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TS Emily: 215 Miles SSE Of San Juan, PR


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WTNT35 KNHC 021805

TCPAT5

BULLETIN

TROPICAL STORM EMILY INTERMEDIATE ADVISORY NUMBER 4A

NWS NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL052011

200 PM AST TUE AUG 02 2011

...EMILY BACK ON TRACK...

SUMMARY OF 200 PM AST...1800 UTC...INFORMATION

----------------------------------------------

LOCATION...15.6N 64.8W

ABOUT 215 MI...345 KM SSE OF SAN JUAN PUERTO RICO

MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...45 MPH...70 KM/H

PRESENT MOVEMENT...W OR 280 DEGREES AT 12 MPH...19 KM/H

MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...1006 MB...29.71 INCHES

WATCHES AND WARNINGS

--------------------

CHANGES WITH THIS ADVISORY...

NONE.

am19psu EDIT: fixed the formatting

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Good thing I only have to send one forecast a day. I think I'd have amended my forecast about 3 different times in the last 3 hours if I was actually operational.

I hear you on that. I send out my forecast once a day around 9 am. Today, I presented 5 possible scenarios with various (mostly low) degrees of confidence. Indirectly, I said I have no idea what's going to happen, but here's the one that looks most plausible. Emily is incredibly temperamental...but what else would we expect for a developing cyclone in the eastern Caribbean?

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I'd probably go with something around steady-state around 35-40 kt, with some short-term fluctuations typical of sheared storms. Despite the impressive wind readings and the lower pressure on the current pass, I'm still not convinced this is a long-term intensification. It's certainly within the realm of possibility that it is, but then again we've been fooled by this before. I don't think this will die before Hispaniola though.

I'm much more convinced than yesterday that this is on the path to intensification... at least today, the storm has reorganized a center under some deep convection with improving outflow. Still not great radar presentation, but much more impressive than the hot mess it was yesterday.

12Z Euro is looking interesting, crashing Emily into the DR/Haiti border. Not sure what will happen after yet.

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12Z GFS assimilation cycle appears to have done a respectable job with the local environment. We can see in a comparison of the Santo Domingo 12Z sounding to the GFS analysis (courtesy TwisterData) that the incredibly dry air at 600 and 400 mb is captured, as is the surface-200 mb 10-15 kts shear. Therefore, I would give credence to the GFS forecast over the short term.

That said, the vortex relocation from south to north of Hispanola from 42-54 h, while possible, still looks a bit suspicious/awkward to me.

post-378-0-86853800-1312308652.gif

post-378-0-42938200-1312308664.png

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Looking at that pic though, there still appears to be some Arc clouds coming out of the system. Dry air intrusion continues??

Adam noted that about a page back. Between the soundings and the arc clouds, it does indeed to still be trying to digest dry air.

post-138-0-72491500-1312310916.jpg

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I know there are a still a lot of issues on the smaller scale, but just taking a step back, on a broader scale this looks a lot better than 24 hours ago with better outflow, less shear, and more well developed convective features.

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What exactly are arc clouds? The reason I ask is because there are some really high cirrus clouds outside in Ft. Lauderdale. Looks really cool actually. No idea if they are associated w/ Emily though.

They are low clouds that are evidence of collapsing thunderstorms as a result of the downburst associated with the collapsing thunderstorm.

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Oh OK, thanks. I had looked it up on Wiki but couldn't find anything.

here's a nice little summary (it's about a conference presentation but gets the main points across)

http://ams.confex.com/ams/29Hurricanes/techprogram/paper_168620.htm

Arc clouds in the tropical cyclone environment: Implications for TC intensity change

Jason Dunion, University of Miami/CIMAS-NOAA/HRD, Miami, FL; and M. D. Eastin, D. S. Nolan, J. Hawkins, and C. Velden

Although arc clouds are common features in mid-latitude thunderstorms and MCSs, they have only occasionally been noted in tropical cyclone (TC) environments (Knaff and Weaver 2000). Arc clouds denote the presence of a density current that forms when dry middle level (~600-800 hPa) air has interacted with precipitation. The convectively-driven downdrafts that result can reach the surface/near-surface and spread out from a thunderstorm's convective core. We hypothesize that the mid-level moisture found in the moist tropical North Atlantic sounding described by Dunion and Marron (2008) is insufficiently dry to generate extensive arc clouds around African easterly waves (AEWs) or TCs. However, substantial arc clouds (100s of km in length and lasting for several hours) consistently form in the tropics in the periphery of these tropical disturbances. Dunion (2009) described two additional types of air masses that are frequently found in the tropical North Atlantic and Caribbean that could effectively initiate the formation of large arc clouds: the Saharan Air Layer and mid-latitude dry air intrusions. Both of these air masses were found to contain substantially dry air (50-60% less moisture than the moist tropical sounding) in the middle levels of the atmosphere and can affect the tropical North Atlantic and Caribbean throughout the summer months.

We hypothesize that the processes leading to the formation of arc cloud events can significantly impact an AEW or TC (particularly smaller, less developed systems). Specifically, the cool, dry air associated with the convectively-driven downdrafts that form arc clouds can help stabilize the middle to lower troposphere and may even act to stabilize the boundary layer. The arc clouds themselves may also act to disrupt the storm. As they race away from the convective core region, they create low-level outflow in the quadrant/semicircle of the AEW or TC in which they form. This outflow pattern counters the typical low-level inflow that is vital for TC formation and maintenance.

Examples of arc cloud events around several tropical cyclones will be discussed, as will GPS dropsonde observations launched from NOAA aircraft that sampled a few of these events in 2009. High resolution simulations of Hurricane Bill (2009) using the WRF model have been found to reproduce arc cloud events similar to those observed. Preliminary analyses show that the arc clouds are indeed triggered from the cool, dry outflow outside of decaying rainbands, in which active deep convection has been converted to stratiform precipitation by an interaction with environmental dry air.

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And more importantly, they signal the presence of cold downdrafts, which kill moist inflow into the center where the VHTs (vortical hot towers) are located.

What rain we got from Don in Houston came from those arcs/outflows, they developed storms as they moved inland. Interesting to watch on satellite.

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