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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Is that 3.1 minutes per second and is that in knots?
Multiplatform Satellite Surface Wind Analysis
1800 UTC
Typhoon is at 130E and Felicia is at 130W, totally opposite side of globe
maybe NHC still CAT3
Enhanced Infrared (IR) Imagery (1 km Mercator, MODIS/AVHRR)
1320 UTC
they arent too far apart
I spent a year there at Camp Hansen,kin,Okinawa Sept 82-83
Father fought there in WW-2 as USMC 105 Gunner as well.
I need a map
Typhoon MORAKOT
Storm Relative 16km Microwave-Based Total Precipitable Water Imagery 1602 UTC
Hurricane FELICIA
Storm Relative 16km Microwave-Based Total Precipitable Water Imagery 1602 UTC
What do you think still power to up?
Let's see what tonight brings to our broad low in the Atlantic...
Large, very large cyclone
You are predicting a weather pattern for the month of September?????? This is a joke right?
Won't put you on ignore...you are so ridiculous it is amusing.
He is not predicting them himself, he is going off what others have said about the long range models. There are models that predict weather patterns several months out. It was probably best to know this before you got on his case.
Thanks. I was referring to the fact that he claims HE is predicting. If this would have come from others here I would have read with an open mind.
Anyway....thanks again.
What!! you got a mouse in your pocket kid????
Shear looks to be dropping in the Caribbean
Taiwan survived this.. last year sort of the same large category system.
To you perhaps it might very well sound that way, Ike. But to the rest of us over here, including yours truly, it clearly means, ''watch out, because here comes big trouble''. By the way, I especially do not like the type of potential steering pattern that might be setting up for September as far as storms would go for the Florida Pandhandle. Lastly, thanks for posting that recent updated memo from The HPC, Adrian, that outta wake up the non-believers on this blog. :)
Slightly Negative NAO expected by the ECMWF over the next two weeks.
Little troughing over the Atlantic
So then you admit to only going off to what others say.....nice.
Sonny you are referring to my caliber???? Want to compare credentials?
TTAA00 KNHC DDHHMM
BULLETIN
HURRICANE FELICIA ADVISORY NUMBER 9
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL EP082009
ISSUED BY THE HYDROMETEOROLOGICAL PREDICTION CENTER CAMP SPRINGS MD
200 PM PDT WED AUG 05 2009
...FELICIA CONTINUES TO INTENSIFY...
AT 200 PM PDT...2100 UTC...THE CENTER OF HURRICANE FELICIA WAS
LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 14.5 NORTH...LONGITUDE 129.7 WEST OR ABOUT
1420 MILES...2280 KM...WEST-SOUTHWEST OF THE SOUTHERN TIP OF BAJA
CALIFORNIA.
FELICIA IS MOVING TOWARD THE NORTHWEST NEAR 12 MPH...19 KM/HR...AND
THIS MOTION IS EXPECTED TO CONTINUE OVER THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS.
SATELLITE IMAGERY INDICATES THAT WINDS HAVE INCREASED TO NEAR 125
MPH...205 KM/HR...WITH HIGHER GUSTS. LITTLE CHANGE IN STRENGTH IS
FORECAST DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS.
HURRICANE FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 35 MILES...55 KM...FROM
THE CENTER...AND TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 120
MILES...195 KM.
ESTIMATED MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE IS 940 MB...27.76 INCHES.
...SUMMARY OF 200 PM PDT INFORMATION...
LOCATION...14.5N 129.7W
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...125 MPH
PRESENT MOVEMENT...NORTHWEST OR 310 DEGREES AT 12 MPH
MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...940 MB
THE NEXT ADVISORY WILL BE ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER AT
800 PM PDT.
$$
FORECASTER PEREIRA
NNNN
Link
Tropical Cyclone Advisory #9
SEVERE TROPICAL CYCLONE FELICIA (EP082009)
21:00 PM UTC August 5 2009
====================================
At 18:00 PM UTC, Hurricane Felicia (940 hPa) located at 14.5N 129.7W or 1235 NM west-southwest of of the southern tip of Baja California Peninsula has sustained winds of 110 knots with gusts of 135 knots. The cyclone is reported as moving northwest at 10 knots.
Hurricane-force Winds
====================
30 NM from the center
Gale/Storm-force Winds
===============
105 NM from the center
Forecast and Intensity
======================
12 HRS: 15.2N 130.9W - 115 knots (SSHS-4 Cyclone)
24 HRS: 16.7N 132.4W - 110 knots (SSHS-3 Cyclone)
48 HRS: 19.0N 136.1W - 95 knots (SSHS-2 Cyclone)
72 HRS: 20.2N 140.9W - 70 knots (SSHS-1 Cyclone)
Viewing: 501 - 551
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