Hurricane Felicia hits Category 3; may affect Hawaii next week
As is often the case in an El Niño year, there's nothing to talk about today in the Atlantic, but the Eastern Pacific is very active. It has been 17 years since we went this long without a tropical cyclone in the Atlantic--the hurricane season of 1992 didn't start until August 16--but in the Eastern Pacific, we've already had six named storms this year. Hurricane Felicia is the latest addition, and Felicia has put on an impressive burst of intensification this morning by powering up to Category 3 status with 115 mph winds. Recent satellite loops show that Felicia has continued to intensify, with the cloud tops surrounding the eye cooling as they push higher into the troposphere.
Figure 1. Current satellite image of Hurricane Felicia.
While Felicia is an impressive hurricane now, its days of glory will be short-lived. Felicia is currently passing over a region of warm sea surface temperatures (SSTs) of 28.5°C, a full 2.5°C above the 26°C threshold needed to sustain a hurricane. These warm waters also extend to great depth, as seen on the Ocean Heat Content image (Figure 2). Felicia's west-northwest track will take the storm into a region of cooler waters with lower Oceanic Heat Content beginning tonight, which should induce a steady weakening trend beginning Thursday night. By Friday morning, SSTs should fall to 26°C, and decline to 25°C by Saturday. While wind shear is expected to remain in the low to moderate range over the next five days, 5 - 15 knots, the cooler SSTs should be able to significantly weaken the hurricane. By Monday, when most of the computer models indicate that Felicia will be nearing the Hawaiian Islands, the storm will be at tropical depression strength with top winds of about 35 mph, according to the latest runs of the HWRF and GFDL models. Exactly how close Felicia will get to the Hawaiian Islands is a bit tricky to call right now, since the hurricane is interacting with nearby Tropical Storm Enrique. Whenever two storms get within 900 miles of each other, they tend to rotate around a common center in a dance called the Fujiwhara Effect. This sort of storm-storm interaction is a complicated affair not well-handled by the computer forecast models.
Figure 2. Total oceanic heat content (also called the Tropical Cyclone Heat Potential, TCHP) along the forecast path of Hurricane Felicia. The initial time of the forecast is 06 UTC (1 am EDT) on August 5, 2009. Oceanic heat content of 90 kJ per square cm is often associated with rapid intensification of hurricanes. Felicia is currently over waters with high heat content, but the heat content will steadily decrease over the next two days. Image credit: NOAA/RAMMB.
There are no areas of disturbed weather in the Atlantic worth mentioning today, and no computer models forecast tropical storm development over the next seven days.
I'll have an update on Thursday.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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Strong ridge over the east coast. This is why I think this is a potential dean-like storm.
LOL....sure...
I've had rain and thunderstorms off and on all afternoon.
71 degrees outside... .92 inches of rain at a PWS 6 miles from here.
It's latched on to that blob near 36W that needs a good dmax in the morning.
Sometimes the long wave pattern in August shifts from what it was in July; and August is more likely to have ridging in the W. Atlantic than Sept or Oct, that's for sure.
BUT, I have no faith in any forecast over 84 hrs. And the usual term for the long wave to be in any one general position is 6-10 days.
Adrian
No one on here can tell you that.
Please...and I'm serious...get to Ana....
66 days of no-names is getting old.
The Atlantic is a shoo-shoo thru the 15th at least.
Fresca's for everyone..!
Link
Ive been better, but pretty good.
Have you heard from StormW lately?
Everything is fine lol
Any new "news" to report or everything status quo?
lol.
Look at the east-Pac w/Felicia.....
I dont think anything "bit the dust", but I guess with the way this season has gone everyone will expect it to do so.
SAL is becoming less dense/plentiful than previous weeks... so as disturbances continue to flow out of Africa... they'll be able to have greater chances for development.
Excellent!!!
His words.
Did he really say that Pat?
I guess he could ban people too, since he is an admin.
He is the Site Owner as well.
For the past couple of years I have been dieing to ask him if he knew my late, great uncle who used to do all of the photo finishing for the NHC in the 70's and 80's. I still have some of the photos that were taken during recon flights.
Probably taken during the flights he was on!
Unfortunately, I was too young to pay attention about it. I was just a wee lad and didn't know what "weather" and "hurricanes" were. I do remember spending hours in the darkroom with him, and helping develope the black and white photos of storms...
Im sure he will answer you.
usually 1 or 2 isobars isnt considered development, so I am not sure the 18Z GFS is actually developing something
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