Do N moving hurricanes in the N GOM naturally weaken?

[Derek Ortt]

not sure what the composition of Opal's eye wall was, but it did undergo a replacement cycle. Plus, that satellite image looks pathetic for a major hurricane, has the signature of a cat 1.

[dhweather]

Notice, many of the weakening hurricanes occur in September. August tends to be a deadly time. However, it's only a matter of time before Camille occurs again.

Exactly - conditions just have to be "right", and a 4 or 5 will make landfall
on the Northern GOM coast.

[MGC]

It is just plain foolish to assume a major will weaken prior to landfall along the N GOM. Every storm is different as is the environment the hurricane is embedded in.......MGC

[Brent]

When I lived in Marianna, FL (north of Panama City) in '99 I think it was, Hurricane Bertha was moving north and directly hit Panama City and my area, it strengthened from a weak Category 1 to a strong Cat 2 at landfall...if memory serves..lol .

Kevin Cho - East Naples, FL

Bertha was in 1996 and hit North Carolina.

1998 was Earl(hit Panama City) but was EXTREMELY lopsided. All the rain and wind was well east of the center. It did peak at 100 mph before landfall.

1999 had no hits on that part of Florida(Irene went across the Keys and near Miami).

[Steve]

Another point about Opal was the pressure gradient to its west. We had due north winds sustained in the 30-42mph range right on Lake Pontchartrain with blue autumn skies. I lived right on the lake and walked up to the levee. You could hardly hear with the winds blowing straight at you.

DO,

I agree with the Lili signature and shear problems. But it did cross some of Isidore's wake. We had also Hannah, Fay, Edouard (that was a weird track) and other storms (earlier in the season, Bertha) that had been in the general area that year. That was the year I saw rain from 7 different storms (including a Pacific crossover later on).

Steve

[TSmith274]

I wonder if the glut of LNG platforms planned off the coast of Louisiana will have any impact. Each platform cycles up to 100 million gallons of water per day, cooling it substantially, and spitting it back out into the gulf. Anyone have any guess as to the effect of these platforms?

[LSU2001]

yeah a lot of dead redfish, specks, red snapper and others. as far as the effects on canes I cant see the cooling of enough water to make a significant difference and as they discharge the water it will begin to heat back up again. Anyway Blanco is now opposing the LNG open loop systems so we (hopefully) won't see more than the two that are already approved.
Tim

[Matt-hurricanewatcher]

No a hurricane moving north doe's not weaken it. What weakens it in the the cooler north Gulf of Mexico waters. What had happen to Ivan was it hit a pool of warm water then moved out of it before landfall. So with Lili. Both also had increasing upper level shear.

[Brent]

Lili was sheared like a chea-pet, as has been documented many times.

It was also the most disorganized cat 4 hurricane, EVER. Recon radar showed only about a 50% eye wall at peak intensity and hurricane force winds did not even extend to the SW quadrant

What was Opal's eye like?

(Yes, Opal did have an eye.)

THAT was almost a 5? That looks SICK.

[Matt-hurricanewatcher]

So did Ivan south of the Jamica.

[tallywx]

I didn't realize at the time how sickly Opal looked even at maximum intensity.

An interesting anecdote from a met. ph.d. at FSU in Tallahassee retelling the moment the 916 mb was reported:

"By that time...we heard Jim Cantore's memorable telling of the 916 mb. (As Jack Beven recalled later in a visit here..."It was a good thing...the extrapolated pressure from 700 mb was 912!!!") I remember the little "chalk" circle around the 916 mb. I called Ricardo...who was finishing up getting "EVERYTHING." He was not terribly surprised. I told him that I would be
there shortly.

That 916 mb was a magic number. Never has such a number caused so many people to utter the exact same expletive in so many different offices. I know what I said when I saw the 916 mb. I called Ricardo, who was at the apartment getting "everything." He couldn't say what I said since he never
curses anyway. But, when I told Joe...he said it, and he told Jay, who said it. Later conversations with Jeff (NWS TLH)indicated that when they saw the 916 mb, they said the exact same word. And Jack told us that at NHC...yup, the exact same thing. I don't know anybody at Mobile...but I imagine similar words were heard...and if anybody told the Apalachicola radar operator...well, I would expect a man in that position to say the same thing.

Morning news show...CBS affiliate WCTV-6. It's local...and meteorologist Lane Reports gives perhaps the most alarming message in his down-home low voice...waving to Ft Walton through St Marks with his hand: "If you live within a mile of the coast...and you are watching us this morning...[dramatic pause]...you better move!"

[SouthernWx]

One other point I wish to make...

Along the Gulf coast...as along most of the Atlantic coast, in recent decades (since Camille in 69')...we've been extremely lucky.

Yes Ivan was very destructive.....Charley and Hugo very destructive, and Andrew catastrophic, but to be totally honest, ALL could have been far worse. I could say that about almost every major landfalling U.S. hurricane in the past 36 years.

It's almost unbelievable to look back at the time period since Camille and witness the incredible buildup in coastal population since 1970, yet we've avoided a worst case scenario every single year.

Andrew was just far enough south and small enough to avoid a catastrophic direct hit on Miami and Miami Beach.....Hugo hits just NE of Charleston (with peak winds/ tides in unpopulated areas).....Charley is so tiny it avoids both highly populated Lee and Sarasota counties....Jeanne slides just north of the highly populated Palm Beach area....Frances weakens dramatically and also misses the Gold Coast of Florida.....Ivan weakens significantly and turns away from New Orleans and Mobile....and I can go on and on (Isabel, Lili, Isadore, Floyd, Bret, Mitch, Opal, Bob, Gloria, Diana, Allen, David, Carmen....all could have been catastrophic to the U.S, but fortunately weren't nearly as bad as they could have been).

A hurricane I personally thought was a disaster in making?....Georges in 98'. If that sucker tracks only 50-60 miles farther north and skirts Hispanola, IMO we'd have had a cat-4 disaster both in the Florida Keys AND Mobile/Pensacola, because that was an extremely large hurricane. Even with his guts torn out by those high mountains, Georges still manages to strike the lower Keys and Miss/Ala as a strong cat-2...but another lucky break for a lot of coastal residents (esp in the Keys where many failed to evacuate).

Back in the days BEFORE 1970, a lot of landfalling hurricanes didn't weaken or turn away:

Camille...while a New Orleans strike would have been worse, the Mississippi coast was completely obliterated.....a catastrophe any way you look at it.

Betsy...75 deaths don't tell the story of all the damage and personal heartache this monster hurricane brought to Louisiana.

Carla...even though it struck a rural, sparsely populated portion of the Gulf coast, the sheer intensity and magnitude of this maxi-sized monster causes chills in EMA officials today.

Donna...a major hurricane in Florida, North Carolina, and also far north to Long Island/ Rhode Island. Gusts likelu reached 180+ in the Keys, where damage was indescribable.

Audrey...not only extremely severe, but also very early in the season....a major reason why so many Louisiana residents died.

Hazel...at it's peak when smashing into the Carolinas....moving NNE then north at over 45 mph, brought 113 mph gusts to Manhattan Island. In some areas of North Carolina, the coast was WIPED CLEAN (everything destroyed by storm surge).

Sep 1947...giant Carla-sized cat-4 crosses Florida from Broward to Collier county. A repeat today would affect 7,000,000 Floridians...damage IMO 75-100 billion (also caused severe surge damage to Mississippi/ SE Louisiana coasts).

I could go on, but it just gets grimmer....from the surprise 1938 monster Cape Verde hurricane into southern New England (600 dead), to army vets being sandblasted to death by 225 mph gusts in the Keys on Labor Day weekend 1935.....to an incredible monster hurricane in 28' which obliterated Guadeloupe, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Is, the Bahamas, then flattened southern Florida killing many thousands from Palm Beach to Lake Okeechobee to central Florida (where gusts were estimated at 120-130 mph around Orlando)....and don't forget the cat-4 monsters that destroyed Miami/ Fort Lauderdale and Pensacola in 26' and Galveston/Houston in both 1900 and 1915.

Any way you slice it, this country has been very lucky for a long time....very lucky.

PW

[Matt-hurricanewatcher]

Super Typhoon Tips looked sick to that is a point people need to learn that a powerful hurricane doe's not always have a clear eye.

[tallywx]

So did Ivan south of the Jamica.

Ivan near Jamaica: Perhaps not the healthiest in the world, but far better than Opal's signature on satellite at 916 mb. Outflow still pretty nice in many quadrants. Some dryness to the NW, mainly from land interaction. No apparent shear. And pressure was around 937 mb at the time...much higher than Opal.

Opal, on the other hand, shows no outflow on its W, S, or E quadrants, and a long and drawn out sheared cloud mass from trough interaction on its northern half. Not pretty, and obviously not pretty considering how quickly it weakened after that.

[/img]

[Matt-hurricanewatcher]

12 hours after that the eye was clouded.

[tallywx]

You make a great point about strong hurricanes not always having to look pretty. And Opal is about as ugly as they come for a 916 mb storm. Not just the eye, but the entire shape of the thing.

[mobilebay]

It is just plain foolish to assume a major will weaken prior to landfall along the N GOM. Every storm is different as is the environment the hurricane is embedded in.......MGC

Could not agree more...

[mobilebay]

The northern motion and "dry" air did not weaken Frederic in 1979. And that was a VERY broad Storm. So that point is mute.

[TSmith274]

yeah a lot of dead redfish, specks, red snapper and others. as far as the effects on canes I cant see the cooling of enough water to make a significant difference and as they discharge the water it will begin to heat back up again. Anyway Blanco is now opposing the LNG open loop systems so we (hopefully) won't see more than the two that are already approved.
Tim

I'm with ya on that one. I am completely opposed to these things with open-loop systems because I go fishing just about every weekend. There are 7 LNG platforms proposed for the east side of Plaquemines Parish alone. That could conceivably sterilize that area... one of the most productive fishing areas, commercial or recreational. These things are terrible. They should force these companies to utilize the closed-loop system instead of these facilities that will desroy fish eggs, plankton, and countless other marine species.

[mobilebay]

yeah a lot of dead redfish, specks, red snapper and others. as far as the effects on canes I cant see the cooling of enough water to make a significant difference and as they discharge the water it will begin to heat back up again. Anyway Blanco is now opposing the LNG open loop systems so we (hopefully) won't see more than the two that are already approved.
Tim

I'm with ya on that one. I am completely opposed to these things with open-loop systems because I go fishing just about every weekend. There are 7 LNG platforms proposed for the east side of Plaquemines Parish alone. That could conceivably sterilize that area... one of the most productive fishing areas, commercial or recreational. These things are terrible. They should force these companies to utilize the closed-loop system instead of these facilities that will desroy fish eggs, plankton, and countless other marine species.

HUH?