Thank you . . . Frances?

[baw_es]

This may have already been discussed at some point in the past but I would really like to see what other people think. Sorry if I’m either stating the obvious or you think I’m completely brain dead. I live in Pensacola and I have wondered for some time now about Hurricane Ivan and the weakening we saw before it made landfall. At the time I didn’t really know that much about tropical storms and all (being originally from the midwest). I have learned a little over the last several years of reading posts. Thanks guys. What I have been wondering is how much did Hurricane Frances just barely making it in to the gulf affect Ivan? I know dry air played a part in Ivan’s weakening trend as it approached land, but if it wouldn’t have been for Frances could it of held on to have been a borderline 3-4? I remember thinking 12-18 hours before landfall when it was still around 150mph, “what was I thinking when I moved to Florida?!?!?” Could Frances have saved my roof? I wasn’t ever going to post anything, but I came across this site today and it seems at least somewhat clear that after Frances skirted the gulf the heat potential along the gulf coast significantly diminished. My question is did it really make any difference? Any thoughts?


http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/cyclone/data/FRANCES/

[all_we_know_is_FALLING]

I'm not really sure, but it's a possibility. I've read that Tropical Storm Isidore helped in the rapid deterioration of Hurricane Lili in the hours prior to landfall.

[wxmann_91]

Frances had zero effect on Ivan.

[Jim Cantore]

Frances had zero effect on Ivan.

Correct, Ivan was well further west of where Frances was, about 500 miles I think

[baw_es]

I admit I am not a category 5 like you guys, but saying things like “Frances had zero effect on Ivan.” is not really that helpful to me. I know you don’t owe me anything, but how will that help me and others learn. “Zero” really? Would you please tell me why that is. Did you at least check out my link? If not, run the heat content loop. Notice the dates and what seems to be the corresponding affects. If you think Ivan weakened only because of dry air and interaction with land please say so. Come on throw me a bone.

From what I can tell (just from looking at the data I have presented for I don’t claim to be an authority on tropical weather, or any kind of weather for that matter), it appears Frances, even though it crossed the gulf 200 miles from where Ivan made land fall it had at least some affect on gulf temps over there. If I’m reading it correctly, the linked report found near shore currents along the northern gulf coast in the fall (September – November) move from east to west (makes sense to me we owe our white beaches to the Apalachicola River to the west of us). Maybe the predominately western current carried the cooler water from Frances toward the Alabama Gulf Coast? Just a hypothesis, not a statement of fact. I’m not trying to pick a fight, but like I said I have wondered about this for some time now.

Image of SST for Gulf of Mexico three day average ending on September 4th, 2004 – Frances just off FL East Coast http://srbdata.jhuapl.edu/d0043/avhrr/g ... _multi.png

Image of SST for Gulf of Mexico three day average ending on September 8th, 2004 – Frances crossed over FL into Gulf of Mexico just left
http://srbdata.jhuapl.edu/d0043/avhrr/g ... _multi.png

Image of SST for Gulf of Mexico three day average ending on September 15th 2004 – Ivan still out in southern Gulf
http://srbdata.jhuapl.edu/d0043/avhrr/g ... _multi.png

Coastal Currents in the Northern Gulf of Mexico – Dixie County, Florida, to the U.S. – Mexican Border
http://www.gomr.mms.gov/homepg/regulate ... 7-0005.pdf

[Derek Ortt]

Frances was well to the east of the track of Ivan; thus it had no effect

Lili was also not weakened by Isidore. In fatc, Lili reached peak intensity over Isidore's cold wake. Lili became severely sheared in the 12 hours prior to its landfall

[Stormavoider]

I'm surprised it didn't totally suck the life out of it.

[gulfcoastdave]

baw_es, I can not answer your question 100% but I can add few things. I have lived here on the gulf coast for 36 years. One thing I see posted here by so many people is the cat and so on of a storm. However , many people who post on here have not even been in a storm before. Many people forget that wind is not the only concern but also storm surge.Ivan had weaken from a cat 5 to border cat 3/4. What is lost is that the storm surge does not always drop in the cat range just becasue the wind power does drop. I can not think how much the storm affected Ivan , I would ask Derek or maybe airforce met or another Met Prof.

One thing that did affect Ivan is the shallower shelf that borders the gulf coast. This is another factor that affected Opal.

Ivan still packed a very strong surge. I moved to Milton in June of 04 from pensacola and the storm surge here was very bad. No one storm is ever the same

[wxmann_91]

Well, I'm sorry you took it that way. You asked for thoughts and I gave them. In hindsight, probably not zero, but pretty close. IMO, Ivan weakened from dry air entrainment, shear, along with the low Heat Content in the NGOM, which is normal.

Frances occurred over a week before Ivan. Yes, I'm sure there was upwelling from Frances, but 10 days should be enough to moderate it, unless a trough stuck around afterwards.

Isidore had little effect on Lili as it was moving quickly and thus there was little upwelling.

I may be wrong here, but just sharing my thoughts. I'm not the "Tropical Wx Authority" either. I am looking forward to what may be a great discussion and I hope the mets chime in.

EDIT: This took 5 minutes to make, so I guess several people happened to post at the same time.

[baw_es]

I appreciate your responses. Thanks. For clarification, I wasn’t suggesting “Ivan fell apart because of the ‘cold’ wake along the northern gulf coast caused by Frances.” The point I was trying to get across was maybe (and I know it’s a big fat maybe) the effects of Frances sped up the evadible. Maybe with a little warmer water Ivan would have been able to fight off the dry air for even another six hours? I understand either way it wouldn’t have affected the storm surge, but could it have been the difference it 5 or 10 knots at landfall? Could the areas containing the maximum windfield been a little larger? I know 5 or 10 knots doesn’t sound like that much, but from what I have heard wind damage tends to grow exponentially. Hence my original thought “Could France have been the difference in me (and I guess others too) loosing just all the shingles on the windward side of my house and more significant damage.” I know it is all hypothetical (likely stupid too ), but like I said just something I have been wondering for some time now.

[baw_es]

This link shows what I am talking about.

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/cyclone/d ... S/SST1.gif

[all_we_know_is_FALLING]

Frances was well to the east of the track of Ivan; thus it had no effect

Lili was also not weakened by Isidore. In fatc, Lili reached peak intensity over Isidore's cold wake. Lili became severely sheared in the 12 hours prior to its landfall

Whoops. I could have sworn I read that somewhere, but I believe you are correct. I went digging for sources but couldn't find any.. I couldn't find anything really on why Lili weakened.

What are your sources. I'm not doubting you, I would just like to read up on it myself.

[vacanechaser]

ok... well to start, frances did move into the gulf further east of where ivan tracked... in past years during a look at water temps released after a hurricane moves through, the right side, or eastern side of the storm in frances' case is where the upwelling occurs the most... thus, that would have been well removed from ivan... also, it was untouched by the center... correct in saying that the heat content is less in the northern gulf.... that we saw i think with katrina as well last year... not to mention it started drawing in dry continental air off the coastline... seems bigger hurricanes have that problem.....

as far as lili and isidore go, i will disagree with others here... the water temps were in the 80's before isidore moved through.... isidore made a move almost due north off the yucatan into louisiana... also, isidore was intensifying at the time...when lili came through, the water temps had dropped to about 77-78 degrees right in the path of lili... i know this as a fact as i was watching this closely because mark sudduth was there in louisiana and i had just returned from our isidore mission... i was helping out with the water temps, and other factors for him as he was receiving calls from NWS friends in NC asking him to leave due to the danger... when we saw the buoy temps were down that much, not to mention shear was going to move in, and flatten the western side, he decided to stay... jmo,


Jesse V. Bass III
http://www.vastormphoto.com
Hurricane Intercept Research Team

[baw_es]

Is anyone willing to commnet on the links. Do they show anything? Am I only seeing things?

[Brent]

Is anyone willing to commnet on the links. Do they show anything? Am I only seeing things?

A trough came through after Frances and caused the waters to cool... it had nothing to do with her. The trough would have still come through if Frances had not happened.

[baw_es]

Good thing for the trough then, huh? Or not. Who knows. I sure don't. Thanks you guys for the feed back. I'm just glad I can put my silly thoughts to rest. Good thing I still have a day job. I will leave the tropics to the pros.

[HurricaneBlocker]

Is anyone willing to commnet on the links. Do they show anything? Am I only seeing things?

Your links are cool, but like many others have said, Frances did not effect Ivan to our current knowledge. The upwelled waters from Frances were confined to one location that did not effect the large machine that Ivan turned out to become. Dry air, shallow water, and probably factors that we still don't know helped Ivan to weaken.

[Brent]

I think Ivan weakened for the same reason Dennis, Katrina, and Rita(and several other Northern Gulf storms in the past 10 years or so) weakened... the water seems to be cooler and shallower or something.

[all_we_know_is_FALLING]

ok... well to start, frances did move into the gulf further east of where ivan tracked... in past years during a look at water temps released after a hurricane moves through, the right side, or eastern side of the storm in frances' case is where the upwelling occurs the most... thus, that would have been well removed from ivan... also, it was untouched by the center... correct in saying that the heat content is less in the northern gulf.... that we saw i think with katrina as well last year... not to mention it started drawing in dry continental air off the coastline... seems bigger hurricanes have that problem.....

as far as lili and isidore go, i will disagree with others here... the water temps were in the 80's before isidore moved through.... isidore made a move almost due north off the yucatan into louisiana... also, isidore was intensifying at the time...when lili came through, the water temps had dropped to about 77-78 degrees right in the path of lili... i know this as a fact as i was watching this closely because mark sudduth was there in louisiana and i had just returned from our isidore mission... i was helping out with the water temps, and other factors for him as he was receiving calls from NWS friends in NC asking him to leave due to the danger... when we saw the buoy temps were down that much, not to mention shear was going to move in, and flatten the western side, he decided to stay... jmo,


Jesse V. Bass III
http://www.vastormphoto.com
Hurricane Intercept Research Team

So you DO think Isidore's wake had some affect on weakening Lili?