MikeC
Admin
Reged: Sun
Posts: 4543
Loc: Orlando, FL
|
|
First update in a while, but with my friends in Australia I do definitely want to mention this southern hemisphere storm, a category 5. It is approaching Port Douglas, which is near the northern end of Queensland in Australia. (Brisbane is much further south)
Best of luck to the folks there.
Event Related Links:
Brisbane Tropical Weather Centre
General Links
Skeetobite's storm track maps
NRL Monterey Marine Meteorology Division Forecast Track of Active Systems (Good Forecast Track Graphic and Satellite Photos)
Check the Storm Forum from time to time for comments on any new developing system.
Follow worldwide SST evolution here:
Global SST Animation
SST Forecast
NASA GHCC Interactive Satellite images at:
North Atlantic Visible (Daytime Only), Infrared, Water Vapor
LSU Sat images
RAMSDIS Satellite Images (high speed)
Some forecast models:
NGM, AVN, MRF, ETA ECMWF
AVN, ,GFDL, JMA,NOGAPS,UKMET
DoD Weather Models (NOGAPS, AVN, MRF)
Multi-model plots from Mid-Atlantic Weather
Other commentary at Independentwx.com, Robert Lightbown/Crown Weather Tropical Update Accuweather's Joe Bastardi (now subcriber only unfortunately), Hurricane Alley North Atlantic Page, Hurricanetrack.com (Mark Sudduth), HurricaneVille, Cyclomax (Rich B.), Hurricane City , mpittweather , WXRisk, Gary Gray's Millennium Weather, storm2k, Barometer Bob's Hurricane Hollow, Snonut,
Even more on the links page.
|
Clark
Meteorologist
Reged: Wed
Posts: 1710
Loc:
|
|
Ingrid's a very small storm, but a very well-defined one. The visible satellite image on the front page as well as on the site hint at the possibility of mesovortices in the eye, while what other satellite imagery we have suggests a very symmetric storm. I don't see any hint of a concentric eyewall cycle to come, so it's possible that the storm gets a bit stronger yet. The storm looks very much like Isabel did on satellite, of course with the direction of rotation reversed.
These north Australian coast storms act quite a bit differently from those we see in the Atlantic. Many of these storms get their start from the monsoon trough found over Indonesia. Oftentimes they can meander while caught in the trough, then *usually* tend to move in a generally western direction with the tropical trades to landfall. (Note that storms that form well to the east of Australia tend to move in an easterly direction throughout their lifecycle.) Midlatitude troughs in the southern hemisphere tend to reach to much lower latitudes than they do in the northern hemisphere, resulting in storms being picked up near 15°S and recurved near 20°S in many circumstances. The projection for Ingrid brings it inland moving SW; whatever is left of it is likely to recurve offshore a day or three thereafter.
We don't have much in the way of model guidance for such a storm, but the analyses suggest that the storm should continue to move towards the west and southwest towards the coast. The UWisc. satellite-derived products suggest that the storm is in a region of low wind shear and should remain so until landfall. There's a strong jet to the south of the storm over the central part of the continent which Ingrid will eventually be caught up in, but that's after landfall. Unfortunately, the mean layer wind analyses aren't produced by UWisc for the south Pacific, but there's nothing to suggest that the projected track is in error.
Damage near the landfall point will be confined to a small, fortunately relatively-low populated area, but will likely be pretty severe in localized regions.
Useful tools as the storm nears landfall:
Cairns, AU radar: http://mirror.bom.gov.au/products/IDR193.shtml
GOES-9 satellite imagery: http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/tropic/real-time/shemi/images/images.html
GFS analyses over Australia: http://grads.iges.org/pix/aus.00hr.html
UWisc satellite winds & analyses: http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/tropic/real-time/shemi/winds/winds.html
It's been a pretty active SW Pacific season so far in terms of major storms, with 5 category 4+ storms this year, but about average in terms of total systems (avg: 9 TCs, 4.5 hurricanes; based on 1966-1989 data). Kinda familiar, eh? In any case, best wishes to those in the path of this storm.
--------------------
Current Tropical Model Output Plots
(or view them on the main page for any active Atlantic storms!)
|
ShanaTX
Storm Tracker
Reged: Mon
Posts: 226
Loc: Texas
|
|
There's an article and photo @ news.com.au Eye looks defined there.
'shana
|
Rich B
British Meteorologist
Reged: Sat
Posts: 498
Loc: Gloucestershire, England, UK
|
|
Fortunately Ingrid is quite a compact Cyclone, and the core looks likely to move onshore near Cape Melville - not exactly a densely populated region! However, gales and hurricanr force gusts are set to affect much of the Cape York Peninsula with BOM issuing a Cyclone WAtch for inland areas right across to the Gulf of Carpentaria. BOM also seem to favor a track which takes the cyclone across Cape York Peninsula and re-emerges it over the Gulf of Carpentaria early Friday, where redevelopment is likely.
--------------------
Rich B
SkyWarn UK
|
Clark
Meteorologist
Reged: Wed
Posts: 1710
Loc:
|
|
Hmmm, that's definitely a change from even last night, where they took the storm to the southwest after landfall. If it gets out into the Gulf, it could even make it across the rest of the northern part of the continent...time will tell.
--------------------
Current Tropical Model Output Plots
(or view them on the main page for any active Atlantic storms!)
|
Clark
Meteorologist
Reged: Wed
Posts: 1710
Loc:
|
|
Thankfully, the storm weakened to around 105kt -- category 3 -- before making landfall. It's just now crossing the coast, with the eye coming in south of Lockhart River. The banding to the storm's inner core is rather interesting -- it looks like there are three main bands, each likely associated with a radial wind maximum. Not all that often you get three such bands.
Since the storm came in further north than originally expected, the Weipa radar is better to capture the storm than is the Cairns radar: http://mirror.bom.gov.au/products/IDR182.loop.shtml
--------------------
Current Tropical Model Output Plots
(or view them on the main page for any active Atlantic storms!)
|
|
Previous
Index
Next
Threaded
Edit
Reply
Quote
