Post-Tropical Storm Gamma and Hurricane Delta: October 5, Update A

Well, that's...

(Image from Le Wine O'Clock)

(A subliminal message for those of you in the US... Please Vote!). 

There is good news and dodgy news in the tropical storm world today. 

Post-Tropical Storm Gamma

The good news is that the wind shear separated Gamma vertically and the low-level center was visible without much convection today, as you can see in the visible and infra-red satellite imagery:

She headed south and will soon be back over land and is forecast to dissipate tomorrow: 

So, that's the end of Gamma. Hurray. 

Hurricane Delta

Meanwhile, in the Caribbean Tropical Depression 26 went straight to Hurricane today. He's at 16.8N, 80.3W, heading WNW at 7mph with the track shifting slightly to the west towards the Yucatan and Gamma...

Winds are officially 80mph, central pressure is 977mb, which means he's a cat 1 storm (cat 1 range: 74-95mph). We can see that convection has improved in the last few hours...

But I'm not convinced she's as strong as they think. There is good vorticity (circulation) in the lower half of the troposphere, and there is some vorticity in the upper troposphere, but it's not in a classical circular pattern one would see with a hurricane. I'd say he's a strong Tropical Storm. However, there isn't anything really to keep him in check - wind shear is going to get weaker, and he's going to be moving over some very warm water with the upper ~150m warmer than 26 deg C for the next couple of days:

The only thing that will keep him slightly in check is some dry air ahead of him as we can see in this water vapor satellite imagery with that purple patch in the northwestern Caribbean:

But it's not much, so he'll most likely be a strong hurricane as he gets closer to the Yucatan - which is what the NHC are thinking as well. 

That's it for today other than to say Happy Birthday to my hubby! :-) 

More tomorrow!

Ciao for now,

J.

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 local 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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