EPAC Tropical Action 2012

[HurricaneJosh]

P.S. I really don't want to chase a Norman. Just not feelin' it with that name. Miriam or Olivia would be great. I could live with Paul.

[PSUBlizzicane2007]

[HurricaneJosh]

S-s-s-sexycane.

Love the way it strengthened to Cat 5 as it was recurving toward the coast. Oh, man...

[PSUBlizzicane2007]

S-s-s-sexycane.

Love the way it strengthened to Cat 5 as it was recurving toward the coast. Oh, man...

It was very Charley-like in that situation. To be honest, the best hurricanes outside of the Caribbean are probably the ones in the process of recurving like Kenna and Charley that end up landing themselves in the perfect pre-frontal strengthening environment.

[HurricaneJosh]

It was very Charley-like in that situation. To be honest, the best hurricanes outside of the Caribbean are probably the ones in the process of recurving like Kenna and Charley that end up landing themselves in the perfect pre-frontal strengthening environment.

Well, it was rapidly weakening at landfall-- and if you look at the IR presentation as it crossed the coast, it was not amazing-- so Kenna wasn't a classic, strengthening-at-landfall deal. But since it peaked so strong and didn't have that much time to weaken, it still came ashore quite intense.

The 1959 Cat-5 may have been a strengthening-up-to-landfall deal.

[PSUBlizzicane2007]

Well, it was rapidly weakening at landfall-- and if you look at the IR presentation as it crossed the coast, it was not amazing-- so Kenna wasn't a classic, strengthening-at-landfall deal. But since it peaked so strong and didn't have that much time to weaken, it still came ashore quite intense.

The 1959 Cat-5 may have been a strengthening-up-to-landfall deal.

I meant Charley-like in terms of strengthening as it was recurving due to ideal upper-level environs... if Florida was further away from where Charley recurved, it may have faced a similar fate as shear increased.

[Ed Lizard]

18Z GFS suggests EP93 could recurve towards the Southern Baja beyond 8 days. Bad news, OHC isn't super impressive that far North.

[HurricaneJosh]

18Z GFS suggests EP93 could recurve towards the Southern Baja beyond 8 days. Bad news, OHC isn't super impressive that far North.

Yeah, I was noticing that some of the models are hinting at a threat.

The Baja is rarely a really interesting landfall zone. It's kind of like our Outer Banks-- the SSTs and upper-air conditions tend to be kind of marginal, so cyclones are usually weakening as they get up there. A Cat 3 on the Baja Peninsula is exceedingly rare.

That having been said, I have fond memories of my Jimena chase. It was a 90-kt Cat 2 that passed right over the town I was in:

[HurricaneJosh]

Well, look at this: the 12Z Euro recurves Miriam into the Baja Peninsula as a pretty-strong hurricane. Suddenly this is a tad interesting. Not sure why no one commented on this today. Let's see if the 00Z holds serve:

[HurricaneJosh]

Two Euro runs in a row showing a strong hurricane recurving and accelerating into the Baja Peninsula around Day 7-- a classic, Octoberish kind of track. I'm definitely taking note:

[am19psu]

Well, look at this: the 12Z Euro recurves Miriam into the Baja Peninsula as a pretty-strong hurricane. Suddenly this is a tad interesting. Not sure why no one commented on this today. Let's see if the 00Z holds serve:

It's been in the models since at least 19/00z. Not buying it staying that strong that far north, at least not seven days out. You saw what happened to Kristy as it got up to that latitude.

[Srain]

Yawn. Shear will eat this alive. Check back in a week or two.

[am19psu]

Yawn. Shear will eat this alive. Check back in a week or two.

There will be a Kelvin wave moving through this weekend or early next week which might ramp this thing up to Cat 2 or 3, but not anywhere near the coast. Agree that in a week or two, the pattern will be more conducive.

[Ed Lizard]

Yawn. Shear will eat this alive. Check back in a week or two.

I'm looking at the tropics again in your Texas thread. Nobody says it has to be the Atlantic tropics. 1994 sugar plums dancing in my head...

[HurricaneJosh]

It's been in the models since at least 19/00z. Not buying it staying that strong that far north, at least not seven days out. You saw what happened to Kristy as it got up to that latitude.

I've been looking at the Euro at least once a day, and I hadn't seen the scenario previously.

It's not like it's such a high latitude. As I've said above, I don't expect majors up there, but a couple of 90-kt systems have come ashore in exactly that region in the last few years.

[HurricaneJosh]

Yawn. Shear will eat this alive. Check back in a week or two.

Save your yawns for the W Gulf. That is the dead zone. At least there are things to watch here.

[Ed Lizard]

Save your yawns for the W Gulf. That is the dead zone. At least there are things to watch here.

In defense of the admin of the local KHOU-TV 11 weather forum, I just checked 6Z GFS 192 upper winds, and shear will be somewhat hostile. Despite that, the 6Z GFS cyclone doesn't look that bad.

Silver lining amateur hobbyist untrained met wishcasting, the flow is a touch anticyclonic aloft, and the strongest winds are West and North of EP93, maybe an outflow jet of sorts...

[HurricaneJosh]

In defense of the admin of the local KHOU-TV 11 weather forum, I just checked 6Z GFS 192 upper winds, and shear will be somewhat hostile. Despite that, the 6Z GFS cyclone doesn't look that bad.

Silver lining amateur hobbyist untrained met wishcasting, the flow is a touch anticyclonic aloft, and the strongest winds are West and North of EP93, maybe an outflow jet of sorts...

I appreciate your effort to bridge the gap, but I'm just not wasting my time thinking about the Gulf at this point. It's over. NW Caribbean and FL maybe. But, like I said, I'm on a steady EPAC diet now.

[Ed Lizard]

I appreciate your effort to bridge the gap, but I'm just not wasting my time thinking about the Gulf at this point. It's over. NW Caribbean and FL maybe. But, like I said, I'm on a steady EPAC diet now.

I'm not giving up on the Panhandle. Kate shows the Panhandle can get Cat 2 storms a week before Thanksgiving.

My tropical related IMBYism at this point is hopes of another Rosa, a Cat 2 landfall just South of the Baja on the mainland, with the mid level center crossing the Sierra Madre, inducing return flow above a shallow cold done over Texas, and the San Jacinto river flowing so hard it scours its bottom, ruptures gasoline and crude oil pipelines, and catches fire...

You'd have chased a 90 knot Cat 2 and enjoyed it, if you were chasing back then.

[HurricaneJosh]

I'm not giving up on the Panhandle. Kate shows the Panhandle can get Cat 2 storms a week before Thanksgiving.

My tropical related IMBYism at this point is hopes of another Rosa, a Cat 2 landfall just South of the Baja on the mainland, with the mid level center crossing the Sierra Madre, inducing return flow above a shallow cold done over Texas, and the San Jacinto river flowing so hard it scours its bottom, ruptures gasoline and crude oil pipelines, and catches fire...

You'd have chased a 90 knot Cat 2 and enjoyed it, if you were chasing back then.

Kate was awesome, but an extreme anomaly-- a once-in-fifty-year event, if that. Come Halloween, I always consider the season (in both basins) 100% over. The last week of Oct can produce occasional awesomeness-- like Wilma or Tampa Bay 1921-- but by the following week, it's over.

[Srain]

Save your yawns for the W Gulf. That is the dead zone. At least there are things to watch here.

You certainly have become grouchy these days. The W Gulf is history and so is 93E...

[HurricaneJosh]

The 12Z Euro is less exciting-- builds it into a decent system, but keeps it well offshore and slowly kills it.

[HurricaneJosh]

93E is now a cherry and should be Miriam soon. Models are so-so. After a couple of tantalizing runs that brought it into the Baja Peninsula as a strong cyclone, the Euro is now consistently showing it stalling and dying offshore. The GFS and other models have been showing various degrees of recurve-- so it's not an auto-fish, but definitely not too exciting at this point, either.

[HurricaneJosh]

The cherry has popped; it's now TD 13E. The official forecast makes it a Cat-1 'cane but fishes it. Seems like the EPAC isn't quite ready for the October-recurve pattern like the Euro was showing a couple of days ago. Blah.

[HurricaneJosh]

Miriam is born. Should be a 'cane in ~36 hr-- and should also stay offshore.

[Ground Scouring]

Climatology for weak, warm, west-based ENSO events show a significant reduction in the amount of landfalling Mexican cyclones in late September and October...and as the atmosphere will likely only become more like that of El Niño by mid-October (see my post in the Atlantic thread)...I think everyone can safely stick a fork in the EPAC, which--with a few exceptions like Kenna 2002, Marty 2003, Norbert 2008, and Jova 2011--has generally been extremely crappy over the past decade, both in terms of intensity and, even more noticeably, in terms of overall activity relative to those of those of the 1970s and 1990s. Global TC activity has been particularly low since 2005...but I cannot really discuss why because it would lead into a discussion about climate change.

[HurricaneJosh]

Climatology for weak, warm, west-based ENSO events show a significant reduction in the amount of landfalling Mexican cyclones in late September and October...and as the atmosphere will likely only become more like that of El Niño by mid-October (see my post in the Atlantic thread)...I think everyone can safely stick a fork in the EPAC, which--with a few exceptions like Kenna 2002, Marty 2003, Norbert 2008, and Jova 2011--has generally been extremely crappy over the past decade, both in terms of intensity and, even more noticeably, in terms of overall activity relative to those of those of the 1970s and 1990s. Global TC activity has been particularly low since 2005...but I cannot really discuss why because it would lead into a discussion about climate change.

Several significant landfalls over the last decade isn't "crappy" for this basin, and major landfalls over the last decade have been exactly what you'd expect climatologically. There have only been 10 landfalling majors on this side in the last 60+ years, which is ~1 every 6 years. Given this return rate, Kenna 2002 and Lane 2006 more than cover the last decade in terms of major landfalls, and 95-kt John 2006 was nearly a third.

In terms of major landfalls, the crappy decade was actually the 1990s: there were no Cat-3 landfalls in this basin between 1989 and 2002.

You can stick a fork in it. Not me. We all know that seasonal forecasting isn't exactly the most exacting science, ranking probably just below intensity forecasting on the quackery scale.

[HurricaneJosh]

P.S. Given that 8 of the 10 major-hurricane landfalls on the EPAC happened in October, declaring the season over now would be sort of like declaring the NATL season over in July. We haven't even started the peak month with regard to Cat-3 landfalls, and even Day 10 of the models is just barely into October.

[HurricaneJosh]

Since we're on the topic, here's my annual "October in the EPAC" post-- recycled from previous years:

As I've mentioned many times before ( ), October is the month for major-hurricane landfalls on Mexico's Pacific coast. It's later in the season when the troughs start digging deeper and recurving cyclones back toward the mainland-- rather than letting them fish out.

Mexico's Pacific coast has had 10 Cat-3+ landfalls since 1949. Of those, 8-- yes, 8!!-- happened in October. Given this, you can see why I have big hopes for next month.

Following are all Cat-3+ landfalls on Mexico's Pacific coast since 1949-- showing year, name, date, state (where the center crossed the coast), and intensity. Note that only Kiko 1989 and Lane 2006 were not in October. Also notice that most of the really intense ones hit quite late in the month:

1957 No. 10 (22 Oct) - Sinaloa - Cat 4 (120 kt)

1959 Great Mexico Hurricane (27 Oct) - Jalisco - Cat 5 (140 kt)

1967 Olivia (14 Oct) - Baja California Sur - Cat 3 (110 kt)

1975 Olivia (25 Oct) - Sinaloa - Cat 3 (100 kt)

1976 Liza (01 Oct) - Sinaloa - Cat 3 (100 kt***)

1976 Madeline (08 Oct) - Guerrero - Cat 4 (125 kt)

1983 Tico (19 Oct) - Sinaloa - Cat 3 (110 kt)

1989 Kiko (27 Aug) - Baja California Sur - Cat 3 (960 mb/100 kt)

2002 Kenna (25 Oct) - Nayarit - Cat 4 (950 mb/120 kt)

2006 Lane (16 Sep) - Sinaloa - Cat 3 (954 mb/110 kt)

In terms of intensity... The Great Mexico Hurricane of 1959 is the strongest known landfall in this basin and the only Cat 5 on MX's Pacific coast. I'd like to see some contemporary reanalysis on this one-- to verify that it would still be estimated as a Cat 5 by modern standards. Either way, the damage was extreme, and the city of Manzanillo was devastated-- so it was most certainly a very intense cyclone. Madeline 1976-- another very destructive event-- is considered No. 2. Kenna 2002-- the inner core of which narrowly missed Puerto Vallarta-- is considered No. 3.

In terms of regions... Note that Sinaloa is kind of like MX's Florida: half the majors landfalled in that state.

(I'm currently doing some intensive research Re: landfalls in this basin, and-- as on the Atlantic side-- some of the best-track data are weird and contradictory. Any data that seem odd are flagged with asterisks (***). I'll be writing to the NHC about these items once I finish my research.)

[HurricaneJosh]

Back to Miriam... The 00Z Euro shifted E and has now gone into the GFS camp-- and so the NHC forecast has followed suit with a rightward shift and also a higher intensity estimate. The Discussion mentions possible RI in the near-term. There's definitely more of an implied thread to MX now than there was a couple of days ago. Still not holding my breath-- but keeping an eye on it, for sure.

P.S. The Discussion is odd-- reads strangely and has a few typos.