CoconutCandy
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Loc: Beautiful Honolulu Hawaii
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Felicia Shearing, Weakens to TS - Islands Brace for Impact
Sun Aug 09 2009 04:54 PM
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Aloha from Hawaii,
I've been away for a day helping friends to prepare for 'the big blow', now that it is certain that a weakening TS Felicia will be tracking *right through* the Main Islands from East to West.
In 30 years of living in Hawaii, I have *never* seen this occur. Either the storms will transit south of the islands, like TS Lana did last weekend, or veer off to the north still some distance from the Islands (Hurricane Daniel, 2000).
But a even more likely scenario is for the storm to have been *sheared further east*, and nothing more than a remnant low (not even a Depression!) will roll through and disrupt the tradewinds for a few days, making for very humid and muggy weather. 
There is both good news and bad news for the Hawaiian Islands. The good news of the day is, of course, that the Westerly Vertical Wind Shear has arrived right on schedule, and has already made it's presence apparent. By effectively blocking the upper portion of the cyclone in it's westward progression, while the increasingly exposed low-level circulation continues to chug westward, Felicia is ungoing the process of 'de-coupling'.
This Microwave Image of Felicia, taken at around 3:30AM Hawaii time, clearly shows the now largely exposed low-level circulation in shades of light blue and the remaining deep convection (with bright red reflectivites) being held back 50-60 miles to the east, thanks to the westerly wind shear!
If you look closely, you can actually see the remaining 'eyewall feature', open to the NW, as a bright red "J" shape, some distance to the east from the now fully exposed LLCC, which clearly indicates that the storm has decoupled.
Hence, Felicia has been downgraded to a 70 mph tropical storm, just under the threshold of a minimal hurricane, but still a very strong tropical storm none-the-less.
======================
The bad news is ...
More coming soon ....
Edited by CoconutCandy (Sun Aug 09 2009 05:34 PM)
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