ATL: Marco : Tropical Depression - Discussion

[Cyclenall]

Why hasn't the NHC discussed in their advisories that this may be the smallest TS to form in the Atlantic? It tied with Tracy! I didn't expect this to happen today.

[jinftl]

Good point....what Marco really shows is that satellite pics alone are not enough to make intensity estimates...getting a recon in this system allowed data to be gathered that showed a system that was not obvious by visual inspection (plus lack of obsv) alone.

Models and analysis only can go so far....as we saw today, things do develop quickly and rather unexpectedly when the conditions are favorable enough overall.

Without recon, there would no doubt be lots of folks questioning the validity of this system being a named ts...the reality is that it is not out of the question we see a borderline ts/cat 1 making landfall tomorrow....not a borderline td/ts.

jinftl, operational Marco went from TD to TS in almost no time, but I expect the NHC to say that Marco was a TD last night and became a TS this morning, and it intensified rapidly but not so sudden.

For example, look at these loops. Last night over land and today over water. The same system.

Yesterday:


Today:

[DESTRUCTION5]

MINIATURE MARCO HAS MAINTAINED ONE SMALL COLD-TOPPED THUNDERSTORM
CLUSTER...ABOUT THE SIZE OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE...OVER THE
LOW-LEVEL CENTER. THEREFORE...THE INITIAL INTENSITY IS BEING KEPT
AT 55 KT IN LINE WITH THE LAST AIR FORCE RECON DATA...EVEN THOUGH
DVORAK SATELLITE CLASSIFICATIONS ARE T2.0/30 KT FROM BOTH TAFB AND
SAB. I HAVE WORKED SOME TINY TYPHOONS IN THE WESTERN PACIFIC
BEFORE...BUT HORIZONTALLY-CHALLENGED MARCO COULD BE THE SMALLEST
TROPICAL CYCLONE ON RECORD

ON RECORD....

[Extremeweatherguy]

I wonder what this little storm would look like on radar?

[CrazyC83]

Unfortunately the radars are down in the area. It would probably look like a supercell thunderstorm with a central circulation/eye.

[Just Joshing You]

Stewart has a sense of humor!

[Ed Mahmoud]

Didn't Gustav start out tiny and grow?


If this had more than 12 to 18 hours, it might have gotten bigger.

But for now, world's biggest EF0/EF1 tornado.

[HURAKAN]

[HurricaneBill]

I wonder if this is what the 1935 Labor Day hurricane looked like.

[Sanibel]

Small storms can spin-up faster over favorable waters.

Good thing it didn't do the climatalogical norm and head into the Gulf. To think this track suggests even Texas could have been hit.

[AnnularCane]

MINIATURE MARCO HAS MAINTAINED ONE SMALL COLD-TOPPED THUNDERSTORM
CLUSTER...ABOUT THE SIZE OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE...OVER THE
LOW-LEVEL CENTER. THEREFORE...THE INITIAL INTENSITY IS BEING KEPT
AT 55 KT IN LINE WITH THE LAST AIR FORCE RECON DATA...EVEN THOUGH
DVORAK SATELLITE CLASSIFICATIONS ARE T2.0/30 KT FROM BOTH TAFB AND
SAB. I HAVE WORKED SOME TINY TYPHOONS IN THE WESTERN PACIFIC
BEFORE...BUT HORIZONTALLY-CHALLENGED MARCO COULD BE THE SMALLEST
TROPICAL CYCLONE ON RECORD

ON RECORD....

They're really rubbing it in.

[RL3AO]

I'm glad its not, but it would be interesting to see what would happen to a system like this if it had a few days over warm water and low shear.

[MGC]

Hopefully Marco will not develope a Napoleon complex due to his diminutive size, obviously a male thing.....anyway, the CDO of Marco only spans 1 degree or about 60 NM. This could set a record for small.....MGC

[Chacor]

Size is not normally measured by CDO but by radius of winds, which right now ties with Tracy.

[Epsilon_Fan]

Geez, Micro looks even smaller now... I wonder what he has in store for the next 12-24 hrs

[AdamFirst]

Holy cow, Marco is a mini

I haven't been paying attention lately to the tropics...wow!

[TheEuropean]

This is from the flight yesterday:

210800 1935N 09446W 9234 00685 9982 +239 +210 117037 043 029 004 03

998.2 mb with flight level winds up to 43 kts? Shouldn't this mean, that the lowest pressure is lower than 998 mb? May be little Marco is even a bit stronger than thought...

[Category 5]

MARCO IS AN EXTREMELY SMALL TROPICAL CYCLONE. TROPICAL STORM FORCE
WINDS ONLY EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 15 MILES...30 KM FROM THE CENTER.


Get out the record book folks, we have a new entry.

Heck, they could get away with a Severe Thunderstorm Warning at this point.

[Cyclenall]

MARCO IS AN EXTREMELY SMALL TROPICAL CYCLONE. TROPICAL STORM FORCE
WINDS ONLY EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 15 MILES...30 KM FROM THE CENTER.


Get out the record book folks, we have a new entry.

Heck, they could get away with a Severe Thunderstorm Warning at this point.

I was amazed when I read that. Why would they state this in an intermediate advisory without any new data to back it up? Extremely small is a good way to put it. If true, this is the smallest tropical cyclone ever recorded!!

If you look at the current sat images from the NRL, there are 4 thunderstorm cells near Marco and some are larger. You would never know just looking at that image that that was a 55 knot bugger. I want radar!

[Category 5]

Wait, don't put down the record book.

MARCO IS AN EXTREMELY SMALL TROPICAL CYCLONE. TROPICAL STORM FORCE
WINDS ONLY EXTEND OUTWARD UP TO 10 MILES...20 KM FROM THE CENTER.



This is just.... wow.

At this pace, the TS winds will cover about a football field by landfall.

Even more strange, no mention of the record by the NHC.