ATL: IKE Discussion

[cycloneye]

Is the first time I do this in a main thread for systems but here is my brief opinion about Ike weakening in the GOM.

The following post is NOT an official forecast and should not be used as such. It is just the opinion of the poster and may or may not be backed by sound meteorological data. It is NOT endorsed by any professional institution including storm2k.org For Official Information please refer to the NHC and NWS products.

The only way Ike may weaken is by any structure organization like eyewall replacement cycles that can occur.Being the system big in area coverage,it will be difficult for dry air to insert inside the core of circulation.In terms of shear,there may be some,however difflujent pattern may help Ike have some favorable shear.That is how I see it from the distance in Puerto Rico.

[Texas Snowman]

Nederlander, agreed, Ike is only a Cat 1 and landfall is a few days away.

Problem is however that Tx Gulf Coastal Emergency Management officials will have to start making serious preps overnight and tomorrow.

I feel for them and the difficult task they have ahead.

[Cape Verde]

Unless sheer becomes more than forecasted, this will easily reach cat 3/4 by landfall. The eyewall is already reforming a few hours from leaving Cuba.

Still a lot of time folks... lets not create a monster out of a cat 1 hurricane just yet... lot of things can happen

No, there's not a lot of time. If you're going to evacuate Galveston you have to start tomorrow.

With the uncertainty out there, it's certainly a judgment call which will unfortunately be judged in hindsight, one way or the other.

[jinftl]

Convincing people to prepare and get out of harms way is in some ways easy for officials when you have a monster storm staring right at you. It's tougher getting folks as motivated when he is a weaker storm....but has the Potential to get strong or the Potential to come your way.....tough job for sure.

Nederlander, agreed, Ike is only a Cat 1 and landfall is a few days away.

Problem is however that Tx Gulf Coastal Emergency Management officials will have to start making serious preps overnight and tomorrow.

I feel for them and the difficult task they have ahead.

[MBryant]

Nederlander, agreed, Ike is only a Cat 1 and landfall is a few days away.

Problem is however that Tx Gulf Coastal Emergency Management officials will have to start making serious preps overnight and tomorrow.

I feel for them and the difficult task they have ahead.

It's hard to imagine an official calling for an evacuation while the storm is a Cat 1, even if conditions are favorable for strengthening. But that might be the correct call.

[Nederlander]

Nederlander, agreed, Ike is only a Cat 1 and landfall is a few days away.

Problem is however that Tx Gulf Coastal Emergency Management officials will have to start making serious preps overnight and tomorrow.

I feel for them and the difficult task they have ahead.

It's hard to imagine an official calling for an evacuation while the storm is a Cat 1, even if conditions are favorable for strengthening. But that might be the correct call.

they just have to look at what the nhc forecast is... if the nhc forecasts a major within a certain mileage, then they have to call it... no need to risk lives IF it did turn into a monster

[KWT]

I'd say its the difference between a 2/3 and a 4/5

The outflow pattern should be sufficient to support a storm of Rita's intensity at landfall. Just not Rita's peak 897mb intensity. Don't think we'll see the most intense GOM cane ever out of this one (for the record, I also did not expect to see that out of Rita)

No I agree I don't think this will challenge Rita but I think if shear can remain around 5kts like it is now over the central gulf I see no reason why this can't make it to cat-4 but thats a big if of course!

[Weatherfreak14]

Here we go

[jinftl]

Hopefully Houston officials have done alot to help the evacuation crunch by pushing the idea that only people who need to evacuate should. Not at all a problem exclusive to Houston, but when you are talking about the size of the population, that is a potential mess.

Excerpt from article below in Houston Chronicle:

More than half of all evacuees from Hurricane Rita lived on ground high enough to avoid a surge of water from even the most powerful storms.

Some hurricane experts say most of these 1.5 million "shadow evacuees" must heed the mantra of emergency planners — run from water, hide from wind — if Houston's next evacuation is to avoid the myriad problems of Rita's exodus.


http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/hurricane/4839418.html

[jdjaguar]

i may be seeing things..but a small eye appears to have popped out....i don't think i like ike.

[Rod Hagen]

Just out of interest, does the speed of intensification have much bearing on the likely track of the Ike?

Cheers

Rod

[fasterdisaster]

He looks good but the dry air needs to move away from the NW quadrant before significant strengthening can happen. This should happen by early morning though.

[hurrican19]

This COULD easily be a larger scale evacuation than Rita was I certainly hope not, but isn't out of the realm of possibility, since tomorrow will be "D-Day" for local officials.

Note the COULD - I am not saying this will occur, but saying it COULD happen. I have no information pertaining to any specific area for an evacuation.

[Ed Mahmoud]

Might be related to colder tops wrapping the eye, but I see a NW movement.

I still smell Louisiana.

[KWT]

The inner core is very tight and the eye is small yet the whole system seems to be lacking in deep convection right now awaqy from the eyewall, its certainly an odd presentation.

I'd imagine in another 12-18hrs Ike will look totally different in terms of convection as it moves away from land into the warm low shear waters.

[ROCK]

Might be related to colder tops wrapping the eye, but I see a NW movement.

I still smell Louisiana.

How does one smell LA?

[jdjaguar]

convection popping up around the small eye...ike is quite tightly wound having encountered cuba.

it seems we have been seeing a few storms lately dive from CAT1 to CAT4 rapidly...this one looks no different.

[deltadog03]

On SAT....I would estimate a 325 movement?? about 12mph?

[Texas Snowman]

Well, when I start seeing pro mets agree (JB, Jeff Masters, and Mr. Linder all are in similar camps about a severe hurricane impacting the central Texas Gulf Coast) that's when I start to get a bit on the nervous side.

Thought I also saw on a news crawl that Gov. Perry had or was going to issue a disaster declaration for Texas and was going to put the National Guard into position.

[jinftl]

Didn't most areas evacuate Rita with their plan for a Cat4/5? I know Houston has a zone map that goes by zip code...and it has scenarios for a weaker storm evacuation to a cat 5. I can't see a mandatory evacuation for an area outside of the Cat 5 evac zone happening. You could have a Rita-traffic situation times 2 or more.

This COULD easily be a larger scale evacuation than Rita was I certainly hope not, but isn't out of the realm of possibility, since tomorrow will be "D-Day" for local officials.

Note the COULD - I am not saying this will occur, but saying it COULD happen. I have no information pertaining to any specific area for an evacuation.