Tuesday, August 30, 2016

"Twin Major Hurricanes Menace Hawaii; Little Change to Atlantic's TD 8 and TD 9"

Well this looks rather evil.
We don't do much with the Pacific hurricanes because we come to all this from the insurance/reinsurance angle but from time to time we try to point out extraordinary phenomena. Last year's Patricia with 200 mph winds being an example.
Here's another.

From Wunderblog:
Powerful Hurricane Madeline continues edging toward Hawaii’s Big Island, where a Hurricane Watch remains in effect. An astounding 36-hour burst of intensification peaked early Tuesday, with top sustained winds of 135 mph at 5 am EDT making the hurricane a Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale. As of 11 am EDT Tuesday, Madeline’s top winds were down to 120 mph. The formerly distinct eye has become obscured in infrared imagery over the last few hours, another sign of weakening. Wind shear will increase to the moderate range (15 - 20 knots) by Wednesday, so we can expect at least gradual weakening to continue.
 Figure 1. Hurricanes Madeline (left) and Lester (right), as captured by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer 
Suite (VIIRS) aboard the Suomi NPP spacecraft on Monday, August 29, 2016. Image credit: NASA.
Located about 700 miles east of Hilo as of 11 am EDT, Madeline was moving west at 10 mph. Computer models agree that a strengthening ridge to the north of Madeline will help induce a leftward bend in Madeline’s track. This bend, plus interactions with Hurricane Lester (see below), may be enough to put Madeline’s track just south of the Big Island and well south of the rest of Hawaii, but there is still some uncertainty about this. The 00Z UKMET and the 06Z HWRF and GFS model runs keep the hurricane about 100-200 miles south of the island, while the 00Z European and 06Z GFDL run suggest a landfall on the Big Island at hurricane strength. No hurricane has ever struck the Big Island in records going back to 1949. The official track from the Central Pacific Hurricane Center brings Madeline within 50 miles of the south tip of the Big Island on Thursday morning, putting the island on the more dangerous right-side (north) side of the storm....MUCH MORE 
Speaking of evil looking, we posted this some years ago.:
...Nasty bugger what with the devil horns and all

tornado
Oldest known photograph of a tornado
Image ID: wea00206, NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS) Collection
Location:
22 miles southwest of Howard, South Dakota

Photo Date:
1884 August 28