07/10/05 TALK: Major Hurricane Emily

[Mark Farnik]

Well, pressure's up to 930 mb, winds still 155 mph, so I was wrong. LOL. :lol:
The eye presentation has become less symmetrica and even a little ragged the last few frames of the GOES Storm Floater water vapor loop, which I believe indicates Emily may be getting ready to undergo another eyewall replacement cycle. Her last cycle lasted about 20 hours, so she should complete it and restrengthen just before landfall. Also a slight northerly wobble has emerged in her track. Whether this becomes a trend or not remains to be seen. The models also seem to have brought this into play, according to the NHC 11 P.M. advisory:
IF ANYTHING... THE MODELS HAVE TRENDED SLIGHTLY
NORTHWARD SINCE THE PREVIOUS RUNS... SO I SEE NO REASON TO SHIFT
THE FORECAST TRACK OVER THE GULF OF MEXICO. IT IS STILL TO SOON...
HOWEVER... TO DETERMINE IF LANDFALL ON THE NORTH AMERICAN MAINLAND
WILL OCCUR IN NORTHERN MEXICO OR IN TEXAS.

So even the NHC is unsure where Emily will make her second landfall.
As far as the first landfall goes, based on both NHC guidance and the models, I believe Emily will make landfall between El Parasio and Cancun, with the eye most likely passing directly over Cozumel. That is, unless the northerly wobble becomes a trend, and then Cancun could be in real trouble. There is approximately 50 miles between Cancun and Cozumel, so it wouldn't take much more than a slight northward component to Emily's motion for Cancun to get hit head on by the eye.
To all who are heading south of the border to the Yucatan:
Good luck, be careful, may God watch over you, and bring back some kick arse video! :twisted: 8)

 

[Thomas Loades]

From the GOES storm floater image, I think Emily's nearing the peak (or trough, whichever) of another cycle now — the eye is clouding over and looking just a little diffuse, and the IR shows a break in the ring of lowest temperatures. Meanwhile the pressure's at 938 mb, but the winds are still around 150 mph. Still looks bad for the Yucatan.

 

[David Wolfson]

Perhaps too much of a "good" thing, with the very high energy water of the northwest Caribbean. For at least a day there's been extensive assymetric convection to the north of the storm. It seems the competitive outflow from this is steering Emily just a bit more westward and inhibiting the circulation in that semicircle. FWIW.

 

[Bob Schafer]

Comment and question:

The island of Cozumel is in trouble of biblical proportions. It looks to take a "ground-zero", or nearly so, beating, much as Homestead did 1992. Okay, the question is whether a 'cane with max sustained sfc winds of 150mph factors in storm motion. With Emily's motion of ~20mph, does that make actual sfc winds 170 in the NNE sector of the eyewall (assuming that that also happens to be where max winds are)?

Thanks

Bob

 

[MClarkson]

I beleive the NHC bases its intensity announcements, in good part, based the peak flight level winds which are almost always found in the right side of the storm. So that would meen that yes, the initial intensity takes into account storm motion. I certainly would not expect to see 170mph sustained winds from this storm.

 

[Tim Vasquez]

For those of you tired of dealing with those horrible Mexican servers, I'm mirroring the Cancun radar, and generating animation loops.

http://www.stormtrack.org/special/

Tim

 

[MClarkson]

Thanks, Tim.

The satellite presentation is degraded but that eyewall looks like its in fine shape.

 

[Owen Shieh]

It's incredible to see how small Emily's wind field is. It has a very tightly wound intense core that would make a world of a difference for a community if it made a jog only 1 degree to the left or right of landfall. The wind field right now for Emily is about on par with Charlie. Buoy 42056 in the NW Caribbean is currently reporting sustained 31.1 kt winds and waves of 16.1 ft. This does not indicate that there's a cat. 4 hurricane just miles away! If surface winds of 145 mph were really sustained and wrapping around the storm in a "classic" hurricane model, waves would be at least around 30 ft propagating away from the center. In fact, earlier this morning, waves were higher than 7-8 ft. way out in the eastern Caribbean. Those buoys are sitting in the deep easterlies, and the winds are not much less than those just a few degrees from Emily. Hurricanes don't get much smaller than this. Dennis had a large, overall envelope of winds and rain. However, the core winds are only slightly larger than Emily's and Charlie's isn't much smaller. Looking at satellite presentation today, the CDO has become asymmetrical, tops have warmed, eye has filled, banding has diminished, and outflow restricted to the south and west, and pressure rising. To me, this indicates weakening, so I was a bit surprised by the 145 mph intitial intensity. The aircraft may have sampled a wind gust in a mesoscale feature, but in terms of sustained 1 minute surface winds, unless the max wind radius is so tiny that it only encompasses certain sporadic data points, I see no reason this can be nearly a cat. 5 storm or strong cat. 4 at its current state. Cat. 5 storms in the past have had pressures in the 920 range - at the highest. Strong cat. 3 is typically what one would equate with high 940's pressures. That said, Emily could easily bounce back and either stabilize or re-gain some strength prior to Yucatan landfall, given its compact nature, but not nearly as strong as it was yesterday. As per my analysis, the upper-level sub-equatorial high that was providing it outflow yesterday has been displaced to its northeast, towards Cuba, so all it has now is a channel to the north. Elsewhere, it is restricted.

 

[Tim Vasquez]

Just as a note, my utilities are working hard to bring in those Cancun images. We're getting lots of non-server response, packets taking five minutes to arrive, and so on. It ain't Weathertap, but it's all we've got.

Tim

 

[Jeff Gammons]

update - 5:30 pm ET

Tulum, Mexico ( just southwest of Cozumel, Mexico)

Just spoke with Hurricane Chaser Jim Edds. He has found a large hotel near Tulum, Mexico that is located near the coast west-southwest of Cozumel. Jim is getting last minute daylight shots and touring the area before dark sets in. He said this would likely be his last call until after the storm as he's already having cell phone issues.

I will be standing by during the overnight hours tonight awaiting any word from Jim via cell or email video updates. I will post if I hear from him.

Jeff Gammons
http://www.weathervine.com

 

[Jim Tang]

Originally posted by Tim Vasquez
For those of you tired of dealing with those horrible Mexican servers, I'm mirroring the Cancun radar, and generating animation loops.

http://www.stormtrack.org/special/

Tim

Thanks Tim! Here's another Cancun radar mirror site:

http://flhurricane.com/imageanimator.php

Oh, and please refrain from using the original sites, as it looks like they'll fold soon. Perhaps if we divert a few users onto these mirror sites, the original sites will go faster for those who need it.

 

[Scott Olson]

Well good luck to Jim! Latest data indicates 113mph surface winds and 951mb so a modest Category 3 Hurricane. The Yucatan buoy recorded a sustained wind of 68mph and 32ft Wave heights at 2150.

 

[Brandon Clement]

It looks as though Emily just finished a quick replacement cycle and I'm betting that she explodes overnight. I'm pretty sure NHC overestimated the last report of 135, but I'm pretty sure she will get back there or stronger by landfall. The last visible image showed strong bands of convection wrapping back around the eye which actually made it all the way out of the NE quadrant of the main convection. Should be interesting to watch. Thanks for the radar mirrors. Good luck to Jim I hope you get us some great video.

 

[MClarkson]

anyone else having trouble with the nhc site?

 

[Owen Shieh]

The buoy that NHC cited in their 8 pm advisory, was only about 28 nm from the center of Emily at the closest point of approach (per a rough lat/lon distance calculation). Given the early afternoon VORTEX message of a 10 nm diameter eye (or the semi-major axis of an elliptical eye), the buoy was only 23 nm from the strongest part of the eye wall. Even then, there wasn't even sustained winds of hurricane force. Looking at the data:

http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?...p?station=42056

The highest recorded sustained wind was 58.3 kts. This converts to about 67 mph. I believe this was what NHC was trying to cite. They were correct about the gust to 85 mph (73.8 kts), but I can't find what they were referring to about a sustained 73 mph wind. Perhaps it was a typo?

The fact of the matter is, even while over water, where sustained wind speeds are the greatest, there are not even hurricane force sustained winds beyond 23 nm from the eye wall...and the buoy is in the strongest quad! This storm is smaller than Charley. At 5 pm advisory, the estimated 64 kts sustained wind radii in the NE quad was 50 nm. This is way overestimating the ~23 nm that the surface data is showing!

Given the last 2 hours, the radar signature from Cancun has deteriorated dramatically. The eye wall has expanded and is no longer symmetrical. IMO, the wind radii as well as the max. sustained wind are both very generous as of 8 pm.