EPAC: PATRICIA - Post-Tropical

[Dave C]

I noticed on the radar pics posted from the plane that there was a nice curved band feeding into the inner eyewall, this may be helping it maintain even with the outer eyewall fully developed. just a thought.

[psyclone]

A point to make about the comparison to tornado winds is that tropical cyclones do not have anything close to the same magnitude of vertical velocities. Thus the kind of damage from TCs are much different than tornadoes for a given magnitude of horizontal wind.

If I'm reading correctly this means a 100mph tornado is more destructive than a 100mph cane? If so to what extent does a high end TC even the scale with a longer duration?

[Nimbus]

Hope they take the evacuation orders seriously in Mexico.
One recon pass is enough to detail the wind field characteristics.

[Blown Away]

Video from hurricane hunter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRArAZfWGp8

I know the best and brightest are on that plane... Look how young the one pilot looks...

[SouthDadeFish]

I'm not necessarily saying that a 100 mph tornado is more damaging than a 100 mph hurricane. My point is the kind of damage is different. The duration of TC winds is a critical factor in the damage as well. It really depends on a lot of things. Anyway, it doesn't look like recon will make another fix, so I'm really not sure what they're waiting for.

[WxGuy1]

A point to make about the comparison to tornado winds is that tropical cyclones do not have anything close to the same magnitude of vertical velocities. Thus the kind of damage from TCs are much different than tornadoes for a given magnitude of horizontal wind.

If I'm reading correctly this means a 100mph tornado is more destructive than a 100mph cane? If so to what extent does a high end TC even the scale with a longer duration?

Not to speak on behalf of SouthDadeFish, but... Most of the near-ground wind in tropical cyclones is in the horizontal -- low-level vertical velocities tend to be relatively small. In tornadoes, however, vertical velocities near the ground can be very strong. In fact, we have evidence that vertical wind speeds can exceed horizontal wind speeds in some part of some tornadoes at some times (search "corner flow collapse" if interested). Technically, if someone says "100 mph winds", that should be the magnitude of the 3 dimensional wind. In practice, most people are only referring to the horizontal wind speed, since that's what most instruments measure.

Speaking to your point, though, I certainly wouldn't say that a tornado with 100 mph 3-s wind speed at ~30 feet above ground is comparable to a hurricane with the same winds. Hurricanes tend to last orders of magnitude longer. Whereas a tornado can come and go in 10 seconds at some locations (smaller subvortices can affect places for only ~1 second, whereas very large, small-moving tornadoes may affect some place for ~1 minute or more), a place experiencing a hurricane likely will experience those winds for a *much* longer duration. As such, the total damage considering the wind speed may be more in a hurricane since the winds have a much longer time to "do damage".

[NDG]

A point to make about the comparison to tornado winds is that tropical cyclones do not have anything close to the same magnitude of vertical velocities. Thus the kind of damage from TCs are much different than tornadoes for a given magnitude of horizontal wind.

True but the much longer duration of a hurricane's winds could lead to structural fatigue & eventual collapse of structures.
And how about the potential of mini vortices rotating around in the eyewall similar to what is believed to have happened during hurricane Andrew?

[TimeZone]

How is the population where this thing is headed? Are we looking at a potential Katrina situation damage wise? Albeit more wind than surge I would assume.

[cycloneye]

Plane is going to make another pass.

[Aric Dunn]

jogged to the coast the last hour.. looks like manzinillo is going to take that southern eyewall.. icyclone guys might actually get in the eye if they are a little north

[WeatherGuesser]

Hurricanes tend to last orders of magnitude longer. Whereas a tornado can come and go in 10 seconds at some locations (smaller subvortices can affect places for only ~1 second, whereas very large, small-moving tornadoes may affect some place for ~1 minute or more), a place experiencing a hurricane likely will experience those winds for a *much* longer duration. As such, the total damage considering the wind speed may be more in a hurricane since the winds have a much longer time to "do damage".

That's my thinking. 100MPH winds for a minute or less is bad enough. 100MPH winds for several hours is infinitely worse. And possibly then changing direction and coming again, nearly as strong for another few hours.

[Kingarabian]

Looks like it has indeed restrengthened based on the last ob.

[Kingarabian]

Plane is going to make another pass.

Just in time for the advisory.

[galaxy401]

Wishing the recon the best of luck. Going to be huge now.

[supercane4867]

This is an extremely dangerous attempt. Really praying for them....

[cycloneye]

There they go.

[psyclone]

Thank you blue taggers for your willingness to compose brilliant answers!

[EyELeSs1]

Looks like the eye is still contracting and cloud tops cooling once again which would signal even further strengthening. Could also be the potential start of an ERC.

This is the definition on intense!

[cycloneye]

Why they did circles?

Patrick Duran ‏@DuranPatrick · 5m5 minutes ago
@CycloforumsPR @EricBlake12 They had an extremely rough eye penetration and are cleaning up the cabin.

[WeatherGuesser]

We could be talking in the range of 200MPH at landfall.

Has that happened in other storms? Most of the other H5s weakened before landfall as far as I've read.