14 September 2013
Pulling the Trigger: INGRID Chase Begins!

We've decided to pull the trigger!

After a wicked-slow hurricane season, INGRID has come along.  It's a healthy cyclone deep in the Bay of Campeche, and all indications are that Mexico will be seeing a hurricane in the next 48-72 hours.  After lots of discussion among the iCyclone team—my right-hand man, Scott; chief meteorologist, Adam; and forecaster/chaser Jorge—we've decided this one is a go.

The National Hurricane Center's latest forcast brings the storm ashore near Tampico on Monday afternoon with winds of 80 kt (a Cat-1 hurricane), but of course that can and will change.

The current plan:  I'm flying into Monterrey tonight to meet Jorge, and we're going to drive down to Tampico Sunday morning to assess the situation.  This makes our plan remarkably similar to our ALEX chase in 2010.  As with that last cyclone, the landfall point could  be quite far N of Tampico, as there's a decent spread in the computer models—but Tampico is a good homebase.

I sniff a lot of potential with this one—it's just giving me a vibe.  I could be wrong and we could bust badly, but that's part of this grand game—this addiction—called hurricane chasing.  I feel this same doubt every time I go on a chase—every time—and I'm learning how to ignore it.

Here I come!

—Josh Morgerman