March 25-26 Potential Bomb Part III

[LongBeachSurfFreak]

It's a shame they're not sending any recon planes into the storm. I guess research for the sake of research is a thing of the past, but it would have been cool to see thermal profiles in the center once the system matures.

I couldn't agree more. It's only a matter of time until a beast like this doesn't miss. If sandy can happen so can that and IMO this would be more destructive Over a wider areas if it went into say the Delmarva. This is a real monster in the ne forum it was mentioned this will have 4 times the kinetic wind potential of sandy. That's going to set the entire Atlantic into motion!

[ag3]

In the end, the double barrel low idea that the GGEM had was the best and most accurate forecast with this. GGEM had this idea from 132 hours out and it's verifying pretty well.

 

Today's 12z GGEM:

 

 

[Juliancolton]

I couldn't agree more. It's only a matter of time until a beast like this doesn't miss. If sandy can happen so can that and IMO this would be more destructive Over a wider areas if it went into say the Delmarva. This is a real monster in the ne forum it was mentioned this will have 4 times the kinetic wind potential of sandy. That's going to set the entire Atlantic into motion!

To be fair, if an identical storm crawled up the coast, it's safe to say it wouldn't deepen as much or produce as expansive a wind field as its oceanic counterpart. The upper-level energy is immense, and you'd still end up with a powerful system, but it wouldn't be this warm-secluded 950 mb type thing.

[Zelocita Weather]

In the end, the double barrel low idea that the GGEM had was the best and most accurate forecast with this. GGEM had this idea from 132 hours out and it's verifying pretty well.

 

Today's 12z GGEM:

 

 

 

Has the low basically over the benchmark but still no big difference...

[IsentropicLift]

Bombs Away

 

 

[sferic]

Look, I just want 1 inch of snow in Western Nassau here on Long Island, is that even feasible now?

[jm1220]

Look, I just want 1 inch of snow in Western Nassau here on Long Island, is that even feasible now?

 

The guys upstairs don't care what we want unfortunately. Also, I think we end up with less than an inch, maybe not even a coating.

[jm1220]

I couldn't agree more. It's only a matter of time until a beast like this doesn't miss. If sandy can happen so can that and IMO this would be more destructive Over a wider areas if it went into say the Delmarva. This is a real monster in the ne forum it was mentioned this will have 4 times the kinetic wind potential of sandy. That's going to set the entire Atlantic into motion!

Wind energy doesn't equal destructiveness. This wouldn't have a 10 foot high storm surge like Sandy did, and wouldn't track NW into a land area at peak intensity.

[ag3]

If the Ukmet is right, then everyone, except the DCA area has been following a fish storm.

Even Cape Cod gets almost nothing.

[IsentropicLift]

If the Ukmet is right, then everyone, except the DCA area has been following a fish storm.

Even Cape Cod gets almost nothing.

I'm personally done looking at global models.

[sferic]

So basically ALL hope is lost, nothing to hope for, no now casting, NADA, completely out of the realm, is that where are now?

[IsentropicLift]

So basically ALL hope is lost, nothing to hope for, no now casting, NADA, completely out of the realm, is that where are now?

Stare at this radar for awhile until you feel better...

 

[ag3]

Euro holds for our area but has moved east and cut back for SNE and the Cape.

[SnoSki14]

That's such a weenie radar, most of that is virga. 

[Juliancolton]

For the screenshot hoarders out there, here are the real-time products likely to yield some eye candy over the next couple days:

 

• Canadian Maritimes vis satellite
• Eastern US/southeastern Canada IR satellite
• Northern Hemisphere top-view water vapor
• Eastern US/western Atlantic "land floater"
• National WV
• Atlantic basin IR
• Eastern Seaboard rainbow IR (this will be the one to watch imo; pretty colors are always nice)
• Northwestern Atlantic vis
• 500 mb analysis and WV overlay
• 12-hour 500 mb geopotential height change
• Yarmouth, NS current sounding - (alternative link)
• Eastern Canada surface plot
• Eastern Canada pressure changes
• Atlantic Canada radar mosaic

[LongBeachSurfFreak]

Wind energy doesn't equal destructiveness. This wouldn't have a 10 foot high storm surge like Sandy did, and wouldn't track NW into a land area at peak intensity.

True. IMO that burst of convection while sandy was over the Gulf Stream allowed some intense winds down to the ocean surface which built up a huge surge that was following the center and going to happen even if t weakened more. Katrina is the best example of this.

I guess it's safe to say this storm wouldn't have that opportunity as warm sec. Lows tend to have their strongest winds in a small area of the SW quadrant which is a west wind and thus blowing water away from the coast. Even sandy had that to some effect but it was to late at that point

[Juliancolton]

True. IMO that burst of convection while sandy was over the Gulf Stream allowed some intense winds down to the ocean surface which built up a huge surge that was following the center and going to happen even if t weakened more. Katrina is the best example of this.

I guess it's safe to say this storm wouldn't have that opportunity as warm sec. Lows tend to have their strongest winds in a small area of the SW quadrant which is a west wind and thus blowing water away from the coast. Even sandy had that to some effect but it was to late at that point

The sting jet is often where the strongest winds are transferred to the surface, but not where the only strong winds can be found. Sandy was a warm-secluded low after its ET transition, btw (http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/MWR-D-13-00181.1).

[friedmators]

[USCG RS]

True. IMO that burst of convection while sandy was over the Gulf Stream allowed some intense winds down to the ocean surface which built up a huge surge that was following the center and going to happen even if t weakened more. Katrina is the best example of this.

I guess it's safe to say this storm wouldn't have that opportunity as warm sec. Lows tend to have their strongest winds in a small area of the SW quadrant which is a west wind and thus blowing water away from the coast. Even sandy had that to some effect but it was to late at that point

This is exactly why really strong hurricanes that weaken still, many times, have the storm surge of a stronger storm. In addition, the lower pressure helps the ocean to be able to rise up more as well. Yet when strong storms weaken, it takes time for it to translate to the swells. The other factor that helped with the high storm surge was the quick forward speed as it got up to our area. It increased not only winds, yet it likewise helped to push the water ashore.

[jm1220]

Congrats Ocean City. What a winter for them.

[friedmators]

Nice little slug of moisture headed due north from the delmarva area...I guess as that low blows up we will get sinking air to kill all that off.

[jm1220]

This is exactly why really strong hurricanes that weaken still, many times, have the storm surge of a stronger storm. In addition, the lower pressure helps the ocean to be able to rise up more as well. Yet when strong storms weaken, it takes time for it to translate to the swells. The other factor that helped with the high storm surge was the quick forward speed as it got up to our area. It increased not only winds, yet it likewise helped to push the water ashore.

Sandy's massive size, low pressure (946mb at landfall, it barely weakened from peak), angle of approach and land funneling effects are what made its surge so devastating. The waves on top help due to wave setup, but aren't a main contributor to the surge height. A tiny category 4 would have had nowhere near the overall destructiveness from surge that Sandy, a cat 1 strength storm did, unless that cat 4 made landfall on Sandy Hook.

[friedmators]

[jm1220]

Nice little slug of moisture headed due north from the delmarva area...I guess as that low blows up we will get sinking air to kill all that off.

Yup. As the CCB forms, it will create a nice shaft zone from here up through SNE due to it killing off all the initial snow DC is receiving.

[SnoSki14]

Sandy's massive size, low pressure (946mb at landfall, it barely weakened from peak), angle of approach and land funneling effects are what made its surge so devastating. The waves on top help due to wave setup, but aren't a main contributor to the surge height. A tiny category 4 would have had nowhere near the overall destructiveness from surge that Sandy, a cat 1 strength storm did, unless that cat 4 made landfall on Sandy Hook.

What if we had a LI express storm that took a similar track? A category 3 hurricane making landfall in a similar way to Sandy. 

[USCG RS]

Sandy's massive size, low pressure (946mb at landfall, it barely weakened from peak), angle of approach and land funneling effects are what made its surge so devastating. The waves on top help due to wave setup, but aren't a main contributor to the surge height. A tiny category 4 would have had nowhere near the overall destructiveness from surge that Sandy, a cat 1 strength storm did, unless that cat 4 made landfall on Sandy Hook.

I wasn't comparing a storm surge of other hurricanes, but I was saying exactly what you were saying, the strength of a storm does not necessarily dictate storm surge.

[USCG RS]

What if we had a LI express storm that took a similar track? A category 3 hurricane making landfall in a similar way to Sandy.

That storm put the twin forks and Riverhead completely under water

[mob1]

Sandy's massive size, low pressure (946mb at landfall, it barely weakened from peak), angle of approach and land funneling effects are what made its surge so devastating. The waves on top help due to wave setup, but aren't a main contributor to the surge height. A tiny category 4 would have had nowhere near the overall destructiveness from surge that Sandy, a cat 1 strength storm did, unless that cat 4 made landfall on Sandy Hook.

the 1950 Appalachian storm would probably rank up there with the strongest winds ever recorded in a winter storm. 108mph gust in Newark,100 in Hartford and 110 in concord NH. There was also some very significant coastal flooding.

[bluewave]

Sandy's massive size, low pressure (946mb at landfall, it barely weakened from peak), angle of approach and land funneling effects are what made its surge so devastating. The waves on top help due to wave setup, but aren't a main contributor to the surge height. A tiny category 4 would have had nowhere near the overall destructiveness from surge that Sandy, a cat 1 strength storm did, unless that cat 4 made landfall on Sandy Hook.

 

Yeah, it was all about the TIKE and the the landfall backing in off the Atlantic.

 

http://www.fsu.edu/indexTOFStory.html?lead.tike

 

Researchers at Florida State University have developed a new metric to measure seasonal Atlantic tropical cyclone activity that focuses on the size of storms in addition to the duration and intensity, a measure that may prove important when considering a hurricane's potential for death and destruction.

Just ask the survivors of Hurricane Sandy.

The 2012 hurricane was only a Category 2 storm on the often referenced Saffir-Simpson scale when it became the largest hurricane on record, killing 285 people in its path in seven different countries and becoming the second costliest in U.S. history. Likewise, Hurricane Katrina was a weaker storm than 1969's Camille but caused much more destruction even though the two hurricanes followed essentially the same path.

The new metric, called Track Integrated Kinetic Energy (TIKE), builds on the concept of Integrated Kinetic Energy (IKE) developed in 2007 to more accurately measure the destructive potential of a storm. IKE involves using kinetic energy scales with the surface stress that forces storm surge and waves and the horizontal wind loads specified by the American Society of Civil Engineers. TIKE expands the concept by accumulating IKE over the lifespan of a tropical cyclone and over all named tropical cyclones in the hurricane season.

"Representing the activity of an Atlantic hurricane season by a number is a very difficult task," said Vasu Misra, an associate professor of meteorology in the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science and FSU's Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies (COAPS). "TIKE gives a succinct picture by taking into account the number of tropical cyclones in the season, the duration of each tropical cyclone and the time history of the wind force over a large area surrounding each tropical cyclone. This makes TIKE much more reliable as an objective measure of the seasonal activity of the Atlantic hurricanes than existing metrics."

Misra developed TIKE through a collaboration with Steven DiNapoli, a former COAPS data analyst, and Mark Powell, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration atmospheric scientist currently stationed at COAPS who created IKE with a colleague six years ago. Their paper, "The Track Integrated Kinetic Energy of the Atlantic Tropical Cyclones," was published in the American Meteorological Society's Monthly Weather Review.

Misra, DiNapoli and Powell calculated TIKE for each hurricane season, including all named tropical cyclones in the Atlantic from 1990 through 2011, and found larger TIKE values during La Niña conditions and warm tropical Atlantic sea surface temperature conditions. The information will help them in developing a model that can predict TIKE for an entire season — a prediction that could help emergency managers, businesses and residents with preparedness.

"I look forward to the global climate models improving enough to allow skillful predictions of storm size, which will help us predict TIKE for an upcoming season," Powell said.

TIKE is not intended as an alternative to existing metrics but as a complimentary tool, the researchers said.

The need for more information about the potential for destruction was brought home during the 2012 season. The Integrated Kinetic Energy calculation that TIKE is based on was more than 300 terajoules for Hurricane Sandy. The figure, which represents units of energy, was the largest IKE measurement for any hurricane between 1990 and 2006.

"That means that Sandy actually had more wind forcing over a large area than Hurricane Katrina," Misra said. "If the public was aware that this number was so high, which is an indication of the large potential for damage from storm surge and waves, some of them might have been able to make better life- and property-saving decisions."

This research was supported by grants from NOAA, the Southeast Ecological Science Center of the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

[IsentropicLift]

15z SREF's East