ATL: CRISTOBAL - Post-Tropical - Discussion

[ozonepete]

Wow amazing blow-up. This what makes the tropics so interesting.

Yeah this is really exploding. Due to its large size I'd be battening down the hatches in Bermuda.

[blp]

Looks like the ECMWF which predicted it to strengthen quite quickly from today through extra-tropical transition is verifying. In fact the ECMWF develops an extra-tropical monster out of this starting around 96 hours in the North Atlantic. What a wonderful job the ECMWF did on this system while the rest of the models waivered around with little consistency.

Agree Gator, another notch in the belt of the champion. It was the most consistent with the OTS scenario. I just wish I had not seen the other models because some were scary for a few runs especially the HWRF.

[TARHEELPROGRAMMER]

I hear that Ozonepete it is just weird in the way it has been moving. I will keep one eye on this storm until it is clearly gone.

Yeah it had some really erratic movement over the last 24 hours. And yes, in your neck of the woods I would never take my eye off one of these until it passes east of me.

Agreed

[Frank2]

In this view an eye feature is clearly visible and now appears to be moving NE at a faster rate (my opinion):

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/east/tatl/ft-animated.gif

[trave2]

So why does a huge trough come down and cause onshore easterly winds along the whole Atlantic seaboard in the middle of August? Just when the first storm with any strength of the season is encroaching on the Continental U.S.? Interesting, just like the water vapor imagery for the last 48 hours. This plan just might backfire on them if it does not get picked up by the unseasonable backdoor front that came down from the north Atlantic

This has happened more than a few times in the last few years and it's not uncommon at the end of August at all. so I wouldn't really call it that unseasonable, despite what the weather channel says. This is not some unusually cold air mass by any stretch of the imagination. No record lows are being set and as a matter of fact here in NYC it was 88F today. The normal high is 82F. Look at the temps and dewpoints out at Bermuda and north of Cristobal. Temps are in the 80s and dewpoints in the70s. This continental polar air mass has already been modified into a maritime tropical air mass over the Atlantic offshore of the eastern U.S.

I have not watched the Weather Channel since the 90's. I was not talking about the temp. just the location, strength, and duration on the upper level winds. This " modified into a maritime tropical air mass over the Atlantic offshore of the eastern U.S" is not the norm. This would have been a very bad storm if this "maritime tropical air mass over the Atlantic offshore of the eastern U.S" would not have appeared out of know where.

[ozonepete]

So why does a huge trough come down and cause onshore easterly winds along the whole Atlantic seaboard in the middle of August? Just when the first storm with any strength of the season is encroaching on the Continental U.S.? Interesting, just like the water vapor imagery for the last 48 hours. This plan just might backfire on them if it does not get picked up by the unseasonable backdoor front that came down from the north Atlantic

This has happened more than a few times in the last few years and it's not uncommon at the end of August at all. so I wouldn't really call it that unseasonable, despite what the weather channel says. This is not some unusually cold air mass by any stretch of the imagination. No record lows are being set and as a matter of fact here in NYC it was 88F today. The normal high is 82F. Look at the temps and dewpoints out at Bermuda and north of Cristobal. Temps are in the 80s and dewpoints in the70s. This continental polar air mass has already been modified into a maritime tropical air mass over the Atlantic offshore of the eastern U.S.

I have not watched the Weather Channel since the 90's. I was not talking about the temp. just the location, strength, and duration on the upper level winds. This " modified into a maritime tropical air mass over the Atlantic offshore of the eastern U.S" is not the norm. This would have been a very bad storm if this "maritime tropical air mass over the Atlantic offshore of the eastern U.S" would not have appeared out of know where.

Ok, we're good.

[ozonepete]

This is another great example of how a system that looks pretty poor on satellite can still be a hurricane:

HURRICANE CRISTOBAL DISCUSSION NUMBER 10
NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL042014
1100 PM EDT MON AUG 25 2014

Based on a blend of SFMR, flight-level, and dropsonde wind data collected by a NOAA Hurricane Hunter aircraft a little earlier this evening, Cristobal was upgraded to a 65-kt hurricane. Similar to Hurricane Bertha earlier this year in roughly the same location, this system's cloud pattern does not resemble that of a hurricane, with little or no evidence of banding on satellite images. Some additional strengthening is expected, however, since the SHIPS guidance shows a decrease in vertical shear during the next few days, and an increase in upper-level divergence is indicated by the global models. The official intensity forecast is a little higher than the previous one, and is close to the latest LGEM guidance.

The center fixes by the NOAA aircraft indicated an eastward wobble several hours ago, but recent satellite imagery hints that a slow north-northeastward motion has resumed. The initial motion estimate is a rather uncertain 030/2 kt. In spite of the erratic motion and eastward shift of the center, the track model guidance remains in good agreement that Cristobal will move along a track similar to the previous NHC forecast. Over the next couple of days, the hurricane is expected to move through a weakness between two mid-level high pressure areas. Thereafter, as Cristobal begins to enter the mid-latitude westerlies and a shortwave trough moves off the northeast United States coastline, the tropical cyclone should accelerate northeastward into the North Atlantic. The current official forecast is not much different from the previous one, and close to the GFS ensemble mean solution.

[TheStormExpert]

Cristobal and Bertha have both proven that looks aren't everything, including in the tropics!

[euro6208]

When will the Atlantic have hurricanes that actually looked like hurricanes?

Oh Dvorak so far? Only 2.0 and likely only a depression if it were somewhere else.

[WilmingtonSandbar]

WOW! I last was at the site around 6pm. I fully expected coming back around 11pm that the only surprise I might have is that this thing split into 2 storms. I sure as heck didn't see a hurricane coming this soon. Especially the way it looked at 6. Glad synoptics are still pulling it out to sea. I would hate for it to stall again and start heading west under different steering currents.

[ozonepete]

When will the Atlantic have hurricanes that actually looked like hurricanes?

Oh Dvorak so far? Only 2.0 and likely only a depression if it were somewhere else.

Well Arthur sure looked like a hurricane as it moved off to the northeast into the open Atlantic. And I think Cristobal is going to look very much like a classic hurricane once it starts passing Hatteras. But I know what you mean.

[CrazyC83]

Arthur peaked as a 5.5 on the Dvorak scale? But indeed, Bertha and Cristobal have broken the rules...

[Macrocane]

This wouldn't be more than a 50 kt tropical storm in the EPAC, that's why recon is so important.
At least 2014 Atlantic season already had more hurricanes then 2013 and probably we will see a few more in the next month.

[galaxy401]

Looks like it might go poof soon. We'll see.

[tropicwatch]

Not with the intensity of the convection increasing and expanding like it is, the hurricane hunters are close to the center of circulation which will tell us what the pressure is doing.

[Hammy]

First recon pass doesn't seem to support hurricane intensity, highest SFMR is 59kts.

[somethingfunny]

This is my favorite season to track since 2010. What a bizarre little over performing storm.

[Riptide]

First recon pass doesn't seem to support hurricane intensity, highest SFMR is 59kts.

Did they miss the center to the east? They are below 25N and no south winds yet.

05:43:00Z 24.683N 73.467W 842.9 mb
(~ 24.89 inHg) 1,502 meters
(~ 4,928 feet) 1000.6 mb
(~ 29.55 inHg) - From 310° at 28 knots
(From the NW at ~ 32.2 mph)

[Hammy]

First recon pass doesn't seem to support hurricane intensity, highest SFMR is 59kts.

Did they miss the center to the east? They are below 25N and no south winds yet.

05:43:00Z 24.683N 73.467W 842.9 mb
(~ 24.89 inHg) 1,502 meters
(~ 4,928 feet) 1000.6 mb
(~ 29.55 inHg) - From 310° at 28 knots
(From the NW at ~ 32.2 mph)

plane is SW of the center presumably on the way to make a SW-NE pass.

[tolakram]

Live visible loop

http://wwwghcc.msfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/get-goes?satellite=GOES-E%20CONUS&lat=27&lon=-71&info=vis&zoom=1&width=1000&height=800&quality=95&type=Animation&palette=ir1.pal&numframes=7