Fred rapidly intensifies; new wunderground storm surge section launched
Hurricane Fred put on an impressive burst of intensification overnight, and is now a major Category 3 hurricane with 120 mph winds. However, Fred is not a threat to any land areas for at least the next week. Satellite imagery of Fred shows the spectacular signature of a classic Cape-Verdes type major hurricane, with a prominent eye, well-developed low-level spiral bands, and high cirrus clouds denoting excellent upper-level outflow on three sides. It is quite unusual to have such a powerful system so far east in the Atlantic, and Fred is only the third major hurricane to exist east of 35W. Fred is also the strongest hurricane so far south and east in our data record. However, this type of system would have been difficult to document before satellite pictures began in the 1960s.
Figure 1. Visible satellite image of Hurricane Fred at 10:30am EDT 9/9/09. Fred was a Category 3 (120 mph winds) at this time.
The forecast for Fred
Wind shear through Thursday morning is expected to stay in the low range, 5 - 10 knots, and ocean temperatures will be about 1 - 2°C above the threshold needed for tropical cyclone formation. Given these conditions, plus such factors as the temperature at 200 mb and the amount of moisture between 700 mb and 500 mb, this morning's run of the SHIPS model computes that the Maximum Potential Intensity (MPI) Fred can reach tonight is 140 mph (121 knots), which would make it a Category 4 hurricane. This is the strongest a hurricane can get in this region of the atmosphere. Very few hurricanes ever reach their MPI, and it will be interesting to see how close Fred gets to this mark.
Shear will rise to the moderate range, 15 - 20 knots, Thursday through Friday, then increase to the high range, 20 - 40 knots, Saturday through Sunday, thanks to a strong trough of low pressure traversing the North Atlantic. This should weaken Fred to a tropical storm five days from now. The trough will also pull Fred to the northwest and then north. Most of the models foresee that this trough will not be strong enough to fully recurve Fred to the northeast and out to sea. However, another strong trough of low pressure is forecast to traverse the central Atlantic about eight days from now, and this trough should be strong enough to recurve the storm northeastward out to sea. The odds of Fred making it all the way across the Atlantic to threaten land areas appear low at this time.
Elsewhere in the tropics
A weak front is expected to move off the Texas coast Friday and linger along the coast for several days. Beginning on Friday, we will need to watch the Western Gulf of Mexico for possible development of a tropical cyclone along this front. Any storm that develops would likely move northeast or north-northeast and impact Louisiana and northern Texas coast. The models are less enthusiastic this morning about developing such a storm than they were in previous runs, and there will be some high wind shear to the west for a potential tropical system to contend with.
New wunderground storm surge section launched
The Weather Underground is pleased to announce the release of the Internet's most comprehensive hurricane storm surge web pages. The new storm surge section provides more than 500 detailed, zoomed-in storm surge maps from the official storm surge model used by the National Hurricane Center--the Sea, Lake, and Overland Surge from Hurricanes (SLOSH) model. I've created SLOSH model worst-case flood maps for Category 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 hurricanes for the entire U.S. Atlantic coast, plus Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and the Bahamas. Zoom-in maps of fifteen important cities such as Miami, New York City, Boston, Tampa, and Corpus Christi are included. To help coastal residents see how past storms have affected their region, the wunderground storm surge pages also include SLOSH model animations of the surge for more than 40 historic storms--from the Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635 to Hurricane Ike of 2008. You can access the new storm surge web pages.from our Tropical/Hurricane page, on the right side of the page under my blog box. I encourage all coastal residents along the U.S. coast to take the time to familiarize themselves with the storm surge risk where they live.
Figure 2. Sample water depth inundation image (left) and storm tide image (right), created using NOAA's SLOSH model. These Maximum of the "Maximum Envelope of Waters" (MOM) plots are for Tampa Bay, Florida, for a mid-strength Category 4 hurricane (sustained winds of 143 mph) hitting at high tide.
How to interpret the storm surge images
There are two sets of images available. The first set, titled "Maximum Water Depth", shows the water depth at each grid cell of the SLOSH domain. Thus, if you are inland at an elevation of ten feet above mean sea level, and the combined storm surge and tide (the "storm tide") is fifteen feet at your location, the water depth image will show five feet of inundation. The second set of images, titled "Maximum Storm Tide", shows how high above mean sea level the sum of the storm surge plus the tide reaches. Over the ocean, the storm tide and water depth images will show the same values. The storm tide images contain no information about how deep the water will be inland, and are generally less useful than the water depth images. All of these Maximum of the "Maximum Envelope of Waters" (MOM) images were generated for high tide, and thus show worst-case inundation scenarios for mid-strength hurricanes of each Saffir-Simpson Category (Category 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5). Category 5 hurricanes have never occurred in the Mid-Atlantic or New England regions, so there are no Category 5 images shown there. No single storm will be able to cause the level of flooding depicted in the SLOSH storm surge images along the entire coast. A sample set of storm surge images for a Category 4 hurricane hitting Tampa Bay is shown in Figure 2. Black lines mark the coastline, and also delineate the grid the SLOSH model used. There may be storm surge present outside the boundaries of the grid, so pay attention to where the grid boundaries are. Also, if you see a high surge modeled for a narrow waterway that goes right up to the edge of the grid boundary, don't believe it. The model puts an artificial barrier at the grid boundary, and the surge is piling up against this non-existent barrier. Empty brownish grid cells with no coloration show where no inundation is computed to occur. St. Petersburg becomes two islands in a worst-case scenario Category 4 hurricane, as shown by the brown areas surrounded by colored areas of storm tide (this did occur during the Great Gale of 1848, a Category 4 hurricane that hit the city). The tide level is marked at the bottom of the color legend, and is 1 foot in this example. The left "maximum water depth" image shows how high above each grid cell the storm tide reaches. The storm tide--the combination of the storm surge plus the 1 foot high tide--reaches as much as 27 feet above mean sea level (pink colors) near downtown Tampa (right-hand "maximum storm tide" image). The amount of inundation inland is controlled by the elevation of the land. Some of the inland regions near downtown Tampa being inundated by the 27-foot storm tide are at an elevation of 19 feet, so as much as 8 feet of inundation will occur at those locations (dark blue colors in the left-hand "maximum water depth" image). Interstate highways are the thick grey-green lines, and smaller highways are shown as dark green and light green lines. If a road is inundated by storm surge, it will not appear. County boundaries are shown in red.
Twenty years ago on this date
On September 9, 1989, satellite imagery detected a strong tropical wave with plenty of spin and heavy thunderstorm activity moving off the coast of Africa, just south of the Cape Verdes Islands. The satellite analyst at the National Hurricane Center duly noted the tropical wave, the 35th such wave to move off Africa that year, in his tropical weather discussion. No one could suspect that the routine-looking tropical wave would eventually grow to become Hurricane Hugo--the costliest Atlantic hurricane of all time.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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I have to agree with you on that. We used to listen to him but he started going downhill with his reports and what I would call miss-information that I quit watching him.
Surface
Didn't know that about Ike. Something very similar happened in Great Britain in 1987 when they were hit with one of the most destructive storms ever hit, killing hundreds. The BBC weatherman, I believe his name was Michael Fish, told everyone "not to worry". He lived with the criticism the rest of his life. It was quite the story in Europe at the time. Their use of the term "Fish Storm" has a different connotation as our term. It makes for some interesting reading.
They NHC track is basically following the BAMM forecast....
OFCL BAMM CMC NGPS
That would be an interesting predickament.
Its been fighting shear for days now, that is why TAFB kept forecasting it to dissipate. Its been tracked in the Marine Weather discussion.
probly OFF (One For the Fishes)
AOI
AOI
AOI
AOI
Good Morning! Yeah, good ol' Neil Frank!! Remember him as a kid growing up, former director of the NHC!! I am suprised with the expertise under his belt that he did not DEMAND everything <20' above sea level to evacuate! It is SAD, a CRYING shame that ANYONE lost their life to that storm!! There was adequate warning!!
Hi my friend......you gotta love this.....
New jobless claims fall more than expected to 550K
Some just don't get it.....are they not underplaying what a loss of 550,000 job in one weak means....OMG....
quickscat = low level, thats the thing the nhc has called subtropical
you got that right....not turning the corner anytime soon it appears.. what factories are still left in the US .....no orders are coming in expect orders the Gov. is doing...
its been such along time for me without one that i really stopped caring for a while... cashing on state unemployment insurance, which they cut off for me saying i was attending college (wtf)
So a college student is not allowed to work.....WOW..sorry to hear that!
i got a friend who would be rejoicing if he had major disasters, has a side job with FEMA makes a lot of money with canes
I'm thinking after Fred bends to the west, and after he gets to TD status in 5 days, i'm thinking he will redevelop a bit because from what i'm looking at, the wind shear is pretty low, around 5-10 knots. Anyone else think this?
I used to work with Frank (Billingsly). When he started getting nervous about Ike I knew it was bad. (I knew anyway from following here, but I was surprised to see a met nervous.)
A lot of people died because of the surge. No one realized how much ahead of the storm the surge would cut off the evacuations routes. Many people planned on leaving that Friday morning (early)! But by 6am they were trapped in their homes. Ike didn't "hit" until about 2 am Saturday morning. When I woke up at 7 on friday, and saw waves crashing over the seawall I panicked... and I'm 20 miles north of Galveston (11 miles west of the bay)... elevation 20.
not that, the government in puerto rico has an insurance that you get taxed for in most jobs its unemployment insurance. you get it for six months, i currently get 170$ biweekly, in comparison to a friend of mine who got it from new jersey's unemployment insurance, she got $300+ weekly, you can note the difference... you'd never get that amount from PR state unemployment insurance
its a good thing im living with grandma, if not id be really ... i guess living in a project
Amen...it bothers me to no end when the spin masters try to say the economy is on the way back because fewer people are losing their jobs(it has to slow sometime, or none of us would be working). No logic at all, they think we are idiots.
Unforunately.....the woes of others are often prospered by others.....did i spell that right....lol
Don't want to get off-topic, but this happens every year at the end of the summer. In the northern states, resorts close, hotels close, transportation areas decline, etc. The figures are much lower than expected. There are also continuing claims and people moving to different states. Students are leaving jobs and going back to school. There are many factors involved. Even in the best of times, these figures vary greatly, but no one pays attention as they do now. Now back to the weather.
LOTS of moisture building off of TX....how is the shear? Still holding I hope?
Lots of energy flowing into the Hottub de Mexico
Hi SurfMom.....you got that right..i was off shore fishing a few days ago and the surface temp in the boat at 3pm showed 94deg where we was fishing about 50miles off shore....worse than a hottub......heck my gucuzzi i keep at 105....lol
Since they retooled the java loops dont work for me either, but the flash option works just fine.
So you are saying that if less people are losing their jobs we should say that is bad? Where is your "logic"
Just listened to one of the local mets, Rob Robbins, a highly respected met, and he says this low in the gulf has started to deepen and has the propensity to go further with conditions slowly improving.
Thanks...I can't get the flash to work either right now...
Eleven years with ML. (now BOA) Sort of like storms, It only needs to be one job to be a life changing event, if it is your job. Hope I find another soon!
Yeah,thats like the insurance companies telling us they have good news,we are only raising your rates 10%,and not 15% like we thought.
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Summer doldrums sticking around for the Westside as we enter into the middle of September with out any excitement. Future forecast looking grim surf wise. Today, with the wind East @ 15, should give the kiters some water time as the rest of us sit on the side lines and wait for swell. Gulf Temp 89
Guess I'll have to do it the old way for now; step outside and look at the sky and trees for any sign of winds and clouds...
Hey my friend...i just realized i mispelled WEEK and put WEAK.....i guess it was ok tho.......ROFLMAO
I find it interesting/sad that ALL the clues were there that the surge would arrive early. There was storm surge affecting the gulf from Tampa all the around unto Texas well before arrival. The affected area was immense and many here had expressed concern of it's affects at landfall.
Notice that afterwards there was a clamoring for a "new" rating system beyond the cat whatever we are currently using. Our own Doc Masters was a vocal proponent of this reconsideration.
I listened in abject horror to the phone calls of those from Bolivar that woke up expecting to drive to safety only to find themselves trapped with no chance of rescue before the storm arrived. I have a 101mb file on that hurricane with lots of before and afters.. scary lucky that more didn't perish.
We're still ordering from US factories! Not that we make a big difference...but it makes me feel good every time I place an order with one of our US vendors.
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