Margie Kieper
EF1
Enok came together rapidly yesterday, even while moving very quickly (on the order of 20 kts), and even appeared to be close to hurricane strength when it passed by St Brandon, but since then has been falling apart. That appears to be due to an influx of light mid-level shear, but very dry air, from the west, looking at the water vapor imagery and CIMSS lower level winds.
The low level center, which was well defined when passing north of St Brandon, was captured by Windsat. The lowest pressure posted on the hourly readings was 982 mbar (around 1004 before the TC came near). At the time the sat intensity estimate was 984 mbar, and the center was some distance from St Brandon. They had sustained winds at the weather station (which is on the northern end of the long atoll) around 50 mph.
Now, the deteriorating Enok is shortly going to pass fairly close to Rodrigues. The timing of the Windsat images has been nice...one just came out this morning showing a much less-well-defined TS with a spot of strong convection just east of the center. Winds have just begun to pick up at Rodrigues but pressure isn't dropping yet. If Enok passes just to the west of Rodrigues they could see higher winds than St Brandon even though Enok appears to have weakened.
It always amazes me that these incredibly small islands are populated, and, secondly, that even though they may be hundreds of miles from any other land, TCs will chance to pass close by. There are only four or five of these weather outposts in the SWIO, but every single one, no matter how small (check out an image of Tromelin on the web! -- a sand spit only large enough for an airstrip and one or two buildings, and not even a single tree) has a manned weather station. When I heard there were four staff at Tromelin, I thought that was probably so they had a fourth to play bridge. And many times the readings from these stations are so invaluable for TC ground readings (even just this year: Bondo, Clovis...).
Noon update: Winds did pick up quickly at Rodrigues since 8pm -- at 10pm they reported winds were almost 50 mph with "heavy thunderstorms and rain," and pressure had only dropped to 999 mbar. Since winds were out of the east it will be interesting to see the next couple reports. It appears the circulation will pass just to the west of them; worst case. There may be a risk of landslides due to deforestation of the mountainous slopes. From Ocean Dots, "Rodrigues is...composed of a central ridge of low hills that rise to height of 395 m at Mt. Limon. From the heavily eroded central ridge descend numerous valleys and gullies giving the island a rolling topography. The interior was once blanketed in rich native forest, but today this has been lost and is replaced by introduced woodlands in the central uplands and scrub type vegetation around the coasts." But it seems to be fairly well-covered with vegetation from Google Earth / Google Maps imagery, and the slope of the hills must be gentle, because the entire island is populated even along the spine of the island's highest elevations, and some of the steeper grassy hillsides above villages along the eastern shore appear to be terraced.
It looks like the Rodrigues saw the worst already from the TS Enok, as a subsequent report reduced the winds to around 40 mph and the pressure is rising.
The low level center, which was well defined when passing north of St Brandon, was captured by Windsat. The lowest pressure posted on the hourly readings was 982 mbar (around 1004 before the TC came near). At the time the sat intensity estimate was 984 mbar, and the center was some distance from St Brandon. They had sustained winds at the weather station (which is on the northern end of the long atoll) around 50 mph.
Now, the deteriorating Enok is shortly going to pass fairly close to Rodrigues. The timing of the Windsat images has been nice...one just came out this morning showing a much less-well-defined TS with a spot of strong convection just east of the center. Winds have just begun to pick up at Rodrigues but pressure isn't dropping yet. If Enok passes just to the west of Rodrigues they could see higher winds than St Brandon even though Enok appears to have weakened.
It always amazes me that these incredibly small islands are populated, and, secondly, that even though they may be hundreds of miles from any other land, TCs will chance to pass close by. There are only four or five of these weather outposts in the SWIO, but every single one, no matter how small (check out an image of Tromelin on the web! -- a sand spit only large enough for an airstrip and one or two buildings, and not even a single tree) has a manned weather station. When I heard there were four staff at Tromelin, I thought that was probably so they had a fourth to play bridge. And many times the readings from these stations are so invaluable for TC ground readings (even just this year: Bondo, Clovis...).
Noon update: Winds did pick up quickly at Rodrigues since 8pm -- at 10pm they reported winds were almost 50 mph with "heavy thunderstorms and rain," and pressure had only dropped to 999 mbar. Since winds were out of the east it will be interesting to see the next couple reports. It appears the circulation will pass just to the west of them; worst case. There may be a risk of landslides due to deforestation of the mountainous slopes. From Ocean Dots, "Rodrigues is...composed of a central ridge of low hills that rise to height of 395 m at Mt. Limon. From the heavily eroded central ridge descend numerous valleys and gullies giving the island a rolling topography. The interior was once blanketed in rich native forest, but today this has been lost and is replaced by introduced woodlands in the central uplands and scrub type vegetation around the coasts." But it seems to be fairly well-covered with vegetation from Google Earth / Google Maps imagery, and the slope of the hills must be gentle, because the entire island is populated even along the spine of the island's highest elevations, and some of the steeper grassy hillsides above villages along the eastern shore appear to be terraced.
It looks like the Rodrigues saw the worst already from the TS Enok, as a subsequent report reduced the winds to around 40 mph and the pressure is rising.
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