Hurricane Lee and Hurricane Maria: September 27, Update A

Maria and Lee continue their Atlantic dance. Bermuda, your deflector shields are doing a pretty good job! For those of you who are wondering exactly where Bermuda is (shhh… don’t tell them you don’t know!... it is that little white dot almost due west of the eye of Lee (the storm to the right) and southeast of Maria (the storm to the left)):

Hurricane Lee

He reached weak cat 3 intensity today with winds of 115mph (cat 3 range: 111-129mph), which is no surprise as he looked like a strong cat 2 when I last checked in a couple of days ago. He is now back to being a very strong cat 2 with winds of 110mph, central pressure 966mb, which seems like a good call to me:

He is at 31.7N, 57.3W, heading NNW at 7mph and away from Bermuda (the pink dash on the left side of the he imagery above). He is moving into an area of strong wind shear, so I expect him to slowly start to get weaker. The track has not changed much, and he will be heading over to the UK next week, bringing some 'fine' autumn weather with him:

He will be on the same track (more or less) that Maria will take, but she’ll be about a day behind him. 

Hurricane Maria

Speaking of Maria, she is currently at 36.8N, 71.5W, heading NE at 7mph, and is now on her way across the Atlantic. She is also heading to the UK next week. I guess someone should let them know it will be a stormy start to the week (although at least they won't be hurricanes by the time they get there!):

She is officially barely a cat 1 storm with winds of 75mph, central pressure 979mb. I would say she is slightly weaker – a strong Tropical Storm – because there isn’t any real circulation (vorticity) in the upper troposphere, which means her structure has weakened. She is in an area of wind shear; you can see this from the clouds streaming off to the southeast – some look like they are bringing a spot or two of rain to Bermuda:

Friday onwards should be interesting in the Atlantic... I’ll be back then.

Ciao for now!

J.  

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Blogs archived at http://jyotikastorms.blogspot.com/
Twitter @JyovianStorm
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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. 

Hurricane Maria and Hurricane Lee: September 25, Update A

I didn’t run away! I was away from a computer, experiencing the ups and downs of real life but now I’m back home; wine in hand, ice cream in the freezer for later, hubby in the kitchen making me dinner, and two cat 1 hurricanes to stalk. Things are back to normal(ish). J

Hurricane Maria

She is winding down (and about time too!). Currently she is at 32.3N, 73.1W, heading N at 7mph:

But as you can see, there isn’t much convection left in her. Hurray! It is mostly clouds with a splodge of rain (technical jargon ;-)) and a bit of a breeze. Officially she has winds of 80mph, central pressure of 969mb (which is quite low for such a weak storm), which makes her a weak cat 1 storm (cat 1 range: 74-95mph). Me likey. She is also generally steering clear of land:

North Carolina may get a spot of rain, but after that it looks like she may pop over to Scotland in a couple of weeks for a finger or two of Scotch and some deep-fried pizza and deep-fried mars bars. (For reference, I have about seven fingers of wine J). The reason she is moving at a relatively slow pace is because there is high pressure in front of her. There’s a small chance she may move a little closer to land than because of this high pressure, but generally I’d go with this track. The reason she is expected to speed up and move to the northeast is because there is a front moving across the US and that will scoop her up and carry her north. You can see this front in the satellite imagery:

There is still very good circulation (vorticity) throughout the troposphere, including the upper levels, which indicates that she is definitely still a hurricane. She is still also over warm water, with sea surface temperatures of 26-27 deg C.

Hurricane Lee

This little guy just doesn’t want to go away, does he? He is now at 30.2N, 51.5W, heading WSW at 8mph:

 He is officially a little stronger than Maria with estimated speeds of 90mph, central pressure of 979mb, which makes him a strong cat 1 storm. However, there is a very good eye which has not really gone away in hours and he has some decent convection, although not the red we see with strong tornado producing thunderstorms – given these clues, I would place him at a strong cat 2 storm at the very least (in my humble but not quiet opinion), with winds in the 105-110mph range! They haven’t sent a plane into investigate (from what I can tell) so the wind speed is truly their estimate.  

His track takes him a little closer to Bermuda, but then he will start to curve to the north and northeast:

The track is based on the high pressure that Maria is going to be curving around as well, and that front across the US, which and will scoop both Maria and Lee off to the NE.

For those of you who are still awake this far into today’s post (well done you!) and are paying attention to the tracks…

(Image created from the NHC track by Ben A.)

we get the (drumroll) ‘Venn Diagram of the Cone of Uncertainty’! Friday and Saturday are looking particularly dicey if you are sailing anywhere in the intersection.... I highly recommend that you stay off that part of the high-seas this weekend.

We have seen storms get close to each other before – Maria and Jose got a little close (but not close enough, fortunately, to join forces!).

In this case, Maria and Lee may be within 800 miles of each other and there is a possibility that we may see the Fujiwara Effect... ooh... time for a Science Alert! (although unlikely as they look like they are chasing each other, but it's a chance for a Science Alert so I'm going to grab it ;-)).

<Science Alert!> The Fujiwara Effect (or Fujiwara Interaction) happens if we have two rotating cyclones (within 800-850 miles) that get close to each other (with the western one moving slower than the eastern one). If that happens, they start to rotate around each other and around a point between the two systems. Eventually they will spiral in towards that central point and may even merge - if they don’t dissipate before they get too close. This is more frequently seen in the Pacific, but once every few years it happens in the Atlantic as well. For example, in 1995 between Hurricane Iris eventually absorbed the remains of Tropical Storm Karen, or in 2005, Hurricane Wilma gobbled up the remains of Tropical Storm Alpha (we had so many that year that we started the greek alphabet!). < End Science Alert!>

Hopefully more tomorrow!

Toodle pip,

J.  

p.s. RIP Uncle A. and thank you for everything. xxx

Blogs archived at http://jyotikastorms.blogspot.com/
Twitter @JyovianStorm
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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. 

Hurricane Maria and Post-Tropical Storm Jose: September 21, Update A

I’m beginning to get an inkling that this may be turning into a bit of a crazy year… it is definitely time for a glass (or two) of wine today while it is still available in my price range! (thanks to Jessica Y. for bringing that scary report to my attention!)

Reports of the devastation continue to emerge from Puerto Rico, St. Croix and the other USVI, Dominica, and Guadeloupe about the havoc Maria has left behind. She is actually still bringing rain over parts of Puerto Rico and the USVI, and also over the Dominican Republic, which has also seen some flooding. The news I will let you read, as I have no additional information. I see that planes with supplies are beginning to be sent in. Anything you can do to help, please do!

Hurricane Maria

She is currently at 21.2N, 70.5W, heading NW at 7mph and is lurking near the Turks & Caicos:

The good news is that her eye is looking a bit ragged, and even better, her entire appearance is not as circular:

Taking a step back, you can see that this is because she is running close to an area of wind shear, which is beginning to push the clouds off to the northeast. She still has a lot of strong thunderstorms in her because there are still large areas of dark orange and red in the infrared imagery, so the Turks & Caicos will definitely get a lot of rain and possible flooding as well.

Some more good news (well, news that is heading in the good direction at least): the circulation in the lowest level of the troposphere (850mb) is not as well formed now (it is elongated a bit), which means she is structurally not quite as strong as she was a day ago:

There is still pretty good circulation in the middle and upper troposphere though, so I would say she is perhaps a strong cat 2 storm/weak cat 3 at this point. The NHC have her pegged as a very strong cat 3, with winds of 125mph, central pressure 959mb (cat 3 range: 111-130mph).

The other good news is that it looks like she will stay away from most of the Turks & Caicos and the Bahamas:

This makes sense – I think she is trying to say hello to Jose. Of course, Bermuda… just keep an eye out for now.  

Stay safe out there my friends! 

Post-Tropical Storm Jose

Meanwhile, up north, Jose has finally gone postal… I mean Post-Tropical! In the history of tropical storm language, my recollection is that this is a relatively recent term that the NHC introduced. I’m not sure why as I think we already had a perfectly good name for storms that change their structure. Post-Tropical essentially means he is no longer a tropical storm, but an extratropical storm – which means his structure is more like a wintertime stormy system/front than a tropical system. But they use it to indicate his origin was as a tropical storm. Just in case anyone accidentally forgot. Even though this term has been around for a couple of years, it still bugs me that they use it and then have to go to the trouble of describing what it is by saying it is extratropical… seems like a bit of a waste of space (kind of like this minor rant I suppose! ;-)).

He is dawdling just off New England and is officially at around 39.6N, 68.5W, heading W at 2mph (ooh, speedy!). Winds are 50mph, central pressure is 987mb. Even gales can be stronger in winter storms… and oh yes, just a reminder to all that Winter is Coming! It even got cold in LA today with a low of 60F (16 deg C)... brrr.... 

Someone told me today that they heard Jose and Maria were going to merge and form a mega storm that will cause havoc in New England… whoever made that up has a career in Hollywood. Please send me the script. 

I think this will be my last post on Jose unless he does something daft.

Now for nap time. More tomorrow!

Ciao,

J.  

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Blogs archived at http://jyotikastorms.blogspot.com/
Twitter @JyovianStorm
-------------------------------
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.