Hurricane Lane - a Central Pacific special: August 20, Update A

G'day! Surprise! I'm doing a special set of updates on Hurricane Lane in the Pacific. Hurricane who??  You know, that good looking category 4 storm that is heading towards Hawaii this week. I know, I know, I ignored the last two storms in the Atlantic (TS Debby and TS Ernesto) but really, they were just hanging out, far-ish from land, not causing too much of a ruckus. And besides, I was hanging out with the Kangaroos and Koalas in Australia, over 19,000 miles away (typical...of course Debby would pop up when I'm traveling). 

But Hurricane Lane is a different beastie from the gentle Debby and Ernesto. He's seriously thinking about visiting Hawaii to personally check out their volcano and their emergency alert system. Poor Hawaii - they have had a bit of a rough year!

Hurricane Lane is currently at 13.8N, 150.4W heading W at 12mph. His winds are officially at 130mph (cat 4 winds: 130-156mph), central pressure is 964 mb. This makes him a weak cat 4 storm. He has a pretty decent eye, which you can see in the visible, infrared, and water vapour satellite images (and may I just say how it warms me heart to be able to access these sorts of satellite images for the Pacific at least (too bad about the mess in the Atlantic) - it makes it much easier to get an idea of what is going on!!):

From these, and looking at his vorticity (circulation), I would agree with the NHC that he is a borderline cat 3/cat 4 storm. The infrared shows that he has some strong thunderstorms (the red areas) and the outer bands are not too far from the big island - they will get there within the next 24 hours:

His track is the big question... currently the forecast has a very large range: 

and the Cone of Track Uncertainty touches all the islands. For the first time in history, a NOAA hurricane hunter plane flew into a storm in the Central Pacific - this is great because it provides some desperately needed data from within the storm that feeds into the models, which help the forecast. However it isn't enough to really refine those models. Actually, this is a global issue - there simply isn't enough data over the ocean to be able to really get a good forecast (but stay tuned because we have an XPRIZE competition percolating to try and get a solution to this - although it won't be for this year!).

At this point (Monday evening) it is really too soon to tell if he will take the northernmost track in that cone, or pass to the south of the islands. But I do see a glimmer of good news -  there is some decent wind shear between Mr. Lane and Oahu, so he should at least be weaker if he heads in that direction. 

I'll be back tomorrow with an update. Hang loose my friends on Oahu! And get ready... just in case! 

Toodle pip,

J. 

Twitter: jyovianstorm

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DISCLAIMER:
These remarks are just what I think/see regarding tropical storms. If you are making an evacuation decision, please heed your local emergency management and the National Hurricane Center's official forecast. This is not an official forecast.
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