Hurricane Sandy: October 25, Update A

A quick special Hurricane Sandy update with my morning cuppa tea. J

She made landfall in Cuba as a strong cat 2 storm last night with winds of 110mph. But she got into a big fight in Cuba and has emerged this morning without her eye, which means she is probably a strong Tropical Storm or weak cat 1. The strong convection decreased substantially while she was over land. Here are the infrared images from 7pm last night, when she was between Jamaica and Cuba, and one I grabbed at 7.30am this morning, when she was just north of Cuba so you can compare the two:

That dark gray and red strong tornado-generating thundery weather around her eye last night has pretty much vanished. I disagree with the NHC on this. They have kept her as a cat 2 storm with winds of 105mph (but there isn’t even an eye!).

Her circulation is still pretty good throughout the troposphere, so I would say she is a weak cat 1 storm with winds in the 75-85mph range. There is a lot of wind shear, and she is heading into some stronger shear. So even though she will be over warmer water, she still has the shear, dry air, and bits of Bahamanian land to keep her in check. Here is the infra-red satellite image of her over a larger geographical area – she’s a robustly large lady! J

We are lucky we have the dry air and wind shear to keep her at this size! The blue areas are just clouds, very little rain. Yellow is where the rain really begins. Haiti and the Dominican Republic are about to get a lot of rainy/thundery weather (alas).

She is currently at 21.6N, 75.5W heading N at 18mph. Minimum pressure is officially 967mb.

I’ll be back later,
J.

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DISCLAIMER: These remarks are just what I think/see regarding tropical storms - not the opinion of any organization I represent. If you are making an evacuation decision, please heed your local emergency management and the National Hurricane Center's official forecast and the National Weather Service announcements. This is not an official forecast. If I "run away, run away" (Monty Python), I'll let you know.
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