MapMaster
Weather Guru
Reged:
Posts: 138
|
|
Convection over or near center earlier today, now an eye feature (looks like Epsilon at one stage)...could use more convection, but, maybe that is on the way?
So like, when does it get classified?
MM
http://weather.msfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/post-goes
Edited by MapMaster (Mon Dec 12 2005 06:28 PM)
|
Clark
Meteorologist
Reged:
Posts: 1710
Loc:
|
|
No invest or T-numbers on this one yet, though I wouldn't be surprised to see them started later tonight or tomorrow morning. Outer convection is on the fritz as the system starts to consolidate, particularly to the north and to the west; the outer band to the east is starting to contract a little bit as well. An inner convective band earlier today has started to try to consolidate into a small inner core, with perhaps a banding eye feature trying to become evident (though I'm not sold on that yet). I think the system has completely separated from the trough that spawned it as that feature has left off toward the north over top of the ridge near the British Isles. While some outer bands/frontal structures may still be present to the east, those are becoming more diffuse with time and don't particularly have any sharp gradients (temperature, wind shifts, etc) associated with them right now.
The phase space analyses suggest it is on the cusp of subtropical/tropical development right now, though the models are still trending shorter on the system's life span. I'm a bit more bearish on the system lasting through the forecast period than I was yesterday as the trough leaving the east coast looks like it may capture this one, though the same could have been said for Epsilon once upon a time as well. I think as the inner-core starts to organize a bit better, you'll see subtropical or tropical cyclone advisories being issued on this one; that's about the only difference between this storm and the early stages of Epsilon and Delta as named systems. Time may be of the essence, though -- if nothing is going by early Wednesday, it may run out of time. It's trending the right way, though.
Just in is the 0000UTC /TAFB Tropical Discussion:
Quote:
THE LOW IS SEPARATING FROM ITS FRONTS AND CONVECTION IS DEEPENING A LITTLE AROUND THE CENTER... THOUGH IT REMAINS QUITE SHALLOW. THE SATELLITE PRESENTATION IS ALSO BECOMING MORE SUBTROPICALISH WITH TIME AS THE SYSTEM LOSES FRONTAL CHARACTERISTICS AND SOME SHALLOW CONVECTION FORMS NEAR THE CENTER.
They say it bears watching, and as I've been harping on for the past 3 days or so, I certainly agree. Same odds as yesterday at getting something (i.e. Zeta) out of this one, albeit with a shorter time frame. Satellite appearance will be key for this one, as it has moved into that netherworld where the cyclone phase diagrams/model representations aren't going to add much value to the initial analysis.
--------------------
Current Tropical Model Output Plots
(or view them on the main page for any active Atlantic storms!)
|
Margie
Senior Storm Chaser
Reged:
Posts: 1191
Loc: Twin Cities
|
|
Looks like less convection this morning than yesterday (at least it has moved far enough west that it can be viewed on GOES), and the windfield never wrapped all the way around on the south...no Zeta this time 'round.
You know...the TPC web page looks like Des Moines Iowa after 5pm; the sidewalks are rolled up. Ever since July I've been going there, practically on a daily basis (the web page, not Des Moines), and on most days seeing a box for a numbered or named storm...but occasionally just a sentence saying that there are currently no storms. For the first time today I looked and saw this message (although it may have been up for several days): "The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 through November 30."
It made me consider that in this unusually busy season, it is easier to go back and count the days where there were no ATL storms active:
June 1-7 and 13-27, July 1-2 and 30-31, Aug 1 and 19-21, Sep 26-29, Oct 7, 12-14, and 26, Nov 1-13 and 22. Only 53 days out of the six-month season, less than 2 months of inactivity, and there were an additional 8 days in Dec with named storms.
--------------------
Katrina's Surge: http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/Katrinas_surge_contents.asp
|
HanKFranK
User
Reged:
Posts: 1841
Loc: Graniteville, SC
|
|
thing is totally occluded now. the discussions are mentioning a 'surface trough' out in the east atlantic, which i suppose is reference to the large, closed vortex apparent in the visibles. not a whole lot of convection with it, though... and if it were going to make a real stab at developing it would be farther along.
so anyway, gale center it is... hybrid tropical cyclone it isn't. the chance may remain for it to do something (toss a solid convective core in the middle, and it'd be a whole different story), but it isn't very big anymore. never really got far enough to the south, i guess.
models are showing another cutoff or two later in the period, but as it's december the chances of development continue to shrink. may be worth an odd glance to see if the models keep seeing them, but the season may well have ended with epsilon's demise on december 8th.
HF 1605z13december
|
Clark
Meteorologist
Reged:
Posts: 1710
Loc:
|
|
Well, it got about 85% of the way there, but I don't think it has quite enough time to go any further toward development. It's a separate entity now, spiraling westward across the northern Atlantic, but the trough currently extending NE away from Bermuda is approaching and should capture this feature. Despite the lack of development into a named system, it still is a very nice case that can be used to understand how these things get going -- strengthen that southern end of the wind field a bit and add some persistent convection right near the center of the system and you have something.
Agree with HF; we're probably done for the season. This thing's got maybe 12hr to develop into something and, given the approaching trough & demise of the low, it's going to take a lot just to get a quick upgrade. Seems like forever ago that the season started, way back with , but here we are now at the end of the game...and it's about time to package this season away for good.
--------------------
Current Tropical Model Output Plots
(or view them on the main page for any active Atlantic storms!)
|
HanKFranK
User
Reged:
Posts: 1841
Loc: Graniteville, SC
|
|
we've got another hybrid forecast for the eastern atlantic region this weekend/early next week. looks a little frisky, but maybe not as impressive as the last, as far as model appearances go so far. still holding out that epsilon was the last one. of course, the pattern that generated delta and epsilon is persisting in a reduced form, and might still toss us an out-of-season storm. enjoy the christmas season, everybody,
HF 0108z16december
Edited by Ed Dunham (Fri Dec 16 2005 08:01 AM)
|
Lee-Delray
Weather Master
Reged:
Posts: 429
|
|
HankFrank
Glad to hear you missed the ice; sounded like an awful storm.
I want to thank you and all the moderators, I learned a lot (unfortunately) this year. Let's hope for only fish spinners next year.
|
Clark
Meteorologist
Reged:
Posts: 1710
Loc:
|
|
Couple of random notes...
1) The has released a few of the post-season analyses on this season's storms. There's no real rhyme or reason to them coming out other than when the forecasters tasked with writing them get the chance to do so. The full list is available by clicking here; so far, they have , , Gert, Lee, and Epsilon. No major changes to the tracks, though an extra advisory at TS status was added for both Lee and Epsilon (with the latter's accumulated energy actually decreased somewhat).
2) There appears to have been a transient non-tropical hurricane-type system south of Greece in the Mediterranean Sea late last week around the 15h. It was decidedly cold-core (see the NOGAPS cyclone phase analysis -- caution, link will expire soon) but had an eye-like feature on satellite imagery, akin to polar lows sometimes seen at higher latitudes. More interesting than anything, I guess. If a publicly-available satellite image becomes available, I'll pass it along.
Happy Holidays, everyone!
--------------------
Current Tropical Model Output Plots
(or view them on the main page for any active Atlantic storms!)
|
Margie
Senior Storm Chaser
Reged:
Posts: 1191
Loc: Twin Cities
|
|
Clark, 's report is out.
Can you believe it?
!
Written by Knabb, Rhome, & Brown.
Gotta go read it right now!
--------------------
Katrina's Surge: http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/Katrinas_surge_contents.asp
|
Cycloneye11
Weather Hobbyist
Reged:
Posts: 70
Loc: San Juan,Puerto Rico
|
|
Here is the report which is very long 42 pages.Among the important things there another record for the 2005 season was broken as had 920 mbs with 110 kts.But there are more things in the report that all may want to look at such as the downgrade to cat 3 at landfall.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/TCR-AL122005_Katrina.pdf
|
Clark
Meteorologist
Reged:
Posts: 1710
Loc:
|
|
Saw it earlier and was going to make a post about it, but it went up and down on the 's site all day so I held off. It's a very interesting read and goes into quite a bit of depth on a lot of intensity issues.
There will be arguments all up and down the board for some period of time on the actual intensity at landfall, primarily the intensity of the winds in New Orleans, but most of that will be nitpicking. I have heard a lot of talk that it could've been a lot worse for New Orleans, which I tend to doubt. Yes, they were on the weaker side of a weakening category 3 hurricane, so the wind damage was not nearly as bad as they could have seen. However, the surge was that akin to a category 4 hurricane -- initially driven at category 3 with a lot of category 5 swell built in, even going across Lake Ponchartrain. The whole area east of town essentially flooded from the Gulf inward to the city's periphery. If the storm had gone further west -- i.e. directly over the city -- as a category 4 or even 5 storm, I would make the argument that New Orleans itself would have been spared the flooding damage as most of it would have piled up in St. Charles & St. John the Baptist Parishes, more rural areas that St. Bernard, Orleans, and Jefferson Parishes. Damage still would have rivaled or likely surpassed Andrew, but I feel the loss of life would've been reduced, and most of it would have been covered by insurance (unlike the flooding damage, which most are finding out the hard way that will not be covered without specialized flood insurance).
Needless to say, this was the 'big one' for New Orleans and the northern Gulf Coast, a fact highlighted well by the preliminary report, and I hope that we never end up testing that theory above in real life. Pick your poison, essentially.
--------------------
Current Tropical Model Output Plots
(or view them on the main page for any active Atlantic storms!)
|
HanKFranK
User
Reged:
Posts: 1841
Loc: Graniteville, SC
|
|
they'd mentioned cutting a category off a while back, so not unexpected. still bizarre to have a hurricane landfalling around 920mb rated cat 3. but that's the saffir-simpson scale for ya--wind is what the scale is set by.
that 80 billion damage figure isn't very inclusive. if you tossed in the aid and cleanup costs, and factored in economic losses.... the hurricane's impact was surely significantly higher.
i'm a little sketchy on the direct/indirect fatalities thing. i'm sure that quite a good bit of the deaths in pre-WW2 era hurricanes include numerous cases of what the guys would tag as indirect.
the conventions in post-analysis are easy to critique, but they're a-ok as long as things are consistent through time.
HF 1556z22december
|
Margie
Senior Storm Chaser
Reged:
Posts: 1191
Loc: Twin Cities
|
|
Motivated by the lack of detail in the initial report regarding surge, I finished looking at the FEMA flood maps for MS, and it appears their overall assessment is pretty good. The max amount of surge was probably around 24-25 feet, and that was only along a couple of small areas of immediate coastline (although I suspect Lakeshore and Clermont Harbor had similar surge as well). In terms of category, all but that tiny percent or two of the area flooded was category 3 or less. The area of the MS coast that received Cat 3 surge was extraordinary; it went all way to just east of the Pascagoula city limits, only a couple miles from the AL border. The flooding of the Pascagoula River basin was also extraordinary.
Is there a chance we can move all these posts on the report to a new thread addressing the report?
If so, I'll post more detail on the surge analysis (which mainly involved going back and forth between the MS HES maps, which contain the model results, but in terms of category, not elevations, which are site-dependent due to topography, and the FEMA flood and elevation maps).
I haven't had a chance to look at any flooding in LA but am interested in hearing what others have found. I suspect St Bernard got a wicked surge, with more velocity than any of the other areas, and that the majority of Slidell's surge didn't come from Lake P, but came right over the lowlands from MS, and from Lake Borgne.
--------------------
Katrina's Surge: http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/Katrinas_surge_contents.asp
|
Previous
Index
Next
Threaded
Edit
Reply
Quote
