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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You are a winner. That is exactly what I was saying. :) Thanks!
ADVANCED DVORAK TECHNIQUE
ADT-Version 7.2.3
Tropical Cyclone Intensity Algorithm
----- Current Analysis -----
Date : 05 AUG 2009 Time : 180000 UTC
Lat : 14:15:00 N Lon : 129:16:17 W
CI# /Pressure/ Vmax
6.2 / 945.8mb/119.8kt
Final T# Adj T# Raw T#
(3hr avg)
6.2 6.6 6.6
Latitude bias adjustment to MSLP : +3.0mb
Estimated radius of max. wind based on IR :N/A km
Center Temp : +3.1C Cloud Region Temp : -70.3C
Scene Type : EYE
Positioning Method : RING/SPIRAL COMBINATION
Ocean Basin : EAST PACIFIC
Dvorak CI > MSLP Conversion Used : ATLANTIC
Tno/CI Rules : Constraint Limits : NO LIMIT
Weakening Flag : OFF
Rapid Dissipation Flag : OFF
119.8kts WOW!
It should provide some info about wind speed and direction over the next few hours as the low progresses further W.
There is another buoy just to the S that shows W winds now. I will post it momentarily.
Couldn't tell from the avatar. LOL
looking at the ssd map for SSTs, it appears that SSTs are running 26-29 degrees celsius all the way to Hawaii
To you maybe, but not to her.
if get a more big eyewall has a chance very little but still posible, conditions are still favorable to strengh
I'm seeing potential for a Cat 5 before she weakens like crazy.
Also I use the LSU ESL site as well.
One can google just about anything one thinks of tropically to find a boatload of specific links.
It cost me about $30. Here's a link if interested:
Link
Good try but if your going to try and foul people atleast know the facts, winds were 115mph at 8am. Your post are getting sader and sader.
For god sake Stormtop, stop being such a troll.
To be honest, Felicia is more of Flossy than any thing else.
I famously, got my first 99% correct forecast with flossy - I saw that she would rapidly intensify and become a cat 4 - before some of the big guns latched on to the idea.
I saw nothing wrong in what he said, he is right
Losing some deep convection on the northwest side of the eye.
If Felicia were to become an "Annular" Hurricane do you think it will still weaken to TS Strenght when it gets to Hawaii??
0-0-0.
No he is not.
Felicia was upgraded to a Cat 3 hurricane with 115 mph winds at 8 am.
The MODIS Rapid Response System was developed to provide daily satellite images of the Earth's landmasses in near real time. True-color, photo-like imagery and false-color imagery are available within a few hours of being collected, making the system a valuable resource for organizations like the U.S. Forest Service and the international fire monitoring community, who use the images to track fires; the United States Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service, who monitors crops and growing conditions; and the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the United States Air Force Weather Agency, who track dust and ash in the atmosphere. The science community also uses the system in projects like the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET), which studies particles like smoke, pollution, or dust in the atmosphere. More information about science and application partners, including links, is provided on our applications page. Captioned interpreted images for educators, the media, and the public are available through the Earth Observatory. The system is freely available everyone--scientists, operational users, educators, and the general public
THE NEXT ADVISORY WILL BE ISSUED BY THE NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER AT
200 PM PDT.
That's really what I was getting at.
No offence StormChaser - but that isn't the right product to use. Water Vapour tells us next to nothing about convection and its strength. Try Rainbow, Funktop, RGB and Dvorak.
Wow you are nitpicking then geez
NHC is going to have to shift their track to the south and up the winds some at the 5 pm update.
Yes Water vapor does tell a lot about convection. It is very useful for determining the height of the cloud tops.
??? 11am EDT is the same at 8am PDT, that is what he meant
No 11 am PDT, there is an 11 am EDT one, though
Sorry BAP - problem is that some people use these blogs to find out infomation, so you have to get it right. Despite the fact that you should use the NHC for all offical information.
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