CoconutCandy
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Loc: Beautiful Honolulu Hawaii
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Hurricane FELICIA Powers Up, Eyes Hawaiian Islands
Tue Aug 04 2009 05:15 PM
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Yep! El-Nino is certainly making it's presence felt. A Dynamic Duo of Tropical Cyclones: Enrique and his 'Sister', Felicia have formed quickly overnight, as clusters of thunderstorms rapidly spun up into a bona fide Hurricane and a Tropical Storm. Just what we *don't* need right now; incursions of marauding Eastern Pacific Hurricanes into our Peaceful Tropical Islands to stir things up !!
Seems that Felicia is of greater potential concern, as it's closer to the Hawaiian Islands and will have plenty of time to gather fuel for the fire, so to speak. Enrique, the smaller, weaker 'brother cyclone' seems to be headed NW, destined for coolers waters in a few days ... a concern perhaps only to oceanic shipping lanes.
Additionally, Felicia will track further south, staying longer within very warm waters with high oceanic heat content. As if that weren't enough, shear is quite light and will remain so for at least the next 2 or 3 days. So, it seems that Hurricane Felicia is now undergoing an 'Explosive Intensification' process, probably resulting in a MAJOR Catagory 3 Hurricane in a few days time or less ... all-the-while making a bee-line for the Big Island. Yikes!
You may notice a ragged, banding-type-eye feature developing through a thin veil of cirrus cloud outflow. If Felicia continues her current 'explosive intensification' phase, we're certain to have a very impressive looking, cloud-free eye by morning, local basin time, especially considering the approaching of the diurnal convective maximum cycle. The real question is: just *how* strong will Felicia get ?!?
Latest NHC Forecasts have it tracking, more or less, directly towards the Big Island, only to show up on Hawaii's doorstep as some type of borderline storm/hurricane perhaps, sometime around Monday morning of next week. Of course, all that can change in the coming days, and hopefully will, especially if some kind of binary interaction occurs with Cyclone Enrique not too far to it's East. And from there ... to where? That *is* the question ...
I'm hopeing and praying that some sort of westerly or southwesterly shear will materialize in some fashion, as has often been historically the case, much like Tropical Storm Lana this past weekend. And that Felicia will be significantly sheared and have the Tropical Punch knocked out of her and stagger in as a much weakened system, providing much welcomed drenching rains for a very parched Big Island and Maui.
El-Nino years often result in drought conditions here in the islands, as well as increased cyclone activity. '82 was Hurricane IWA, Cat 1, direct hit on Kaua'i ... and in '92 was disasterous, 'Piercing' INIKI, a MAJOR Cat 4, and again a direct landfall over Kaua'i, mere weeks *after* Hurricane Andrew demolished South Dade, (my old 'stomping grounds'!), and stole away all the media attention. Kaua'i was just as bad in some areas. Anyways ...
And it now unfortunately apprears, at least for the moment, that we're in for some kind of blow. Let's just hope it's not too severe or that, like Lana this past weekend, will be sheared apart and pass harmlessly without much commotion, well south of the Islands.
As always, please chime in if anything you'd like to add or comment about. Just 'cause you don't live in the Islands, doesn't mean you can't make a valuable contribution to the 'Other Basins' Forum. Open Season! 
Obviously, I'll keep y'all appraised with on-going developments in the coming days. Let's just hope that it doesn't become THEE top story on CNN's "Hurricane Headquarters", and they have to send out Anderson Cooper and Long Time Hurricane Veteran John Zerella to be buffeted about and have to grab each other just to stand up against the rising winds !! 
Please Pray for Hawaii. - Norm in Beautiful Honolulu
Edited by CoconutCandy (Thu Aug 06 2009 09:59 AM)
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