very common in tropical cyclones)

If the models come to validate, Alberto will be making landfall sometime Monday and will slow down causing heavy rain in the southeast.

Update tomorrow.

ESPN, UFC Sign Another Deal

ESPN Release
UFC Release
ESPN Part 1 (UFC Fight Pass)

The UFC after open bidding and discussions with ESPN, FOX and NBC have elected to go with ESPN for a five year, $750 million contract. The network apparently outbid FOX by over $100 million a year and here's what ESPN will get from the UFC starting in January 2019.

-  12 UFC PPV Prelims
- 30 UFC Fight Night Cards
  - 10 on ESPN Networks
  - 20 on ESPN+ (Up 5-8 from what was first announced)

The move from FOX to ESPN pretty much confirms that FOX will be the new home of WWE Smackdown. Here's the questions I have left that are either responded vaguely or not answered at all:

- Will the UFC allow fight cards on either ABC or ESPNEWS? FOX on an average has had four cards on the network FOX every year since 2012. ESPNEWS could be an overflow channel much like FX or FXX was. More on that later.

- Does the same schedule apply to let's say the 2017 season? ESPN through four networks and ABC have a ton of programming already committed (September-March). The only relieving of pressure so to speak on ESPN's side is that a new ACC Network will launch in 2019. The ACC takes up windows on ESPNU and can create a consequence of this:

ESPN has quite a bit of late evening windows for the Pac-12, Mountain West and BYU football. With the ACC taking the 3:30pm ESPNU slot most weeks, the Mountain West can move their games from late evening ESPN/ESPN2 to there and that the UFC can start the cards at 10pm ET.

Another possibility is that the UFC will try to swing the schedule more to a summer dominated one meaning that more fights will be from April to August then the other months.

- Can/will ESPN move fight cards from Saturdays to either Fridays or Sundays? Let's take a look:

 Fridays: ESPN almost always has a NBA game(s) or a college football game during the fall and winter so that is less likely unless ESPN does less NBA doubleheaders or spreads the NBA out more throughout the year.

Sundays: Slightly more reasonable. Still the NFL doesn't really like counter programming from other networks so if any occur, maybe the Sunday of Labor Day weekend could be open, also the Sunday after Thanksgiving might be looked at.

ESPNEWS I think will be used as a prelim airing for UFC Fight Nights on ESPN. That way ESPN/ESPN2 doesn't have to lose a slot during Saturdays for college football and/or basketball. Let's take a look at the fall 2017 UFC Schedule and see what we can get.

9/2/17 UFC Fight Pass card.
9/9/17 UFC on PPV. No slots appear to be open so maybe 8pm ESPNEWS.
9/16/17 UFC Fight Night card. With this, I'm not really impressed with the fights so this would likely be a ESPN+ exclusive.
9/22/17 ESPN showed a MLB game and UFC was in Japan. The prelims could air on ESPNEWS and the main events could air on ESPN at 10 or 11pm.
9/30/17 NONE
10/7/17 UFC on PPV. ACC game was on ESPN2, move that over to the ACC Network and the prelims could start at 8pm on ESPN2
10/14/17 NONE
10/21/17  UFC Fight Pass card.
10/28/17 UFC Fight Night. Much like 9/16/17 was, a lower end FS1 event, likely to ESPN+
11/4/17 UFC on PPV. This appears to be another ESPNEWS airing. No ESPN/ESPN2 slot in primetime had a ACC game.
11/11/17 UFC Fight Night. No late night ESPN window was used for CFB. The Fight Night card could be targeted for a west coast site, prelims at 8pm on ESPNEWS and the main event could be at 10pm on ESPN.
11/18/17 UFC Fight Night. Possible late evening ESPN window. It was in Australia so I would just start the event at 10pm ET on ESPN.
11/25/17 UFC Fight Night. Overnight. Whole thing on ESPN or ESPN2.

Another thing to consider here, UFC and ESPN/Disney have completely opposite ends of the spectrum regarded to political correctness and family friendly images. Will Dana White tone down a little or will put ESPN back in its place if need be? Could ESPN allow for a little more edginess when what's typically there in Bristol?

It's a very intriguing partnership and the first event between the two is still eight months away. Get your snacks prepared and ready to go.

Potential Tropical Cyclone In The Atlantic?

Wow, we didn't even hit May 15th and we already have tropical mischief. That's unfortunate.

Anyway the 2018 Atlantic Hurricane Season doesn't officially start until June 1st but the last three years and four of the last six we've had a tropical system develop and get a name. The first name would be Alberto if this one develops.

Heavy rain is falling all across southern Florida at this hour. And that is going to be the main threat whether this turns into a named storm or not. Take a look at the upper left frame below.

The NHC as of this afternoon issued a tropical weather outlook on the system. It has a 40 percent of acquiring fully tropical or sub tropical characteristics for the next five days. A tropical cyclone is a warm cyclone with a warm core or mostly wet air all the way around the system. A sub-tropical cyclone is partially tropical and partially non-tropical. The typical part as you've guessed contains of very heavy rain and moist (green and blues on main panel) conditions fueled by the very warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico and some thunderstorm activity is along and to the east of that.

The main panel is the water vapor. orange is dry air and blue and green is very moist of course.
But the non-tropical portion has an upper level trough of low pressure overhead and what that does is providing dry air (the oranges on main panel) a way into the system and that way the cyclone has a really tough time developing or getting lungs so to speak. Tropical cyclones tend to have high pressures overhead them instead of low pressures.

It is Florida and it is May so there is adequate moisture anyway but the million dollar question is, "Can it develop into a named storm before it gets to the coastline?" Both the GFS (Left Middle) and European Models (Bottom Left) (Two most used in figuring out tropical systems) both say not likely. They are within very good agreement with one another. 8pm Tuesday night and only a broad area of low pressure surrounds the Florida Panhandle.

Regardless of development, heavy rain maybe up to 6 inches in some cases are likely throughout the state in the next three to five days. Mostly welcome rain but we could see some minor street flooding if you get caught in a downpour.

Waves: Not high since 1. This would be a very weak storm if it develops into something and 2. It'll develop on the Gulf side of the peninsula.

Winds: Not high either. 20 to 25 mph maybe in gusts. Should be no problems with that too.

I'll come with an update tomorrow if it warrants. Just be aware that it's around but for the moment it doesn't look all that dangerous.

UFC/ESPN Sign a New Deal. Questions left answered.....

UFC Release
ESPN Release 

As you may have heard by now, the UFC has signed a long term deal with ESPN+ to provide up to 15 events a year starting in 2019. The events are:

- Dana White's Contender Series (Tuesday Nights in the summer)
- 15 UFC Events a year (All the Fight Paas cards now and some lower end FS1 fights)
- Weigh In's
- Classic fights, best of's, compliations, etc..
- Exclusive content before PPV bouts


The deal, thanks to the LA Times is $ 150 million/year for 5 years. Also according to them, the linear/higher end portion of the contract is still being discussed with FOX and NBC. A few things/
observations:

1. If the report re: NBC involved is correct, then how many events does NBC get? The article stated that nearly 20 events a year are still unaccounted for. Does NBC get a even ten? Do those
events schedule around FOX's other commitments on weekends?

2. FOX and NBC do work together in NASCAR to a degree so this isn't 100% shocking but I couldn't have pictured that NBC would have room to carry UFC cards with the broadcast network and only
one, 24 hour, national sports network. Particuarly when NBC has this already.

Notre Dame football
NASCAR XFinity and Monster Energy Series
NHL (Tuesdays/Wednesdays/Sundays)
IndyCar (A lot of those races occur on Saturday nights)
NFL (Sunday Night)
Cycling (Tour de France)
Olympics (August 2020)
Premier League (Most occur on mornings though)
Hockey East (Friday Nights January-March)
IMSA (Coming in 2019)

Good news for NBC, a large amount of UFC programming will occur at night while most of the motorsports will take place during the daytime hours. Not as congested as FOX but still could be many 10pm ET fights. Not suitable for a lot of fans to wait all day.

More will be written later when the deal with FOX and likely NBC are done in ink. Back to ESPN:

Can they air events on ESPN (The TV Network)?: Nope, doesn't look like it. I honestly don't blame Dana White here because it's very rare for ESPN to be open on Saturday nights at any point of the year.

Also, a possible indirect reason why ESPN and UFC didn't sign a higher end deal is that the fact that ESPN showcases the Top Boxing Champions on weekends frequently (I'm not a fan of Boxing
so I can't tell you much of the organization) but with that, maybe the UFC didn't like the possibility of going against another fighting championship. Just a personal thought.


ESPN has been widely panned for not treating MMA/UFC as a real, legitimate sport (As Dana actually pointed out in 2011) Several years ago, there was a show produced by ESPN called MMA Live. It aired on Fridays at 1am and often delayed even further with live action such as college football or arena football.

With the increased exposure that ESPN has given the UFC with more discussions and interviews with fighters on SportsCenter and other shows, this is ESPN's chance to live up to their word and air/promote that biggest growing sport out there.

Moderate Risk Today

Haven't posted in over a moth so I own y'all one..

Complicated forecast today over the plain states. A moderate risk for portions of Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma though this evening. Storms are erupting west of Wichita and Enid and will move further south and east as the afternoon progresses.

Here are the tornado watches: Both are out until 10pm.