Hurricane Felix

[Mark Farnik]

Felix's intensification trend is impressive, considering the fact that at this time yesterday Felix wasn't even a hurricane. The NHC forecasts Felix to continue his rapid intensifcation trend and reach Cat 4 status in the next 12 to 24 hours. By late tomorrow or early Tuesday, I strongly suspect Felix will be flirting with or at Cat 5 status as he approaches Central America. Trackwise, attm the NHC is forecasting Felix to skirt the northern coast of Honduras on a west/northwestward heading and then take on propogation more to the northwest, making a direct strike on the northeastern Belize coast in the vicinity of Belize City on Wednesday evening, crossing over the southern half of the Yucatan Peninsula and re-emergin over the eastern Bay of Campeche on Thursday morning. The NHC does mention in the Forecast Discussion that the track past Day 3 is much more uncertain, due to the aforementioned strong mid-upper level trough and its potential interaction on the upper ridge.
It all depends on how much the trough erodes the ridge; if the trough has minimal effect on the ridge, Felix will likely take a path similar to the current NHC forecast track, which if extrapolated past Day 5, would take Felix through the far western GOM to second landfall on the northeastern coast of Mexico. However, if the trough causes a more significant erosion of the ridge, which is a more likely scenario if the latest run of the GFS is to be believed, Felix may take a much sharper turn to the right than currently forecast and potentially anything between Brownsville and New Orleans could be under the gun by late next week into next weekend.
It may seem foolish to make this kind of a prediction this far out, but I have a strong hunch that the ridge will be more significantly affected by the trough than currently forecast, and after his rampage through Belize and the Yucatan, Felix will emerge over the Bay of Campeche, rapidly restrengthen, then turn northwest, then north/northwest and, if the ridge weakens enough, perhaps even eventually due north and make landfall in the Saturday-Sunday timeframe between Corpus Christi and Lake Charles.
This storm will bear very close watching, as he will likely devestate Belize's coastline near or at Cat 5 intensity on Wednesday and could menace northeastern Mexico and potentially Texas/Louisiana as a Cat 3 or worse in the Friday-Sunday timeframe.

 

[B Ozanne]

Silly me. I was actually listening to everyone who thought this was going to be a Cat 1 or 2 at the most. Now its intensifying through its forecast every 3 hours and has an appearance that rivals some of the greats.

Intensity forecasts still stink. Lesson learned....for now.

On another note. Comparing current hurricanes with past storms that passed within X distance of each other seems almost as ridiculous as comparing storms with the same name. Past performance is no indications of future results. And hurricane Felix knows nothing about hurricane Opal.

 

[MClarkson]

I would think this would be a cat 5 soon; within the next 12 hours, and likely sooner, at this rate of intensification. With such a tight circulation I dont see what could stop it from becoming a 5... it will at some point recycle its eyewall and the windfield will expand, but I doubt that happens before Felix peaks as a 5.

 

[Doug_Kiesling]

What raised an eyebrow for me this afternoon is the FSU MM5 model from this morning that brough Felix onshore in New Orleans in a couple of days. This track is an outlier right now but....DOH. It could happen given the northward trend over the past 12 hours.

I don't think that would happen. Maybe a shift into the Cancun area but it would take a major shift to get it that far north.

The CMC, NGP, UKM, GFDL and HWRF all show this moving into Central America in a couple days. I still think that this is going to be a short lived hurricane force wind event with a major flooding due to the mountains in the region.

Best case, it hits Northeastern Hounduras which is pretty much unpopulated.

 

[MClarkson]

225200 1348N 07232W 6945 02936 9741 +111 +108 130136 147 133 054 00
225230 1346N 07233W 6674 03140 9578 +116 +108 134123 147 158 028 03
225300 1345N 07234W 6860 02821 9432 +182 +120 134087 107 163 011 03
225330 1343N 07235W 6876 02770 9367 +221 +105 131043 048 065 004 03
225400 1342N 07237W 6910 02719 9355 +226 +109 119022 032 033 000 03


147 knots flight level, 163knots on the SMFR(possibly innacurate) and 935.5 extrap... the extraps tend to be a couple mb low.

Based on this and IR satellite presentation, which looks perfectly symetrical... if its not a 5 it will be very soon.

 

[Adam Atkins]

It's a Cat 5...read the latest forecast discussion...the Air Force recon plane had to abort the mission because of turbulence and graupel...I've never read/heard of this before. Flawless, textbook satellite presentation.

EDIT: 24 hour pressure change = 993-936 = 57 mb
Wilma was a 97 mb drop to put it in perspective

 

[MClarkson]

They reported extreme turbulence... the definition of this is aircraft out of control and possible structural damage.

A plane got smashed up in hugo when they flew in too low, lost an engine and limped home.

Rapid changes to eyewall structure can create stronger turbulence than you might expect in a cane, I wonder if they are going to cancel the next mission and wait till the storm gets a little more steady.

 

[B Ozanne]

NHC is forecasting another 5 knots of intensification in the next 12 hours (which means it could happen in 3 hours and it could be 15 knots).

Is it me or does the pressure seem high?

Graupel sounds interesting. Rimed over snow in a hurricane?

 

[MClarkson]

well this is a small, tight and rapidly intensifying storm, so I would expect pressure to be higher than normal for a given windspeed. Emily was borderline 5 at ~930mb. This appears to be stronger with a higher pressure... unusual but I dont think its unreasonable. It would be nice to have a plane there to record what is possibly another historic storm, but the safety of the crew is far more important.


The plane is coming home low and it looks like its pretty slow as well. I hope they arent badly damaged.


EDIT...something as simple as a cracked window(hail?) would cause the crew to return home at low altitude.

EDIT again... descending for approach

EDIT... home... 013700 1742N 06449W 0162 00000 0141 +268 +232 033004 005 999 999 23

 

[Rocky Rascovich]

Even my aggressive prediction of increasing this to major hurricane status by tomorrow morning was underestimated... this will truely go down as one of the greats.

Based on the data I've seen thus far, a ribbon of near 32C degree water is in the midst of this storm, with very little shear.. this will likely be around 180mph by midday Monday, then, I see some eye wall replacement cycles that will flucuate the intensity between 140-175mph before it makes landfall in Belize on Wed. AM.

I am curious if there is a cutoff point that Recon flights no longer fly into storms when they are suspected of reaching a certain strength. Any ideas on the most intense hurricane a recon flight has penetrated?? If I remember right, wasn't a flight lost back in the 50's?? Hurricane Janet comes to mind back then.

I believe Felix will closely rival, if not slightly exceed some of the highest measured windspeeds in a hurricane since Mitch and Gilbert.

As of now, I expecting 180mph sustained.. pressures down to 895mb. before interacting with the Honduras coast. Then, it will come down to a borderline Cat4/5 storm at landfall Wed. UNLESS the course veers north a tad. As of now, most of the models have that subtropical ridge firmly ensconsed across the southwest atantic, I'm expecting this storm now to rain itself out over the mountains southern MX., Belize and northern Honduras, flooding will be extreme to say the least.

I'm still not totally giving up on the break in the ridge that I was originally eluding to and is now being discussed, but it doesn't look as likely now.
I do see some of this moisture from the remnants of Felix working its way up into southern TX. by this next weekend, between the trough that will be affecting the midsection of the country and the remnants of Felix, a flooding event in TX. and OK. may not be out of the question for this time next Sunday or so.

 

[B Ozanne]

Aside from the ship sinkers of the 1700's many of the deadliest hurricanes in the Atlantic have two landfall locations in common.

Hispaniola (DR & Haiti) and Honduras/Nicaragua

Wind doesn't seem to be a major factor as the flooding causes the most fatalities.

 

[Doug_Kiesling]

What the... I can't beleive how this thing has grown and proved a lot of the models wrong. Looking at the latest WV sat floater, this is going to be interesting to see what tomorrow brings.

 

[Rocky Rascovich]

According to the latest NHC advisory, Felix hasn't even hit that area of "high oceanic heat" yet. My projection of 180mph sustained by tomorrow afternoon should reach its goal. I just hope this comes down a tad for the sake of the people this beast will affect when it roars ashore.

Who in the blazes is thinking about chasing this anyway? I talked with Jim L. earlier, he said airfares were exhorbitant flying to Belize where as Cancun was going from about 200 bucks (if I heard him right) from MIA as of today.

As for me, I don't do hurricanes like this.. got too much to live for. Whoever is thinking about this, I suggest you get to Belize by tomorrow night or Tue. morning and head down to the southern part of that country... and have your life insurance paid up.

 

[MClarkson]

I dont know why the hurricane models(GFDL, HWRF) were so off on the intensity, the global models, especially the GFS(from which some data is incorporated into the hurricane models) had progged an excellent upper level pattern.

Very warm SSTs, anticyclone aloft, no shear=strengthening, often rapid, to a cat 4 or 5. Its not much more complex than that. In such a favorable environment I think we should consider rapid intensification just as likely as a more modest growth. Espcially in the carib. and GOM, where waters are at their warmest, rapid strengthening might be the norm, rather than the exception. In 2005 all the intense hurricanes rapidly strengthened at some point. I didnt quite expect it to be this rapid for Felix, but the fact that this happened doesnt surprise me at all.

What does surprise me is the trouble the hurricane hunter got into.

As for chasing, I dont think I would do this even if I had the money and the time off. It looks like a fairly even 50/50 chance for belize or honduras, neither country I would want to be in, and if you choose the wrong one, theres not much chance of repositioning.

 

[Marko Korosec]

Finally the daylight came over the Carribean sea and we're able to have a view over hurricane Felix...here is one the first VIS images today...

http://img513.imageshack.us/my.php?image=goes11152007246qdiiz5ek0.jpg


Hurricane Felix is going through an eyewall replacement cycle in the last hour or so, also some drier air intrusion is noticed in SW quadrant now. Thats noticed in the latest RECON flight data...pressure raised a bit to 938hPa, but we still have a CAT 5. According to pretty active deep convection in NW quadrant, another intensification is expected when ERC is done, likely in the next 2-3 hours. Satellite presentations after completed ERC should be incredible!