09L: Hurricane Ike

[MClarkson]

This is going to be a large lumbering surge storm, with lighter winds but with significant surge. Lighter winds blowing over 100s of miles of fetch will still drive before them plenty of surge. And dont worry, the winds will catch up with the pressure to some degree.

 

[al pietrycha]

For those considering chasing this HRCN for its tornado potential, you might find the following paper to be of interest. This is something Roger Edwards and I keep working on before going to a formal review. From the last AMS SLS conf...

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/publications/edwards/tcfronts.pdf

--Al

 

[Tim Vasquez]

NHC has it as a cat 2 well inland near Austin/San antonio. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see Dallas and points southward getting some power outages.

Very good point. A lot of Austin's power production is near La Grange and Taylor, which is about 50 miles southeast and northeast of the city, respectively. There's also a large tie and several coal-fired plants feeding DFW about halfway between Houston and Dallas. There are 50- to 150- mile runs of high-tension lines supplying both those cities, which is a vulnerability. That's pretty far inland, but it's not beyond reason for numerous spiral band tornadoes or some winds with a wandering inland eyewall to take out a couple of lines. I'd imagine the Texas grid will have some problems if this thing comes into the AUS-SAT-IAH belt, but I don't expect anything serious.

Tim

 

[David Conaway]

A couple of things come to mind watching this unfold. On occasion a huricane of this size will basically take its own path regardless of what the upper wind pattern is. I can see this storm continuing a north west movement and take it much closer to the Galveston/Houston areas. Lets just hope not.

If the storn does turn more westerly towards the central areas, one would usually expect it to start ingesting the dryer air from northern Mexico and the Southwest US and this would create a fine gradient from flooding rains to just steady rains from the center westward. However, with the upper trough digging along the west coast, a lot of Pacific moisture is in place over the Southwest regions which would usually be dry. Also of note is the presence of Lowell off of Baja Ca and it too will be drawn into the Southwest areas as well as Western Texas. So once it does make landfall areas further west of the center may still have some problems.

I'm no expert or a meteorologist, but just a couple of thoughts for you folks down in the Austin and San Antonio areas.

Does anyone else who is more qualified than me have any ideas as to how Lowell and its associated moisture may impact this scenario?


David Conaway

 

[jladue]

I'll tell you that the hurricane intensity forecasting issue is not going away. Right now I wouldn't have expected the hurricane to look so poor. It almost looks analogous to an LP. It looks to me as if the dry air to the west really did have a negative impact on its convection. Earlier, I could see wave after wave of outflow boundaries blowing out the west side of the storm. I'm wondering if this storm really will intensify above what it is now given its state now? Perhaps when the steering flow aligns itself as the ridge rebuilds a bit the storm will be able to build up decent convection. However, I've seen storms like this just not recover for reasons I don't know.

 

[Bill Tabor]

Latest GFDL shows it tracking to near HOU/GAL

 

[rdale]

Recon reports even lower pressure - 944mb. Their surface wind estimates are up a big too, still not as strong as NHC's public products say but getting closer.

 

[KenMcWatters]

George - Can you tell me how long the flight takes? I have a friend who is flying with them on Thursday over Ike - He then has a monster drive to Corpus to meet up with me - He seems to think that the flight is between 8 - 12 hours?

Nightline had a segment about the hurricane hunters last night. A reporter was on board a flight through Gustav and he said it took about 6 hours.

Meanwhile, here in the Houston area, it's beginning to remind me of the situation as Hurricane Rita approached. There were gas lines and spot shortages today. Any chasers coming here, make sure you fill up out of town! And if evacuations start, stay off the main highways and use side roads.. your GPS will serve you well in this regard.

I'm in the far NW suburbs and if the current forecast track holds I should escape the worst winds, but it will be interesting to see how bad conditions get this far inland.

 

[Greg Campbell]

The 7 PM CDT advisory on Ike is out. Winds are still at 100 MPH but pressure has dropped to 947 MB. I don't understand why it hasn't been intensifying as much as it should. Could it increase rapidly even though the Hurricane Hunters haven't found higher speeds? It doesn't look like dry air is coming into the system. Maybe someone can better explain it.

(All IMO, I'm not any sort of Cane x-pert.)

Ike has been expending a lot of effort expanding in size. Accelerating all that air takes time and energy.

Ike enjoyed a surprising burst of eyewall convection the moment he left Cuba. This kept the core spinning fairly well and maintained unusually low central pressure, given the overall appearance of the cyclone. The rest of the storm has had more difficulty organizing and has only got cranking recently. I think the lagging outer zones were drawing some of the wind energy away; a side effect of this imbalance was the weak outer wall that attempted to form earlier today.

Now that radial growth has slowed/stalled and convection is better established throughout the storm, I think Ike's core windspeeds will start to rise nicely. Central pressure should also drop as the large scale 'well' of the storm deepens.

-Greg

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

I'll tell you that the hurricane intensity forecasting issue is not going away. Right now I wouldn't have expected the hurricane to look so poor. It almost looks analogous to an LP. It looks to me as if the dry air to the west really did have a negative impact on its convection. Earlier, I could see wave after wave of outflow boundaries blowing out the west side of the storm. I'm wondering if this storm really will intensify above what it is now given its state now? Perhaps when the steering flow aligns itself as the ridge rebuilds a bit the storm will be able to build up decent convection. However, I've seen storms like this just not recover for reasons I don't know.

I've been wondering this all day too. In a way it's making me think of Gustav. It's like it was wound up, then as it gets torn apart, it comes out sort of wound up, but all out of balance. That out of balance seems like a feed back loop the thing has an awful time correcting. Makes me think of correcting a high speed out of balance car about to wreck, but with more factors almost working to keep it out of balance. The "too small" look to the central part has looked "off" since it flared up leaving Cuba. Just like the lp or small storm you see that you know will never get bigger. If something does get out of balance, it does almost make sense it would be easier for it to start as little, and organize, as opposed to largely out of balance, that keeps getting off balance flare ups, helping to keep it that way more than anything. Something just does not look good about the thing.

 

[Joel Wright]

It definitely doesn't have a rock solid CDO that a real powerhouse 'cane would normally have. The pressure is dropping like a rock though. TWC reported 940mb a few hours ago, but that must have been unofficial though since I never saw it on the advisory. Even so, the pressure's getting down there, so that CDO may start to solidify nicely if the convection can organize a bit better.

 

[Darren Addy]

Wow. The lastest NHC forecast discussion could have been shortened to:

At this time, we have no idea what this hurricane is going to do. Had this been an actual forecast discussion you would have been instructed where to turn in your area for news and official information.

 

[Angie Norris]

I was looking at the past 24 hours of data, and while the winds have been slow to come up, Ike's central pressure is down 23mb in the past 24 hours (from 967mb to 944mb). I'm wondering if the SSTs are a bit cool and maybe that's what is holding back the restrenghening or if Gustav produced enough upwelling that the SSTs haven't had time to rebound fully yet. As best as I can read the table, it looks like the SSTs in the central Gulf are about 29 C, but maybe that's just a bit on the cool side to allow rapid redevelopment. Like Mike said...something's just not right. It almost seems like all the time over land did some serious "internal damage", but what that would be I have no clue.

The HWO and special statement out of DFW are interesting reads...tropical storm conditions expected that far north??? That is totally insane. Even if Ike comes in as a Cat 4 (which NHC does seem to be progging), it seems like the winds should drop off fairly quickly due to friction and interaction with the surface. Is there something I'm missing there? (Or have I just done too much calc homework to think clearly?)

 

[Chris Hayes]

I was looking at the IR satelite images of Ike yesterday (wednesday) and I thought it looked ragged, and not so well organized for a strong cat 2 hurricane. However, the CDO does seem to be improving somewhat thismorning as cloud tops are cooling down, and the CDO bubble is enlarging. The wind field, though the storm is only a cat 2 is getting wider as well. If (when) this thing finally gets going, it could be one of the memorable Gulf of Mexico hurricanes for it's size, as it seems to be getting larger now that it's away from Cuba. On a side note, if this thing appears to be heading toward HOU/GAL as a Cat 3 or 4 storm, fill the tanks up in your cars, and gas cans because it'll be quite cheap compared to what could happen if those refineries suffer significant damage.

 

[Jason Foster]

Anular...someone keeps telling me.

I'm not quite familiar with the term "Anular" but my friend whose more knowledgeable than I keeps using this term. Rather than banding and such, the overall wide width, and evolution from inner area out to outer sections all elude to this. And this is more typical of Typhoons. Personally, from a chase perspective, hoping for the stronger forecasts, I like to see a gradual ramp up of the system...so as not to use up all its potential before making landfall.

Either way, I'm committed to chase it, so I'm intercepting whether it's a Cat. 1 or a Cat. 5

I've been wondering this all day too. In a way it's making me think of Gustav. It's like it was wound up, then as it gets torn apart, it comes out sort of wound up, but all out of balance. That out of balance seems like a feed back loop the thing has an awful time correcting. Makes me think of correcting a high speed out of balance car about to wreck, but with more factors almost working to keep it out of balance. The "too small" look to the central part has looked "off" since it flared up leaving Cuba. Just like the lp or small storm you see that you know will never get bigger. If something does get out of balance, it does almost make sense it would be easier for it to start as little, and organize, as opposed to largely out of balance, that keeps getting off balance flare ups, helping to keep it that way more than anything. Something just does not look good about the thing.