Hurricane Felicia weakening; Typhoon Morakot hits Taiwan
Hurricane Felicia is steadily weakening as it heads west-northwest over cooler waters. Recent satellite imagery shows that the eye is less distinct, and the tops of thunderstorms surrounding the eye are warming, indicating that the updrafts sustaining the eyewall are weakening. The storm appears rather ragged and lopsided, and probably is not as strong as the advertised Category 3 status.
Figure 1. Current satellite image of Hurricane Felicia.
Sea surface temperatures (SSTs) under Felicia have now fallen below the 26°C threshold needed to sustain a hurricane, and will continue to decline as the storm tracks west-northwest over cooler waters. By Saturday morning, SSTs should fall to 24.5°C. While wind shear is expected to remain in the low to moderate range over the next three days, 5 - 15 knots, the cooler SSTs should be able to significantly weaken the hurricane. On Sunday, Felicia will be encountering strong westerly winds aloft, which should create 15 - 20 knots of wind shear. This should be enough shear to tear the storm apart, thanks to its weakened condition due to the cool SSTs underneath it. By Monday night, when Felicia will be nearing the Hawaiian Islands, most of the computer models predict Felicia will have dissipated. One exception is the GFDL model, which predicts Felicia could be a tropical depression with 35 mph winds when it passes just south of the Big Island on Monday night. In general, the models have been trending more south with their recent runs, so it currently appears that the Big Island is most likely to feel the most impact from Felicia's rain and winds. While the current forecast calls for Felicia to have a minor impact on Hawaii, the Hurricane Hunters are scheduled to be out in full force over the next two days to monitor the storm. The NOAA jet flies into Felicia today, and will drop a series of dropsondes that will gather data to be fed into tonight's 00Z computer model runs. Regular low-level flights by the Hurricane Hunters are scheduled to begin Saturday afternoon.
Typhoon Morakot hits Taiwan
Typhoon Morakot has moved ashore over northern Taiwan this morning, and is battering the island as a strong Category 1 storm with 95 mph winds. At 9:30 pm local time today, the Taipei airport recorded sustained winds of 56 mph, gusting to 76 mph, and a pressure of 972 mb. Morakot is expected to weaken today as it interacts with the mountainous terrain of the island. Storm chaser James Reynolds is intercepting the storm and will be posting live updates on his typhoonfury.com web site and twitter for those who want to follow the storm. Morakot is also visible on Taiwan radar.
Figure 2. Radar image of Typhoon Morakot as it made landfall over northern Taiwan at 21:30 local time on 8/7/09. At the time, Taipei was experiencing sustained winds of 56 mph, gusting to 76 mph. Image credit: Taiwan Central Weather Bureau.
The Atlantic is quiet
There are no areas of disturbed weather in the Atlantic worth mentioning today, and no computer models forecast tropical storm development over the next seven days.
I'll have an update on Saturday.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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And thats always a good thing.
Enjoy your weekend Dr. Masters.
There are no areas of disturbed weather in the Atlantic worth mentioning today, and no computer models forecast tropical storm development over the next seven days."............
0-0-0 continues.....
Well we had an interesting winter last winter. Had snow all the way down in New Orleans in early Dec. I tend to always think that if you have an extreme summer then you will have extreme winters.
Any kind of trof in the GOM this time of year should be watched. With waters in the 30C+ range, it won't take much to get something cooking. That said, the thunderstorm complex off the west coast of FL looks completely unorganized (it has a very random distribution of storms, and no circulation), so I wouldn't be concerned about it in the near term. Beyond that, I don't see much of note anywhere near the GOM, but I haven't checked the position of waves crossing the caribbean yet today, either.
The western Atlantic wave has degenerated into a weak, low amplitude wave along the ITCZ... Will still bear watching over the next several days as it marches through the Caribbean, as conditions at times will be favorable for development.
The US Navy NRL has Felicia at 105mph (90 kts) right now. I tend to agree it's very likely a Cat 2 now. In the past couple hours worth of frames, I've noticed a more westerly component to the movement. I've been waiting for new images to come in to confirm it wasn't an illusion or wobble, but I don't think it is. It seems to have started to turn more westward along 18N. This might actually keep it away from those really cooler waters. The NHC actually indicated this possibly. If it weakens faster initially, it'll turn more westward with the easterly flow sooner and then could weakened at a slower rate. It'll be interested to see what changes there are to the NHC track forecast during the course of the day today. I'm still thinking it'll at least be a depression when it reaches the vicinity of the Big Island. If it makes the turn now, it might be a tad stronger as the SSTs remain marginal and the shear I believe is stronger along much more of a northerly track.
I remember you saying yesterday that El Nino affects MJO. Is the MJO as important in Aug. and Sept. vs. early in the season?
What happened to the positive MJO that was forecast in sections of the Atlantic the 2nd week in August? Long-range models just wrong? Now it looks suppressed til around the 20th.
I agree. Just speaking from the Houston area, if the hurricane season is bad, the following winter tends to be fairly nasty. The 2001-2002 winter was rather extreme, as wa the 2005-2006 winter. This past winter was a rollercoaster, with snow in some areas, followed within a few days by near-record warmth. Suffice to say there is some ancedotal evidence, but nothing scientific that I know of.
http://wind.mit.edu/~emanuel/storm.html
And, no Windoze, I do not want to restart right now. Ask me again in 90 seconds. And 90 seconds after that. And again...(somebody get me a hammer)
Well we had the biggest flood from a hurricane in 08 and then we had the biggest snow since i believe it was 90... this snow outdid 90 though
Whichever model does well gets a gold medal!
;)
lol models are funny. Helpful, but funny. Hopefully Gulfstream-IV's data collection will help them a bit.
And the snow along the northshore of Lake P (the big one N of New Orleans) was thicker than I have ever seen south of the Mason-Dixon line. From my driveway:
We had snow on the ground for 48 hours.
Wow, why couldn't we have had that in Seattle a couple weeks ago...instead of our horrible triple-digit heat wave. LOL!
If I ever see snow again, it'll be too soon. Moved from Ohio 2 years ago and have enjoyed the weather down here
I'm still waiting for the death of Enrique. LOL. That thing just won't quit with its puffs of thunderstorms.
God love ya Chuck... down south we celebrate enough to shut down work and school at the first sight of 1 flake...
Dec 12,2008
Sounds oddly like Seattle haha. Actually everyone starts sliding in patches of ice and go into panic at the sight of one flake. We had an extremely snowy winter last Dec. I can't remember seeing so many snow events in Seattle in just one month, let alone a season.
Last big snow I saw was Valentine's Day 07.... 28 inches in 24 hours. I was extremely pleased the day I sold my snow blower.
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL EP082009
800 AM PDT FRI AUG 07 2009
...FELICIA WEAKENS TO A CATEGORY TWO HURRICANE...
INTERESTS IN HAWAII SHOULD MONITOR THE PROGRESS OF FELICIA.
AT 800 AM PDT...1500 UTC...THE CENTER OF HURRICANE FELICIA WAS
LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 17.9 NORTH...LONGITUDE 135.6 WEST OR ABOUT
1280 MILES...2060 KM...EAST OF HILO HAWAII.
FELICIA IS MOVING TOWARD THE WEST-NORTHWEST NEAR 13 MPH...20 KM/HR
...AND A GRADUAL TURN TO THE WEST IS EXPECTED OVER THE NEXT COUPLE
OF DAYS.
SATELLITE IMAGES INDICATE THAT THE MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS HAVE
DECREASED TO NEAR 100 MPH...160 KM/HR...WITH HIGHER GUSTS.
ADDITIONAL WEAKENING IS EXPECTED DURING THE NEXT 48 HOURS AND
FELICIA IS FORECAST TO WEAKEN TO A TROPICAL STORM ON SATURDAY.
HURRICANE FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 40 MILES...65 KM...FROM
THE CENTER...AND TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 140
MILES...220 KM.
THE ESTIMATED MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE IS 973 MB...28.73 INCHES.
...SUMMARY OF 800 AM PDT INFORMATION...
LOCATION...17.9N 135.6W
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...100 MPH
PRESENT MOVEMENT...WEST-NORTHWEST OR 295 DEGREES AT 13 MPH
MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...973 MB
THE NEXT ADVISORY WILL BE ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER AT
200 PM PDT.
$$
FORECASTER BLAKE
LOL! I bet!
Christmas eve 04 we didnt get that much here in Golden Triangle area... it only stuck on stuff like leaves and tops of objects... not very much at all...
I remember that Christmas Eve snow, too. It was rather wierd.
NO!!! I am gonna stay!!! So there!!!
Hey Ike!
The Walker Circulation, MJO, and ENSO are all very much intertwined.
The Walker Circulation and the MJO are stronger during La Nina events, and weaker during El Nino events.
The genesis of MJO pulses is a subject of intense research, of which I haven't read enough to have a good physical grasp on it.
However, the genesis region for MJO pulses is typically the east Indian Ocean, Indonesia or the extreme western Pacific.
Taken from Wikipedia:
This interannual variability of the MJO is partly linked to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle. In the Pacific, strong MJO activity is often observed 6 – 12 months prior to the onset of an El Niño episode, but is virtually absent during an El Niño episode, while MJO activity is typically greater during a La Niña episode.
As far as your two questions, the MJO's importance seems to me at least to stretch across the entire hurricane season as it fosters convection which helps any wave/low on its way to development. There isn't really a time during the summer or fall where MJO is weaker or stronger on average.
After reviewing this:
200 hPa Velocity Potential
I'm not so sure that convection won't be favored over the Atlantic starting very soon! Whether this is a true MJO pulse or something else, I'm not an expert enough to say...but I could see this helping excite some AOIs next week...
Sure, we had some light snow in 1993 and 1996, and some flurries every year, but I still remember how odd and beautiful it was to see palmettos and live oaks covered in snow.
OK, I assumed that, but doesn't tell me anything. Nice lines and colors mean nothing if you have no legend.
Funny thing about that snow, my 4-year-old argued with until he was blue that we were going to get snow that winter about 10 days before it happened. We kept telling him that we almost never get snow in SE Louisiana and the odds were very slim.
Now he's sure he knows everything and mommy and daddy are full of it.
Hey StormW!
Didn't see your post until after I submitted. At least we're on the same page... :-)
Fine....but don't come whinin' to me about it ; )
Well, at least half of that is right. ;)
Definitely have some wind damage early. And footage of folks out on scooters getting blown over. And apparently China Airlines has flights still coming in to Taipei tonight.
future weatherman.. lol! running on gut instincts...hehe!
Pottery had better keep his galoshes handy
CRS
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