| hogrunr |
| (Weather Guru) |
| Mon Sep 08 2008 04:51 PM |
|
Re: Ike Could Grow In Size
|
Quote:Quote:
I've been watching both Cuban radar and various sat loops on and off through the day. It appears that Ike is still tracking due west along 21.2 °. From both radar, and the visible and water vapor sat loops it sure looks like Ike has lost most of its density, and the rain bands have certainly lost intensity through the day. The IR loop appears very broken. It looks like there is still good circulation, but nowhere near as much within the storm. I would think a lot of energy has been lost.
Ike's cloud tops have warmed due to the pass over land He still has plenty of energy and his footprint is huge as evidenced by this microwave pass. Once he is back over warm open water and can draw from all quadrants one can only speculate on intensity, only it won't be from lack of structure. I personally think factors regarding intensity now almost trump landfall position because Ike could potentially be the strongest storm yet this year.
I definitely agree with you on that since Ike has taken the more southern route over water along the coast instead of over land. The latest IR shows a flare up of convection on the "half" of the eye that is over water right now, this should atleast keep Ike from weakening much further until he can pass over Cuba.
The other thing to watch for is that the data that the NHC will be using in their 5pm EDT update can be a little deceiving since as far as intensity is concerned because some of it will be from the recon data that came in about 2 hours ago.