ATL: LAURA - Post-Tropical - Discussion

[MGC]

ULL to Laura's east and west should provide excellent ventilation for Laura to intensify at a steady rate, perhaps right up to landfall. Big question is how large Laura's wind field will be when it nears the NW gulf coast. Sure wind is a large factor but surge is what totally destroys coastal buildings and such. Thinking that Laura will be near 125mph cane on the upper TX coast with extensive sure damage to the east of landfall. Just my opinion and not a official forecast.....MGC

[GCANE]

Theta-E ridge is expanding out.
Laura will have longer now to strengthen.

Slower forward speed or further west?

An expanding ridge would mean potemtial of farther west movement.

Theta-E ridge is different than the pressure ridge to the NE.

Theta-E means the amount of hot moisture pulled into the air from the water due to wind-induced surface heat exchange.
It is to the NW of Laura and Laura is tracking into it.
A well-known and long-standing rule of thumb is when TC's track into a Theta-E ridge, they intensify.
The stronger the ridge, the more rapid the intensification.

Right now the ridge doesn't show a strong gradient, hence, likely intensification will be steady, not rapid.

Fly in the ointment maybe that 300-400 mb jet to the NW of the CoC that recon measured.

[HurryKane]

After a westward jog earlier, Laura is estimated to be moving
west-northwestward again or 290/15. The synoptic situation consists
over a large ridge near the southeastern United States and a
weakness in the ridge over Central Texas due to an inverted trough.
Laura should gradually gain latitude and turn to the northwest and
north-northwest over the next two days while it is steered between
those two features, move northward late this week through the
southern United States, then move quickly eastward across the
eastern U.S. over the weekend as it encounters the mid-latitude
westerlies. The majority of the guidance has shifted a notable
distance to the west on this run, perhaps due to a weaker trough
over Texas and a more westward initial position of Laura (possibly
due to persistent northerly mid-level shear). The new NHC
prediction is at the eastern edge of the new guidance envelope since
I don't want to bite off on such a large change on just one set of
model runs. But since the storm has been tracking west of forecast
expectations for quite some time, future westward track adjustments
could be required later today.

Reminds me of the language the NHC was using for Katrina when the models had zeroed in on the LA/MS border landfall while their cone was still showing a mid-Florida panhandle landfall. Then they finally made the move at the 5 pm advisory on Friday when everyone was either still at work or otherwise not paying attention...I however hauled bootay to Wallyworld, stocked up, and bugged out (thanks to having voraciously read information on Storm2k).

Having been on the other side of making very informed decisions while people on social media think that they know better or otherwise don’t understand the decisions, I have to believe the NHC has some good reasons not to shift further west at this time...would love to be a fly on the wall over there

[eastcoastFL]

ULL to Laura's east and west should provide excellent ventilation for Laura to intensify at a steady rate, perhaps right up to landfall. Big question is how large Laura's wind field will be when it nears the NW gulf coast. Sure wind is a large factor but surge is what totally destroys coastal buildings and such. Thinking that Laura will be near 125mph cane on the upper TX coast with extensive sure damage to the east of landfall. Just my opinion and not a official forecast.....MGC

Do you know if this 60kt pocket of shear near Houston could help keep it from being worse? Or is it forecast to move out?

[NDG]

ULL to Laura's east and west should provide excellent ventilation for Laura to intensify at a steady rate, perhaps right up to landfall. Big question is how large Laura's wind field will be when it nears the NW gulf coast. Sure wind is a large factor but surge is what totally destroys coastal buildings and such. Thinking that Laura will be near 125mph cane on the upper TX coast with extensive sure damage to the east of landfall. Just my opinion and not a official forecast.....MGC

Do you know if this 60kt pocket of shear near Houston could help keep it from being worse? Or is it forecast to move out?

http://tropic.ssec.wisc.edu/real-time/atlantic/winds/wg8shr.GIF

The UL anticyclone will be moving westward along with it and all the shear axis will continue to move westward.

[GCANE]

:froze:
What does this mean for the storm?

Disrupts the thunderstorms.

Nhc didn't mention this yet? Is it suppose to stay or leave?

I didn't see any indication in the shear forecasts I looked at earlier using GFS and HWRF that it is a problem.

[supercane4867]

ULL to Laura's east and west should provide excellent ventilation for Laura to intensify at a steady rate, perhaps right up to landfall. Big question is how large Laura's wind field will be when it nears the NW gulf coast. Sure wind is a large factor but surge is what totally destroys coastal buildings and such. Thinking that Laura will be near 125mph cane on the upper TX coast with extensive sure damage to the east of landfall. Just my opinion and not a official forecast.....MGC

Do you know if this 60kt pocket of shear near Houston could help keep it from being worse? Or is it forecast to move out?

http://tropic.ssec.wisc.edu/real-time/atlantic/winds/wg8shr.GIF

All it does is providing ventilation for the hurricane. It's retrograding to the NW as Laura moves into that region.

[NDG]

I was just thinking of something, with less than 36-48 hrs before landfall Laura will not have time for eyewall recycles, so is full steady strengthening until landfall, very dangerous situation.

[Highteeld]

The shear should be well lower than that by the time it's near the texas coastline. conditions in about 6-10 hours from now will start to idealize, and could lead to an ERI phase

[eastcoastFL]

The shear should be well lower than that by the time it's near the texas coastline. conditions in about 6-10 hours from now will start to idealize, and could lead to an ERI phase

I was afraid that was the case

[supercane4867]

Extrap pressure down to 989mb

[MGC]

ULL to Laura's east and west should provide excellent ventilation for Laura to intensify at a steady rate, perhaps right up to landfall. Big question is how large Laura's wind field will be when it nears the NW gulf coast. Sure wind is a large factor but surge is what totally destroys coastal buildings and such. Thinking that Laura will be near 125mph cane on the upper TX coast with extensive sure damage to the east of landfall. Just my opinion and not a official forecast.....MGC

Do you know if this 60kt pocket of shear near Houston could help keep it from being worse? Or is it forecast to move out?

ULL to Laura's west is moving west. So shear that is currently over coastal TX should move west and not be of consequence when Laura approaches the coast. Just my thinking.....MGC

[sponger]

Extrap pressure down to 989mb

Well ahead of any model.

[jaguars_22]

So if it gets bigger and stronger faster than models will it keep going west more?

[aspen]

The shear should be well lower than that by the time it's near the texas coastline. conditions in about 6-10 hours from now will start to idealize, and could lead to an ERI phase

The fact that Laura is already an intensifying and organizing hurricane despite having a bit of shear against it means that, once it hits those perfect conditions, it’ll likely go nuclear.

[sponger]

Place your bets people for 11am track. My money is on Bolivar but based on ECMWF 6z consensus, could be Galveston or even Freeport by tomorrow morning.

[northjaxpro]

I was thinking about the potential pressure ridge when posting earlier, which there are some hints by the models of thay expanding. I posted in a haste being busy here at work. I apologize for the confusion. But, yes, GCANE , good analysis on the Theta ridge.

[CypressMike]

Laura is moving a little faster than some of the earlier models indicated. Could this increased forward motion be the reason why the expected trough over Texas doesn't cause her to turn sooner (i.e. she's getting there before the trough is close enough to affect the path)?

[wx98]

Place your bets people for 11am track. My money is on Bolivar but based on ECMWF 6z consensus, could be Galveston or even Freeport by tomorrow morning.

I don’t think they’ll shift that far at 11. Bolivar would be the southern extent in this first shift I would think.

[Hypercane_Kyle]

Just woke up, definitely wasn't expecting Laura to already be a hurricane.