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| #877130 (Received by flhurricane at: 10:52 PM 06.Oct.2016) TCDAT5 HURRICANE NICOLE DISCUSSION NUMBER 12 NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL152016 1100 PM AST THU OCT 06 2016 Nicole has rapidly intensified during the day, with a pinhole eye apparent in satellite and microwave imagery. Although the eye has recently become obscured, Dvorak satellite estimates support an initial intensity of 90 kt for this advisory. All of the guidance suggests that the shear near Nicole should increase during the next couple of days since the tropical cyclone will be in an environment of increasingly strong upper-level northerly winds. Thus Nicole is probably near its peak intensity, and slow weakening is forecast from Friday through the weekend. The large-scale environment could become more conducive for re-intensification by days 4 or 5, and some restrengthening is shown around that time. The new intensity forecast is very close to the previous one, slightly above the model consensus. Nicole has moved very little during the past several hours. The hurricane will likely begin to drift southward by tomorrow afternoon due to steering from the western side of a mid-level trough. Thereafter, Nicole could gradually turn toward the southwest, west, and northwest over the next few days around a ridge over the western Atlantic Ocean. There is better agreement in the guidance than yesterday, although the ECMWF remains a bit of an outlier solution to the east. Since a stronger system would likely respond more to the deep-layer northerly flow, the new NHC track is shifted a bit to the south of the previous forecast in a couple of days, but ends up close to the last NHC advisory by day 5. A climate note: This is the first time since September 10, 1964 that two Category 2 (or stronger) hurricanes have occurred simultaneously in the Atlantic basin west of 65W. Interestingly, those hurricanes in 1964, Dora and Ethel, were in similar positions as Matthew and Nicole are now. FORECAST POSITIONS AND MAX WINDS INIT 07/0300Z 27.4N 65.2W 90 KT 105 MPH 12H 07/1200Z 27.3N 65.2W 85 KT 100 MPH 24H 08/0000Z 26.8N 65.1W 80 KT 90 MPH 36H 08/1200Z 26.1N 64.7W 75 KT 85 MPH 48H 09/0000Z 25.5N 64.7W 70 KT 80 MPH 72H 10/0000Z 26.0N 66.0W 60 KT 70 MPH 96H 11/0000Z 27.5N 67.0W 60 KT 70 MPH 120H 12/0000Z 29.0N 68.0W 65 KT 75 MPH $$ Forecaster Blake |
