Another Monster Goes *POOF*

[djtil]

from the reports from cozumel, akumal, etc it is very apparent that the flight level winds were not mixing down to the surface to the maximum, ditto with dennis. i have read explanations concerning this when dealing with storms whose eyewalls have become ragged right before landfall, like dennis and emily.

i think in these 2 cases it just happened to be timing, a storm never holds the strong 4/5 intensity consistently......i think its just luck that emily and dennis reached a maxima hours before landfalling.

[jkt21787]

It is getting harder and harder to post thoughts on this board without people reading between the lines and getting so consumed with defending their storms that they entirely miss the underlying message.

Your free to express your opinion, but your title, "Another monster goes *POOF*" is extremely inaccurate. If you consider a strong 4 going to a weak or moderate 4 at landfall going "poof", then OK, but I think most disagree with that assertion.

And what exactly does *POOF* mean that it so offends you?

If I'm driving a race car at 200 mph and my high gear suddenly goes *POOF* on me, I might still be able to drive at 100 mph. That's still fast. But relative to the 200 mph I was traveling before, it's not. So what caused my gear to fail?

That's the point of the post. Not diminishing the effect of Emily or other storms.

Perhaps it perception, but when I hear the word "poof", I think of something disappearing or fizzling. I don't think any "gears" failed with Emily at landfall. Yes, she was disorganized, but the storm still was a cat 4 and wasn't in a weakening stage upon landfall as Dennis or Ivan was.

[djtil]

Im still waiting to see Cozumel....

ive read several reports from cozumel and it sounds like they faired very well.....have read reports from akumal also which bore the brunt and while bad, not catastrophic it doesnt appear.

[alicia-w]

It is getting harder and harder to post thoughts on this board without people reading between the lines and getting so consumed with defending their storms that they entirely miss the underlying message.

I understand your message.Your concern is about people not looking at a cat 4 threatening a place as before because of weakening landfalls lately.People may trend to not evacuate thinking that a cat 4 threatening an area will weaken.Yes It is cause for concern.

we had several guys here in the elevator the other day that said If that was a cat 3 or 4, we're never evacuating again....

[jkt21787]

from the reports from cozumel, akumal, etc it is very apparent that the flight level winds were not mixing down to the surface to the maximum, ditto with dennis. i have read explanations concerning this when dealing with storms whose eyewalls have become ragged right before landfall, like dennis and emily.

i think in these 2 cases it just happened to be timing, a storm never holds the strong 4/5 intensity consistently......i think its just luck that emily and dennis reached a maxima hours before landfalling.

I haven't heard any reports from Cozumel, but who knows, maybe they did fare well? Then of course the question will remain if those 162 mph winds mixed down to the surface to the 135-140 or so that should have under normal conditions.

[Normandy]

They should have considering the incredibly intense convection (despite the weak structure)....im still waiting for pics of Cozumel...they are taking a while.

[djtil]

Yes, she was disorganized, but the storm still was a cat 4 and wasn't in a weakening stage upon landfall

this is nearly a contradictory sentence.


in reality i do think she was in a weakening stage, pressures had risen considerabily and consistently and while flight level winds hadnt responded much to the pressure rises just before landfall it is possible that surface winds had.

[clfenwi]

This is a siutation similar to Dennis in that we had a compact area of high winds go into a relatively uninhabited area... the point of landfall for Dennis was a national seashore...one of the closest parts of Cozumel to Emily was a national park... the built-up areas are a fair bit to the north : http://www.caribbean-on-line.com/cn/czmap.shtml

this may be the southern-most resort type area: http://www.casagordon.net/index.html
haven't seen a report from there yet...

on the mainland...looking at this map:
http://tinyurl.com/dzt8o

and assuming that the storm passed between Tulum and Akumal, it appears that Playa del Carmen was about 30 miles away from point of landfall....to put that in Dennis terms, it is the difference between Navarre Beach and Fort Walton.

We could tell from wind radii that Cancun was only going to get cat 1 winds or less... so it is no surprise that there are no significant damage reports from that area either.

This storm didn't go poof...its strongest winds were relegated to a very small area and it looks like that area did not pass over the built-up areas of the region...

fixed up urls

[Mac]

from the reports from cozumel, akumal, etc it is very apparent that the flight level winds were not mixing down to the surface to the maximum, ditto with dennis. i have read explanations concerning this when dealing with storms whose eyewalls have become ragged right before landfall, like dennis and emily.

i think in these 2 cases it just happened to be timing, a storm never holds the strong 4/5 intensity consistently......i think its just luck that emily and dennis reached a maxima hours before landfalling.

Thanks for addressing the post. And I didn't mean "POOF" as in "the storm went away." I understand that storms go through different life cycles, and that if a storm interacts with land during a certain cycle in its development its strength can be hindered. Garnering a better understanding of how and why this occurs is really the point of the post. I mean, at this point all we really understand is that mountainous terrain disrupts air flow and dry air entrained over land affects storm development. Yeah, there is more that we also know, but there is still far more that we don't know.

I'm really curious about what happened to Emily. Was she heading into an ERC just prior to landfall and couldn't get her act together?

I'm a little troubled by the fact that this seems to be happening so much lately. I'm worried that Bubba is going to put his family in harm's way because he thinks this is the way hurricanes typically behave.

[Normandy]

Did Play Del Carmen get the eyewall?

[jkt21787]

Yes, she was disorganized, but the storm still was a cat 4 and wasn't in a weakening stage upon landfall

this is nearly a contradictory sentence.


in reality i do think she was in a weakening stage, pressures had risen considerabily and consistently and while flight level winds hadnt responded much to the pressure rises just before landfall it is possible that surface winds had.

I don't think thats contradictory. She didn't have a perfect structure, which we all saw, but its winds (at least at FL) were remaining steady or even intensifying. Pressures did rise, but leveled off as the FL winds began that last little increase. So, I don't think she was weakening at all there at the very end, she was beforehand, at least stricly going by recon data at Flight Level. What surface winds reached may be different.

[Mac]

from the reports from cozumel, akumal, etc it is very apparent that the flight level winds were not mixing down to the surface to the maximum, ditto with dennis. i have read explanations concerning this when dealing with storms whose eyewalls have become ragged right before landfall, like dennis and emily.

i think in these 2 cases it just happened to be timing, a storm never holds the strong 4/5 intensity consistently......i think its just luck that emily and dennis reached a maxima hours before landfalling.

I haven't heard any reports from Cozumel, but who knows, maybe they did fare well? Then of course the question will remain if those 162 mph winds mixed down to the surface to the 135-140 or so that should have under normal conditions.

Exactly! Why do they mix to the surface in some situations and not in others? Is our flight data less accurate than we think?

[djtil]

I'm a little troubled by the fact that this seems to be happening so much lately. I'm worried that Bubba is going to put his family in harm's way because he thinks this is the way hurricanes typically behave.

i definitely understand your point and it does seem the last several years that many major hurricanes have almost inexplicably weakened right before landfall....especially in the northcentral gulf.

in fact, its been a while since Hugo and Andrew which were majors that hit during a significant intensification cycle.

[Normandy]

I'm a little troubled by the fact that this seems to be happening so much lately. I'm worried that Bubba is going to put his family in harm's way because he thinks this is the way hurricanes typically behave.

i definitely understand your point and it does seem the last several years that many major hurricanes have almost inexplicably weakened right before landfall....especially in the northcentral gulf.

in fact, its been a while since Hugo and Andrew which were majors that hit during a significant intensification cycle.

Well Charley kinda....ya know.

[EDR1222]

135 mph Category 4....no communication from Cozumel...that's poof?

I don't think he is trying to say the storms were not significant. And yes, it is true that several storms have weakened just prior to landfall.

Sometimes, strong storms that are on a weakening trend do significantly less damage than they would if they were strengthening before landfall. When storms are on a weakening trend the strongest winds near the center are usually at higher elevations. So if it is maybe 135 mph but weakening, you won't get the damage that a storm at 115 and strengthening rapidly might do. I remember Steve Lyons discussing this when Dennis was coming ashore in Florida.

Just a thought.

[jkt21787]

I'm a little troubled by the fact that this seems to be happening so much lately. I'm worried that Bubba is going to put his family in harm's way because he thinks this is the way hurricanes typically behave.

i definitely understand your point and it does seem the last several years that many major hurricanes have almost inexplicably weakened right before landfall....especially in the northcentral gulf.

in fact, its been a while since Hugo and Andrew which were majors that hit during a significant intensification cycle.

Well Charley kinda....ya know.

Yes, Charley was doing so at landfall, fortunately the storm was so small that the highest winds only affected a tiny area.

[djtil]

yes yes yes....definitely Charley....the Tornadocane.



as for the question about the FL winds being accurately measured, I dont think thats the case........ive just read studies that suggest that the strong winds "lift" during a disorganized eyewall stage.

[Normandy]

135 mph Category 4....no communication from Cozumel...that's poof?

I don't think he is trying to say the storms were not significant. And yes, it is true that several storms have weakened just prior to landfall.

Sometimes, strong storms that are on a weakening trend do significantly less damage than they would if they were strengthening before landfall. When storms are on a weakening trend the strongest winds near the center are usually at higher elevations. So if it is maybe 135 mph but weakening, you won't get the damage that a storm at 115 and strengthening rapidly might do. I remember Steve Lyons discussing this when Dennis was coming ashore in Florida.

Just a thought.

But, Emily wasnt rapidly weakening....her pressure leveled off and her flight level winds NEVER decreased during the day.

[Mac]

I'm a little troubled by the fact that this seems to be happening so much lately. I'm worried that Bubba is going to put his family in harm's way because he thinks this is the way hurricanes typically behave.

i definitely understand your point and it does seem the last several years that many major hurricanes have almost inexplicably weakened right before landfall....especially in the northcentral gulf.

in fact, its been a while since Hugo and Andrew which were majors that hit during a significant intensification cycle.

Now we're getting there. Why did Andrew intensify at landfall and Ivan weaken immediately prior to landfall?

We don't know yet--not conclusively. But we should be able to figure it out. After all, this is just a matter of physics, right? It may seem as though it will take forever for us to figure this out, but we should be able to do it if we tenaciously look for the answer.

Last night at work I was wheeling a 1-month-old baby down to the operating room for a heart transplant. While in the elevator, I couldn't help but think to myself, "Just 20 years ago this was viewed as a miracle. Now it's just another surgery. And in another 50 years we'll look back at how incredibly archaic and crude this surgery once was."

That's the way it is with science. Over time we'll get a better handle on what factors affect hurricane strength throughout the life cycle. But only if we keep looking. And considering the human and economic toll of these storms, I think we should be looking a little harder than we currently are.

[frederic79]

Taking nothing away from anything caused by storms Opal, Lili, Ivan, Dennis or Emily, I think I know what you're saying (Mac). What these storms all have in common is that they Diminished from a higher intensity sometime prior to landfall, an intensity widely publicized at a time when evacuation decisions were being made.

OPAL was at 125 mph, down from 150
LILI was at 105 mph, down from 145
IVAN was at 130 mph, down from 165
DENNIS was at 120 mph, down from 150
EMILY was at 135 mph, down from 155

While these storms didn't exactly "fall apart", they did lose some of the punch and power that would make most people leave or consider leaving. If folks get the notion that every storm will weaken by 2 or 3 notches on the Safford-Simpson scale, many may stay put. I think that's all Mac's saying here. Why evacuate if the storm's bark is worse that it's bite?

Personally I wouldn't count on anything weakening. However evacuating is stressful, expensive, a huge hassle and for me regarding Dennis, costly at my job. But it comes down to keeping my family out of harms way. Hopefully that is the issue that most will consider and therefore refuse to take chances.