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Hurricane Arthur


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I still wouldn't be surprised to see a quick bout of intensification the next 24 hours. Shear is still low and as mentioned earlier today, SSTs are warm all the way to the latitude of the outer banks in NC. It's just a matter of Arthur mixing out this last bit of dry air in its inner core. As the storm starts to move with an eastward component, that will also eliminate the remaining nagging weak westerly shear thats been affecting the system intermittently today (you can see the arc clouds reminiscent of dry air on its western flank). The IR presentation still doesn't look amazing, but the small size of inner core still bodes well for intensification since we are still 24-30 hours from the potential impact.

 

Alex (2004) is actually a pretty good analog (although Arthur may be slightly west of Alex's track). I think the rate of intensification will also be similar, since Alex intensified to around 85 knots from a strong TS in roughly the same position that Arthur is as well. 

 

track.gif

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I still wouldn't be surprised to see a quick bout of intensification the next 24 hours. Shear is still low and as mentioned earlier today, SSTs are warm all the way to the latitude of the outer banks in NC. It's just a matter of Arthur mixing out this last bit of dry air in its inner core. As the storm starts to move with an eastward component, that will also eliminate the remaining nagging westerly shear thats been affecting the system intermittently today (you can see the arc clouds reminiscent of dry air on its western flank). The IR presentation still doesn't look amazing, but the small size of inner core still bodes well for intensification since we are still 24-30 hours from the potential impact and plenty of time to mix out the last of the dry air. 

 

I was thinking the same thing, Phil. I'd like for Arthur to look a little better on the infrared satellite along with the visible and radar. Nonetheless, obviously the system is right on the edge of hurricane strength and gusts are certainly likely over 85 mph in the strongest semi-circle of the storm.

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It will be interesting to watch over the next 12-24 hours.  there are a lot of "minor" cast members in Arthur's little drama.  A weak mid level ridge a few hundred miles north of him, the big TUTT impending down on the sub tropical ridge to his East.  The trough coming East across the central US attm is a little slower than forecast.  He's in a fairly weak steering flow and will probably get bounced around some before he gets sucked up.  Weak storms can do funky things when there's some mid level dynamics going on.  I'm by no means wishcasting, I think the forecast track is pretty spot on, but it wouldn't surprise me if there were some unexpected movements East or West, or maybe even forward speed slowing down over the next 24 hours.  It's just gonna be the usual, where he'll be when it does pick him up. 

 

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/goes/east/eaus/flash-wv.html

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No. 

What I was saying was, that I don't recall any storm to strike the U.S. coast with any validity on Independence Day. For those on the Outer Banks, it could be a great storm for a July 4th'er . Their fragile beach has taken a licking here lately with each passing storm, whether it be a Kane or a Nor-easter.

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Another full day of Arthur. It looks like there has been some westerly wind shear. Amazing structual change, though.

Great loop as always... you can sort of see how the convective towers aren't making it all the way around the center (sure the cirrus shield is, but not the deeper convection you want to see wrap around the core). 

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The radar presentation has degraded some this evening, but its still moving west of due north, and each little left wobble like this is concerning for those in the outer banks right now. Once the storm does start moving with an eastward component of motion, the westerly shear vector will decrease and we should finally see the storm shake off the remainder of the dry air near the inner core. 

 

arthur_4.gif

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Great loop as always... you can sort of see how the convective towers aren't making it all the way around the center (sure the cirrus shield is, but not the deeper convection you want to see wrap around the core).

 

That's a good point, probably due to the mid level dry air intrusion.  Dr. Lyons used to say the storm would take on a "screaming eagle" look to it  when that happened lol.  It seems his ventilating ridge is still displaced to the S-SSE also. One good thing in it's favor is because of the geography of the land moving farther away, the storms feeding in from the SE should now be over open water longer transporting more moisture into the surrounding environment.  Not a lot of time to do so but there is some time. 

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That's a good point, probably due to the mid level dry air intrusion.  Dr. Lyons used to say the storm would take on a "screaming eagle" look to it  when that happened lol.  It seems his ventilating ridge is still displaced to the S-SSE also. One good thing in it's favor is because of the geography of the land moving farther away, the storms feeding in from the SE should now be over open water longer transporting more moisture into the surrounding environment.  Not a lot of time to do so but there is some time. 

 

The thing with dry air intrusion is that you need something (shear) to advect the dry air into the core. If there was literally no shear over the TC, the system would eventually axis-symmetrize and mix out all the dry air. So the light westerly shear that was observed today prevented that from happening. The storm still intensified, but probably not as much (or as quickly) as it could have had if that westerly shear not been there. 

 

Lets compare Arthur to a similar small TC that was also under the influence of dry air in its vicinity. Cristina this year in the EPAC is actually a pretty good example of what can happen when there is plenty of dry air surrounding a storm, but the shear decreases to nearly zero. What happens is all the convection becomes focused in the inner core and since there is nothing advecting the dry air in. The storm (as you can see in the visible animation below) was able to rotate deep convective activity around its inner core. The storm underwent RI shortly after this animation from a Cat 1 to a Cat 4 in less than 12 hours.

 

tzGejs4.gif

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The thing with dry air intrusion is that you need something (shear) to advect the dry air into the core. If there was literally no shear over the TC, the system would eventually axis-symmetrize and mix out all the dry air. So the light westerly shear that was observed today prevented that from happening. The storm still intensified, but probably not as much (or as quickly) as it could have had if that westerly shear not been there. 

 

Lets compare Arthur to a similar small TC that was also under the influence of dry air in its vicinity. Cristina this year in the EPAC is actually a pretty good example of what can happen when there is plenty of dry air surrounding a storm, but the shear decreases to nearly zero. What happens is all the convection becomes focused in the inner core and since there is nothing advecting the dry air in. The storm (as you can see in the visible animation below) was able to rotate deep convective activity around its inner core. The storm underwent RI shortly after this animation from a Cat 1 to a Cat 4 in less than 12 hours.

 

tzGejs4.gif

 

Thank you that makes sense.  I've seen storms surrounded by SAL in the Atlantic yet they sustain or intensify in a 0 to very low shear environment contrary to what one might expect. 

 Also, I don't know how to post graphics here, but the latest runs of the HRRR and RAP are interesting, at least in the way they are handling the trough moving towards the East coast.

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Pretty good convection on the southeast/east eyewall now. Lets see if that can wrap around over the next few hours.

 

EDIT: Here's an IR image showing the blowup of convection on the eastern eyewall. Also of note is the increasing velocities on the MLB radar. It's right out at the range of the radar (which means we're not talking about a steady increase in elevation for wind readings. Since its right out at the range we're talking a steady altitude of about 24,000 feet. That's quite high but velocities have increased about 10 knots over the past hour of radar data.)

 

GOES02452014184zBKRYK.jpg

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00z is east from 18z. 

 

Yep... looking at a d(prog)/dt assessment of the GFS forecast at landfall (now around 30 hours out) it doesn't really have a pronounced trend east/west, although it certainly has trended faster with the motion of Arthur.

 

http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/gfs/2014070300/gfs_z850_vort_seus_comp30.html

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Arthur looks really good on IR... but really bad on radar, especially on its west side.

 

I wouldn't say it looks terrible considering how far it is from the radar. Personally I think it looks a bit better than it did about two hours ago with new convection firing on the north side. Although that's subjective to what the recon aircraft finds when it arrives in a couple of hours. 

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Arthur looks really good on IR... but really bad on radar, especially on its west side.

 

The IR shows the blow up of convection on the TCs northeast side... its possible Arthur is still intensifying given the intensity of the convection within the eyewall. It would be nice to see it close up the W side of the eye, although as long as the shear is sticking around it will be hard.

 

The HRRR suggests that outflow will finally develop west of Arthur tonight and tomorrow, in response to the end of the annoying westerly shear that has been advecting dry air into its core. 

 

zTcT9Va.png

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Convection has done a rather good job IMO of wrapping around the northern semicircle over the past hour. Looks like one or two hot towers based off this IR image. That should at least keep the pressure steady if not slightly falling compared to the earlier 988MB report. Perhaps this convective burst will cause an increase in winds relative to the pressure. GOES04002014184teuMxC.jpg

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UW - CIMSS
ADVANCED DVORAK TECHNIQUE
ADT-Version 8.2.1
Tropical Cyclone Intensity Algorithm

----- Current Analysis -----
Date : 03 JUL 2014 Time : 034500 UTC
Lat : 30:20:39 N Lon : 79:15:39 W


CI# /Pressure/ Vmax
4.6 / 974.4mb/ 79.6kt



Final T# Adj T# Raw T#
4.6 4.6 3.2

Center Temp : -54.1C Cloud Region Temp : -55.7C

Scene Type : UNIFORM CDO CLOUD REGION w/ MW EYE

Positioning Method : SPIRAL ANALYSIS

Ocean Basin : ATLANTIC
Dvorak CI > MSLP Conversion Used : ATLANTIC

Tno/CI Rules : Constraint Limits : MW ON
Weakening Flag : OFF
Rapid Dissipation Flag : OFF 

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