cieldumort
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Loc: Austin, Tx
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The march of central and eastern Pacific tropical cyclones continues unabated this season, perhaps pumped-up a bit more than usual by an impressive early start (or late start depending on your own perspective) to the ocean-climate phenomenon known as El NiƱo, which you can read all about here and also a good write-up here on Wikipedia, with updates on the current event. Additionally, more and more speculation that Anthropogenic Global Warming is a key player in increased TC formation has been suggested as one of the causative ingredients in this year's active Pacific. Whatever the reason(s), one can't help but take notice of how many significant hurricanes have formed in all of the North Pacific basins this year.
Hurricane Lane Updating Page :
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vpbob21
Weather Guru
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Loc: Ohio
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Lane looks to be in a rapid intensification phase - winds are 100mph as of the 8:00 intermediate advisory, up 30 mph from just 6 hours ago. The right eyewall is pounding the Islas Marias, a tiny group of islands off the west coast. Fortunately from what I've been able to Google, the islands appear to be basically uninhabited except for a federal prison.
NHC indicated Lane could reach cat 3 sometime Saturday - from the way he's deepening this evening, that might be conservative.
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cieldumort
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Loc: Austin, Tx
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Indeed. Lane is deepening at a very impressive rate tonight - with what appears to be a pretty tight little eye. I hope we get to read some more recon before he makes landfall, because if what is going on tonight is any indication, I would not be entirely surprised to see Lane make landfall as a Gulf of California/coastal Mexico - and even somewhat inland - nightmare. Forget Cat 3, he looks like he wants to go Cat 4+
Additionally, Lane is focusing so much very deep and concentrated moisture, that wherever this stuff ends up in the states - be it feeding the severe weather-triggering front this weekend, the southwest, Texas, or some combination of these - will be sure to see heightened risks of torrential rains.
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ShanaTX
Storm Tracker
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Loc: Texas
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Lane is Cat 3 as of 11 am update.
We're already bein put on notice that moisture from Lane could make the possibility of flash flooding worse here... a 'special weather statement'
Quote:
Several weather features will come together across south central
Texas this weekend resulting in the threat for heavy rainfall and
flash flooding. A warm and very humid airmass has overspread south
central Texas and The Hill Country. This airmass will collide with a
cold front as it moves into the Texas Hill country late Sunday night
into early Monday. This frontal boundary will provide a focus for
shower and thunderstorm development. An additional factor will be
an influx of tropical Pacific moisture from what is now Hurricane
Lane located off of the West Coast of Mexico.
The combination of these features will result in heavy rainfall
and possible flash flooding across south central Texas and The
Hill Country. The greatest threat for flash flooding will be
Sunday night into Monday.
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cieldumort
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Loc: Austin, Tx
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Cat 3 was largely completely an estimate from afar. Because of distance, recon was a little delayed in getting into Lane - checked the cyclone out during a time that it was already interacting with land, over far less water, and likely well into the weakening trend. Had they been in earlier in the day, there would have been a decent chance of them finding even stronger winds than the estimated 125MPH. technique strongly suggests that Lane may have really peaked out somewhere in the 132 to 145 MPH range.
IMHO, the SWSs being issued by various local NWSFOs ("The combination of these features will result in heavy rainfall and possible flash flooding across south central Texas and The Hill Country. ") assumes that convective temps will be reached. If decaying TC Lane produces too much upper middle to upper level clouds over central Texas, rainfall rates and totals may end up being significantly less, as convection will effectively be inhibited (Similar to what happened with John)
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