bobbutts
Weather Hobbyist
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Quote:
Just a passive observer of the site. It seems to only be briefly mentioned, but it seems clear to me that Earl has been drawing Fiona into itself over the past day. I know in the past, this has happened (I believe it was the 95 season I saw it happen, might of been Karen), though rarely, that the stronger storm swallows the weaker storm. I believe it also effects the stronger storm during this process. Can anyone give some clarity to what the effects on Earl will be during this process? How long this might take and do the models have this predicted in already?
Thanks
This is called the Fujiwara Effect
Considering doesn't even mention Fiona in their discussion I think it's a good bet it won't be a major factor in steering for Earl.
Earl Discussion
Quote:
THE SUBTROPICAL HIGH THAT IS
STEERING EARL TOWARD THE WEST-NORTHWEST OR NORTHWEST IS FORECAST TO
GRADUALLY SHIFT EASTWARD AS A BROAD TROUGH BECOMES ESTABLISHED OVER
THE EASTERN UNITED STATES. THIS PATTERN WILL FORCE EARL ON A MORE
NORTHWESTERLY AND NORTHERLY TRACK FOR THE NEXT DAY OR .
THEREAFTER...EARL WILL REACH THE BASE OF THE MID-LATITUDE WESTERLIES
AND WILL LIKELY TURN SHARPLY TO THE NORTHEAST WITH AN INCREASE IN
FORWARD SPEED. THIS IS THE SOLUTION UNANIMOUSLY PROVIDED BY TRACK
GUIDANCE.
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Random Chaos
Weather Analyst
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Loc: Maryland
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This really isn't the right forum for the question, but I'm going to try and answer it anyway.
The simple answer is: Hurricanes don't merge, as such.
Lets look at the physics of this:
1. Themodynamics: Two engines drawing from the same fuel source means that two engines will run out of fuel faster than one engine. A hurricane is an engine that runs on warm ocean waters, meaning that eventually both storms cannibalize the ability of the other storm to survive and/or strengthen.
2. Conservation of Angular Momentum: Two gears spinning the same direction (lets say clockwise for arguments sake) smack into each other. If the gears are equal size, they will both stop spinning. If one gear is smaller than the other, the larger gear will slow while the smaller gear will stop spinning. You can think of a hurricane as a giant spinning gear. When two storms near each other, the shear from the larger one will litterally rip apart the smaller storm, while the larger storm will be weakened by the shear from the smaller storm. The closer the storms are in strength, the weaker the resulting storm will be.
So what will happen if Fiona and Earl continue to be so close together? Eventually Fiona will probably fall apart and then Earl will stop feeling the negative effects of Fiona. This will in turn allow Earl will strengthen.
Many times this is described as "absorbing" or "merging" but in reality is is a result of the negative effects of the weaker storm no longer being present.
You also want to look up the Fujiwhara effect which affects the motion of storms in close proximity.
Edited by Random Chaos (Tue Aug 31 2010 07:20 PM)
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Ed Dunham
Former Meteorologist & CFHC Forum Moderator (Ed Passed Away on May 14, 2017)
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What we don't do on this site is get into unjustified wild speculation, i.e., hype. There is no sound meteorological reason for Earl to suddenly become a Cat V hurricane tomorrow - quite the opposite is true. With the potential for additional dry air entrainment and some shearing from an upper level disturbance, there IS sound meteorological reasoning for Earl to weaken a bit.
The Fujiwhara effect has nothing to do with one storm wiping out another - it is when two storms tend to rotate around each other.
There is a thread in the Forecast Lounge for Earl and another thread for Fiona - use these for arguing your point about a location of a storm on a long range model output.
ED
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Random Chaos
Weather Analyst
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Satellite presentation is looking poor. Microwave shows the eye entirely open south. Water vapor shows a large amount of dry air entrainment. A couple hours ago the eye looked to be clearing, but since then the eye has mostly filled in again and the convection has significantly weakened.
References:
IR and WV: http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/TROP/float2.html
Microwave: http://www.nrlmry.navy.mil/tcdat/tc10/AT...N-683W.71pc.jpg
P.S. Anyone know what is going on with NOAA SSD? Their site keeps going down and/or reverting to the 1996 version periodically. Been happening regularly over the past couple hours.
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MikeC
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We're now recording the French Antilles radar for Fiona. Link here
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danielw
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I have tried several of my links to the SSD site to no avail.
No message of any outage or server problems. My best guess is overload as they were transmitting 4,300mb of data earlier.
Most everyone is watching Earl and from this site it appears that the West Coast is watching Earl also.
http://www.websitetrafficspy.com/www.ssd.noaa.gov
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danielw
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Most recent, 10:01pm EDT, water vapor image is the bottom image. Two and a half hours difference between the two images.
Earl needs to turn real soon.
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Ed Dunham
Former Meteorologist & CFHC Forum Moderator (Ed Passed Away on May 14, 2017)
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Note that SSD is back online.
Invest 98L is still holding its own with a well defined envelope of circulation.
Earl has indeed made the turn to the northwest which is good news. Earl finally has an eye again - first time that I can recall a Cat IV going for such a long time without a clearly defined eye, but the recon reports did support the intensity. Some entrainment of dry air may have disrupted the hurricane a little - and more of that is still a possibility.
For a long time I thought that perhaps the upper outflow from Earl was going to shred Fiona, but now with Earl moving a little quicker to the northwest, I'm not so sure - she might survive for awhile.
ED
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Random Chaos
Weather Analyst
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Loc: Maryland
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Did a little investigation on SSD failures - looks like there is a routing and/or DNS issue.
Route one: Maryland via Qwest to the NOAA server banks in Silver Spring, MD. Loads the bad 1996 server software.
Route two: Maryland via Level 3 to Texas and then into a server farm in Texas. Loads the correct 2009 server software.
My guess is someone turned on some old servers that are supposed to be long shut down and one of them is sending out some bad routing data.
I emailed SSD's webmaster email address to let them know my info - hopefully they can fix it pretty quickly tomorrow, but doubt anything will happen until then.
Edited by Random Chaos (Tue Aug 31 2010 10:55 PM)
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danielw
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Two RECON Flights tonight. The first flight is now inbound to Earl and should be near Earl's center in an hour.
The second flight is readying for takeoff and should be providing data in the next half hour while inbound to Fiona.
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scottsvb
Weather Master
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Loc: fl
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whats the recon page link again Daniel to follow
(I'm not familiar with it, but in the future please use the PM capability when requesting something from an individual.)
Edited by Ed Dunham (Wed Sep 01 2010 02:21 AM)
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scottsvb
Weather Master
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HH found pressure just under 1001mbs with winds around 50mph @ the surface with Fiona. Location just east of the 2am advisory of 17.3N and 59.8W
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MichaelA
Weather Analyst
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Still a no go on the sat pics so far this AM. I hope they get it fixed soon. Nothing like flying blind.
Just came back online. (0940 EDT)
Well, partially up (0945 EDT).
-------------------- Michael
PWS
Edited by MichaelA (Wed Sep 01 2010 09:46 AM)
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