On this ominous anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, we have the North Atlantic Hurricane Gods playing with our heads a little.
Here’s the thing. One of the effects of global warming is the attenuation of hurricane activity in the Atlantic Hurricane basin. Generally, tropical storm activity has been rather impressive world wide over the last several years, and some of the tropical storms have done things that tropical storms don’t generally do, and those things are often likely attributable to global warming. For instance, Yolanda/Haiyan was extra strong, likely, because of extremely warm ocean waters at depth, rather than mainly near the surface. (Katrina was probably enhanced by this effect as well.) Obviously Sandy is an example. We have seen many days over the last couple of years with a very large number of Pacific storms existing simultaneously. We’ve seen tropical storms maintaining hurricane strength, or in some cases forming up, farther from the warmest equatorial regions than usual. And so on.
But, as noted, the Atlantic has mostly been relatively quiet, owing to a couple of effects including strong vertical wind shear and excessive Saharan dust, both predicted effects of warming, but bad for hurricane formation.
This year has been anemic as was last year, in the Atlantic.
But now we have an interesting new storm that is doing two interesting things. The storm is Erika. The storm is heading towards the norther Lesser Antilles, and its effects may graze the northern regions of the Greater Antilles, as the storm track heads towards south Florida. The storm is predicted to remain as a tropical storm, not reaching hurricane strength, over this entire period. Then, the storm is (currently) predicted to make landfall in Florida, not far from Miami. The current track puts the storm’s center north of Miami (which would be good for Miami) but it is way to early to tell exactly where the storm will go.
So that’s one interesting thing: heading for Miami, which is a highly vulnerable population dense region in a red (thus denialist) state that has avoided a lot of tropical storm activity over many years.
The second interesting thing is that current models seem to have tropical storm Erika turning into Hurricane Erika just as it arrives in the Miami area. This is a Bizarro Storm if there ever was one. Instead of being a hurricane at sea and a tropical storm on land, it is, if the predictions hold, going to be a tropical storm (mainly) at sea and a hurricane (mainly) on land.
One of the things you may remember about Katrina is that Katrina hit south Florida as a tropical storm right on the border of hurricane strength, strengthened even as it made landfall, sauntered across the peninsula, entered the Gulf of Mexico where it weaved a bit, and turned north, turned into a powerful hurricane, and hit New Orleans. Like this:
Will Erika do this as well?
We don’t know. Or at least I don’t. There are meteorologists out there with models that they run way out in time. I remember hearing from the grapevine that Sandy was going to head north and hit somewhere around New York way before anyone was saying it publicly. Responsible meteorologist did not run around alarming people until they could be more sure. I’ve not even asked around about Erika.
The current path for Erika, as predicted, looks like this:
And up close (this is VERY far out so don’t use this to plan your evacuations or even your Hurricane parties) looks like this:
So somewhere between four and five days, “landfall” might occur near Miami, with currently predicted sustained winds at about 75mph.
It is clear that everyone in southern Florida (all across the peninsula, not just the Atlantic coast) needs to keep an eye on this, just for the heavy rainfall if nothing else. But things are very uncertain. The NWS is only issuing statements out to near the Bahamas at this point.
There is, of course, no such thing as ghosts. And there is no Hurricane God of the Atlantic. But Erika serves to remind us of Katrina, just in case anyone forgot (unlikely). And, Erika might be a serious storm, but will be interesting no matter what.
This might be a minor big deal. Or a bigger big deal. Only time will tell.
from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1Ekl9MZ
On this ominous anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, we have the North Atlantic Hurricane Gods playing with our heads a little.
Here’s the thing. One of the effects of global warming is the attenuation of hurricane activity in the Atlantic Hurricane basin. Generally, tropical storm activity has been rather impressive world wide over the last several years, and some of the tropical storms have done things that tropical storms don’t generally do, and those things are often likely attributable to global warming. For instance, Yolanda/Haiyan was extra strong, likely, because of extremely warm ocean waters at depth, rather than mainly near the surface. (Katrina was probably enhanced by this effect as well.) Obviously Sandy is an example. We have seen many days over the last couple of years with a very large number of Pacific storms existing simultaneously. We’ve seen tropical storms maintaining hurricane strength, or in some cases forming up, farther from the warmest equatorial regions than usual. And so on.
But, as noted, the Atlantic has mostly been relatively quiet, owing to a couple of effects including strong vertical wind shear and excessive Saharan dust, both predicted effects of warming, but bad for hurricane formation.
This year has been anemic as was last year, in the Atlantic.
But now we have an interesting new storm that is doing two interesting things. The storm is Erika. The storm is heading towards the norther Lesser Antilles, and its effects may graze the northern regions of the Greater Antilles, as the storm track heads towards south Florida. The storm is predicted to remain as a tropical storm, not reaching hurricane strength, over this entire period. Then, the storm is (currently) predicted to make landfall in Florida, not far from Miami. The current track puts the storm’s center north of Miami (which would be good for Miami) but it is way to early to tell exactly where the storm will go.
So that’s one interesting thing: heading for Miami, which is a highly vulnerable population dense region in a red (thus denialist) state that has avoided a lot of tropical storm activity over many years.
The second interesting thing is that current models seem to have tropical storm Erika turning into Hurricane Erika just as it arrives in the Miami area. This is a Bizarro Storm if there ever was one. Instead of being a hurricane at sea and a tropical storm on land, it is, if the predictions hold, going to be a tropical storm (mainly) at sea and a hurricane (mainly) on land.
One of the things you may remember about Katrina is that Katrina hit south Florida as a tropical storm right on the border of hurricane strength, strengthened even as it made landfall, sauntered across the peninsula, entered the Gulf of Mexico where it weaved a bit, and turned north, turned into a powerful hurricane, and hit New Orleans. Like this:
Will Erika do this as well?
We don’t know. Or at least I don’t. There are meteorologists out there with models that they run way out in time. I remember hearing from the grapevine that Sandy was going to head north and hit somewhere around New York way before anyone was saying it publicly. Responsible meteorologist did not run around alarming people until they could be more sure. I’ve not even asked around about Erika.
The current path for Erika, as predicted, looks like this:
And up close (this is VERY far out so don’t use this to plan your evacuations or even your Hurricane parties) looks like this:
So somewhere between four and five days, “landfall” might occur near Miami, with currently predicted sustained winds at about 75mph.
It is clear that everyone in southern Florida (all across the peninsula, not just the Atlantic coast) needs to keep an eye on this, just for the heavy rainfall if nothing else. But things are very uncertain. The NWS is only issuing statements out to near the Bahamas at this point.
There is, of course, no such thing as ghosts. And there is no Hurricane God of the Atlantic. But Erika serves to remind us of Katrina, just in case anyone forgot (unlikely). And, Erika might be a serious storm, but will be interesting no matter what.
This might be a minor big deal. Or a bigger big deal. Only time will tell.
from ScienceBlogs http://ift.tt/1Ekl9MZ
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