09L: Hurricane Ike

[Philip Flory]

I agree, Mike. The visible sat. imagery shows Ike as symmetrical as it has appeared YET with three arms now curving into a more sharply defined eye. This thing is starting to remind me of an ice skater who begins to spin faster and faster as she pulls her arms in closer.

Now THAT looks like I would picture a Cat 2 hurricane to look like..

 

[Ed Boik]

I agree with Mike, Darrin, Phillip. It seemed like Ike "tossed-off" a lot of the fringe convection and it has allowed it to reorganize the core. I'm becoming a little worrisome of the bottom dropping out....but only if that convection makes it fully around the core.

[ot] http://radar.weather.gov/ridge/Conus/full.php The arc of precip across the US is amazing.[/ot]
do we have "off-topic" tags?

 

[Darren Addy]

TV report that there are concerns for the sea wall at Jamaica Beach with "cracks" and "pieces of asphalt" coming off.

ASPHALT?

 

[Chris Lott]

David Drummond is streaming live on Severe Studios from Galveston and showing some pretty good wave action already.

 

[Rob Wadsworth]

"...ONE SHOULD EMPHASIZE THAT IKE IS A VERY LARGE HURRICANE AND
REGARDLESS OF WHERE THE CENTER OF THE HURRICANE MAKES LANDFALL...THE
EFFECTS WILL BE FELT AT LARGE DISTANCES FROM THE CENTER..." Forecster Avila - NWS

No seems to be discussing the effects on Louisiana; only on the predicted path.

Q: Any STORMTRACK members able to report from S/SW Loiusiana concerning storm surge, wind, and rain?
Surely, they are also being vastly affected too.

 

[rdale]

Recon shows surface winds are still quite weak, 70mph. No eye noted.

 

[Scott Olson]

Well the ragged appearance of before certainly seems to have improved considerably with a more symmetric wrap around of convection. It appears a convective burst occured to the east about 1 1/2 hours ago and worked it's way around and now it now looks much better than previously. Recon Mission 31&32 have been pretty consistent with 954mb-958mb as they penetrate the eyewall. There has however been some pretty strong flight level winds that are coming up 40% or so higher than the surface winds. It's clipping the outer edges of the warm eddy now.

The winds don't seem to impressive at first look given all the recon obs and the buoys (except the one at 122m but there seems to be a pretty big dispairty for Ike at this time when it comes to winds with height). Still getting good 18-21ft wave heights on the buoys and the pictures of the flooding on Houston TV stations are disconcerting, though it's hard to know how widespread it really is. I do suspect that this will be quite a significant event.

 

[Brandon Clement]

LMAO, Gerraldo just got wiped out on the beach. watching live on fox

Couldn't have happened to a better person.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLZ7lK7-G_A

 

[Bill Tabor]

Looking on ir sat looks like the colder cloud temps and intense convection that was on the ne side an hour or two ago is now on the nw side. That convection has weakened a hair, but looks like it has a shot at wrapping to sw and closing this eye. Will it then become more symetrical? If so, I'd think we'd get a bit of strengthening even this close to shore. Especially since it is pulling in air from all over the gulf. Can it go Cat 3 before land fall? Massive surge is already a foregone conclusion, but can these winds now intensify even more?

 

[MClarkson]

http://tidesonline.nos.noaa.gov/plotcomp.shtml?station_info=8771510+Galveston+Pleasure+Pier%2C+TX


8 feet above sea level and rising. I wonder if that instrument will withlast the storm?

 

[Tyler Allison]

"Storm chaser" quote.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/12/AR2008091201883.html

"We love hurricanes," says Mark Denison, 48, of Houston. "It will be the greatest storm surge since Hurricane Carla, Sept. 11, 1961, with winds of 145 miles per hour."

*sigh*

 

[Bill Tabor]

Pisses me off I missed Geraldo getting knocked down. I was watching for it earlier, with hopes I could watch him get sucked out to sea.

Yeah I saw it right as he was getting up. I wish I could have seen him go down too. I think it was a piece of debris floating in the surge that took him down. Just keep watching...he'll probably go down again.

 

[Brandon Clement]

Looking on ir sat looks like the colder cloud temps and intense convection that was on the ne side an hour or two ago is now on the nw side. That convection has weakened a hair, but looks like it has a shot at wrapping to sw and closing this eye. Will it then become more symetrical? If so, I'd think we'd get a bit of strengthening even this close to shore. Especially since it is pulling in air from all over the gulf. Can it go Cat 3 before land fall? Massive surge is already a foregone conclusion, but can these winds now intensify even more?

Wilma went from a tropical storm to a cat 5 in less than 24 hours. Ike still has 12+ hours to landfall. Given the pressure Ike should have higher winds but most think the ragged oversized storm structure has limited the winds near the core but if this thing gets an eye together and avoids dry air then there is no reason Ike couldn't strengthen signficantly.

Charley comes to mind when I think of hurricanes that strengthened significantly close to land.
http://soundwaves.usgs.gov/2005/03/trackLG.gif


With that said, Ike doesn't have the same extreme water temps that Wilma had to work with and it isn't a very small tight storm like Charley so it will be extremely unlikely that it jumps to a cat 4-5 but a cat 3 certainly isn't out of the question and IMO it is likely if Ike can continue to improve structure and maintain an eye and eyewall.

 

[Adam Penney]

According to the CBS Station in Houston, the Galveston Pier has now been partly washed away, and how many hours are we away from landfall?? 12?!?!? Wow.....

 

[Chad Cowan]

Stormtrack's own Mark Sudduth has his remote hurricane cameras up in Galveston and is being shown on CNN. Article: http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/09/12/hurricane.chaser/index.html