MED: HANNELORE - Hybrid Cyclone Over The Mediterranean Sea

[Vince_and_Grace_fan]

In the last days more extratropical cyclones developed over the Mediterranean Sea thanks to a large, deep upper-level trough which placed over the central areas of the Sea. On Saturday (21 January) the low that the FU-Berlin had named 'Jan' reached the Central Mediterranean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean, developing a well-defined warm-seclusion over the Adriatic Sea with quite strong convection around the center. During the night hours an eye-like feature also formed temporarily.

On the next day, the low weakened as it moved through Italy and probably dissipated or merged with another low pressure area, but its remnant vorticity generated organized convection again west of Sardinia yesterday and another well-defined, convective cyclone formed by today which slowly approached North Algeria.

ASCAT measured 35-40 kt winds near the center on 21 January and 30-35 kt today. FSU phase diagram showed that the original cyclone quickly developed even more symmetrical warm-core over the Adriatic Sea, however it remained shallow, while today's low had rather neutral core. I think it is questionable that it was a real subtropical storm or not - I would say rather no than yes -, but it was an interesting one.

Satellite and radar animations:









ASCATs on 21 and 24 January:





Phase diagrams:

[AJC3]

Will you be putting together a writeup for this system, including a position/intensity table and track map? It would be interesting to see whether you could make a more definitive conclusion on whether this actually maintained a broad surface circulation during it's track from the Adriatic Sea across Italy/Tyrrhenian Sea/Corsica/Sardinia, and then west of there as it moved south across the western MED SEA.

In any event, I will be adding this system to the 2023 Storm Archives and adding it to the page with the annual list of MED SEA cyclones. Nice find!

[Vince_and_Grace_fan]

Will you be putting together a writeup for this system, including a position/intensity table and track map? It would be interesting to see whether you could make a more definitive conclusion on whether this actually maintained a broad surface circulation during it's track from the Adriatic Sea across Italy/Tyrrhenian Sea/Corsica/Sardinia, and then west of there as it moved south across the western MED SEA.

In any event, I will be adding this system to the 2023 Storm Archives and adding it to the page with the annual list of MED SEA cyclones. Nice find!

Thanks for archiving this! Maybe I will make intensity and track estimate for this system sometime later, but I still think it was not a real subtropical storm.