Why did Wilma intenisfy so much?

[smashmode]

Just had a question..yesterday wilma was supposed to hit at 95 knots..but today it hits at 110 knots? Don't storms usually weaken before the land? and wasnt there talk about a cold shearing from the north?

Just wondering why this exploded a little before hitting..instead of weakening a little?

[Brent]

Well for one thing... take a look at Wilma's outflow. This is some of the most impressive outflow I have EVER seen.



All the way to Cape Cod...

That is helping her fend off the very hostile conditions(which will be getting much worse soon).

If she did not have that massive outflow, she would not have gotten as strong as she did.

[mf_dolphin]

Just had a question..yesterday wilma was supposed to hit at 95 knots..but today it hits at 110 knots? Don't storms usually weaken before the land? and wasnt there talk about a cold shearing from the north?

Just wondering why this exploded a little before hitting..instead of weakening a little?

The forecast weakening was due to anticipated shear. It looks like the shear never really materialized to the extent that they anticipated.

[CharleySurvivor]

She intensified prior to landing just like Charley did...

....could this be a FL Gulf Coast thing?

[ALhurricane]

I don't mean to beat this topic into the ground, but I talked about it the last few days. What ended up happening was that Wilma is positioned under the right entrance region of a very potent jet streak located north to the storm. This is a very divergent portion of the jet and helped to establish a strong outflow channel to the north.

In addition, the storm's increase in forward speed helped to mitigate any shear since the storm was moving relative to the mean wind flow.

All in all, Wilma ended up having very favorable conditions for strengthening and she responded.

[WxGuy1]

She did strengthen a bit more than I had anticipated (I was expecting borderline cat 2/3). It should be noted that Wilma didn't deepend very much, so if you take the "intensity" to be the central pressure, then she didn't strengthen much. I think her minimum pressure dropped to 950-952mb. Her forward motion increased from about 10mph yesterday, to 25mph+ this morning, so even if she had stayed "steady-state", her maximum ground-relative winds would have increased by 15mph just as a function of her increased forward/translational speed. Of course, this means weaker winds in the northern half of the storm. Her winds did come up more than the increase in translational speed, and her storm-relative winds did increase 10-15mph since yesterday.

[ohiostorm]

When storms weaken near landfall, it depends on the depth of the water. With storms like Rita and Opal, they went over an area where there is a steep shelf and shallow waters just before landfall. With Charley and now Wilma, there isnt such a change in water depth before landfall.

[chadtm80]

2005.. Thats why