It looked like a Pentagram in the eye

[jasons2k]

Did anyone else see the Special Dateline last night on Katrina?

In the beginning, they showed a satellite shot of Katrina I had not see yet. It had the star feature in its eye (like Isabel) but it looked just like an upside-down pentagram. Chilling.

[GalvestonDuck]

I saw that same shot on something else earlier -- with the five little (dang it, can't remember what they're called). I think it was Stormsfury who first nailed the picture when it was Isabel. So do we know that that was actually Katrina they were showing or was it "stock footage" of Izzy?

[Kelarie]

You can't be serious??

[jasons2k]

I saw that same shot on something else earlier -- with the five little (dang it, can't remember what they're called). I think it was Stormsfury who first nailed the picture when it was Isabel. So do we know that that was actually Katrina they were showing or was it "stock footage" of Izzy?

It was Katrina - it was the GOM. And yes I am serious. I couldn't believe it when I saw it; I rewinded it and paused with TiVo.

[CentralFlGal]

Would they be referred to as meso vortices?

[cancunkid]

I actually thought that was their hurricane logo and that it was of Isabelle but I guess not?

[SouthFloridawx]

can anyone post that picture?

[Jim Hughes]

I saw that same shot on something else earlier -- with the five little (dang it, can't remember what they're called). I think it was Stormsfury who first nailed the picture when it was Isabel. So do we know that that was actually Katrina they were showing or was it "stock footage" of Izzy?

I recall reading something on the web a ways back about this. Someone was talking about these patterns showing up in major storms.

Jim

[soonertwister]

This is a known phenomenon. I have previously commented that at least at one time Katrina was annular (containing multiple-vortices within the eye).

Annular hurricanes may not be as rare as once thought, but annularity is almost always associated with the most powerful hurricanes. One interesting thing about these canes is that it seems that they never form an even number of subvortices, it's always an odd multiple.

So a shape like a pentagram wouldn't be at all surprising, and nothing to do with signs from the devil or anything.

[cancunkid]

http://wintersteel.homestead.com/Hurric ... agram.html nice shots of Isabel. Honestly I didn't ever notice it with Katrina. Someone uses the eye of Isabel as a screencap on the boards

[SouthFloridawx]

no on TV they showed a picture of Katrina and it looked like that.

[mahicks]

I don't think I ever saw anything close to an Isabel like eye. I did see some great "swirls" in the eye, but nothing at all like Isabel.

Meso Vortices are not a determining factor to an Annular Cyclone. I'll find a great link to a PDF file about the study of Annular Hurricanes and post it.

[HeatherAKC]

I saw it and assumed it was Isabel. I don't think it was Katrina.

Edit: One of the networks (Can't remember which one) also is using it for all their intros back from commercials. I really think it's Isabel.

[mahicks]

Ok...Heres the Link:

http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~kossin/articles/annularhurr.pdf

Heres a quote from it:

3. Features of annular hurricanes

Before the features associated with annular hurricanes
can be examined, annular hurricane cases must be identified.
The IR imagery is the visual means by which we
determine whether a storm is an annular hurricane. An
annular hurricane is identified if the hurricane persists
for at least 3 h in an axisymmetric state defined by the
following: 1) the hurricane has a normal-to-large-sized
circular eye surrounded by a single band of deep convection
containing the inner-core region and 2) the hurricane
has little or no convective activity beyond this
annulus of convection. The use of digital IR data also
allows for the development of an objective technique of
identifying storms with these characteristics, which will
be addressed in section 4. Note that a hurricane is considered
an annular hurricane only when these conditions
are met; before and after the annular phase, the hurricane
is considered an asymmetric storm. The six hurricanes
that meet these subjective criteria during our period of
study are listed in Table 1 along with ranges of satellite
estimates of the range of eye sizes and best-track-determined
intensities. Further details on the characteristics of
these storms are described in sections 4a–d.

[CentralFlGal]

Here's Katrina prior to landfall. This was the closest to what is being described that I could find (I was saving them to disk and may have missed the one shown on TV).

[soonertwister]

Check out this animated gif of Isabel.



It was found on this forum: http://flhurricane.com/cyclone/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=tb2005&Number=51239

[alicia-w]

very cool but looks nothing like a pentagram.

[jasons2k]

I have it TiVo'd still. I will triple check tonight. I'm pretty sure it was Katrina. And yes I was shocked too b/c I have tons of visibles on my own HD and had not seen it yet. Who knows, maybe one of their video editors got creative.

[Talon402]

They're called mesovortices. Isabel had them too. Extremely powerful hurricanes develope these; it has to do with the ventillation from the eye, and some other things.

//edit: wow, i guess i should have refreshed before I posted...around 2 hrs late on this....moving along now....

[wwicko]

Ivan had mesovortices that formed a petagram very cleary.