Tropical Season 2017

[40/70 Benchmark]

This week is Hurricane Awareness Week region wide:

http://easternmassweather.blogspot.com/2017/07/hurricane-preparedness-week-in-southern.html

https://www.weather.gov/media/box/BakerProclamation.pdf

https://www.weather.gov/box/hurricane_preparedness_week

 

Season should start ramping up, climatologically speaking...

[Hoth]

Nice discussion, Ray. Very few realize what a disaster a bonafide cat 3 would do in NE. Was '44 a major? I heard that was worse on the Cape than '38.

[Typhoon Tip]

It's always worthy of discussion for ...well, awareness.  

Particularly in this modern era, when attention spans are limited by over-production of stimuli from all sources, people in general don't really think of 1938 Hurricanes as pertinent.  Their concerns of the day ...weeks, months to years, however ephemeral by comparison to the return rate of an errant atmospheric freight train, those preoccupations pose immediate threats of loss in their minds. It's literally like their iPhone just cannot be dispensed with for any reason... 

Integrating that conception of prioritization into a civility as a whole, in general that doesn't leave a lot of mental band-width for things like Global Warming ... (ha, but true) But in this case, 1938 type Hurricane threats.  Now ... after decades and decades of the intensifying distraction storm, our water ways and coastal communities et al have been constructed beyond solvency should something like that occur now.  Jesus - utterly incalculable. 

I'm trying to imagine near 100 mph sustained winds upon the vertical facades of any man-made structures that densely serrate sky-ward along the windward side of southern Long Island's expanse. Can you?  Good luck.  And that provides no buttress; it offers no dulling of momentum from the maelstrom as it would lash with 0 remorse ...cutting it's way deep into the heart of CT, RI, MA and...even parts of S VT and NH and Maine.  You just need to get a strong category 2 hurricane moving N at 70 km/hr and that sucker will stem-wind trees and launch the once-per-century New England roof-top kite festival clear to the Canadian border before it weakens to negligible.

Yet, civility blithely continues about it's way. Whateva.  Busily, in certain urgency, they fulfill dreams of deck projects at the beach houses ... procuring loans for boats ...etc...etc ... the long coveted membership to the mariner's club.  It's quite remarkable really.  I wonder how many people will still be engaged in that sort of business the night before the storm - probably a surprising number.   

Funny thing is, ... in 100 years, we'll all be dead and no one will give a sh!t anyway.  It's all so meaningless, really when you think about it.  We only assign value to things we assign value to.  Ever really think about the philosophy of why a house costs what it does?  Who cares - right?  It's all a system of speculation.  A disaster that would make Sandy look like a pedestrian inclemency is not physically impossible... in fact, based on science, it's quite plausible. And the scale/degree of the aftermath would probably be so extreme ... cognitively untenably so, that it may simply just force people to throw their hands and walk away - heh, not worth anything. 

And then 100 years later... this conversation happens all over again.

   

[Hoth]

1635 will rear its ugly head at some point. Sediment data suggest even bigger storms hit NE in pre-Columbian times. Only question is whether that borderline cat 4 will come within our own lifetime. 

[Typhoon Tip]

9 minutes ago, Hoth said:

1635 will rear its ugly head at some point. Sediment data suggest even bigger storms hit NE in pre-Columbian times. Only question is whether that borderline cat 4 will come within our own lifetime. 

More or less related ...

I actually read sediment studies that try to correlated geological events around the Atlantic Basin, too.   There's a thrust subduction type fault where the Caribbean plate is slipping beneath the Atlantic.   hm

[tamarack]

Thirty-Eight:  The Hurricane That Transformed New England, by Stephen Long, is a recent book that offers a forest-centric view of the storm, though it also deals with non-forest effects, and on the meteorology.  Along with many personal accounts, a main focus is on the woods of VT/NH, and on white pine throughout the region.

[IrishRob17]

58 minutes ago, tamarack said:

Thirty-Eight:  The Hurricane That Transformed New England, by Stephen Long, is a recent book that offers a forest-centric view of the storm, though it also deals with non-forest effects, and on the meteorology.  Along with many personal accounts, a main focus is on the woods of VT/NH, and on white pine throughout the region.

Thanks for the tip, that's on my read list now.

[Damage In Tolland]

1 hour ago, tamarack said:

Thirty-Eight:  The Hurricane That Transformed New England, by Stephen Long, is a recent book that offers a forest-centric view of the storm, though it also deals with non-forest effects, and on the meteorology.  Along with many personal accounts, a main focus is on the woods of VT/NH, and on white pine throughout the region.

What we wouldn't give for that or to have witnessed that. Just salivating 

[Tater Tot]

What scares me about another potential 1938 is that NE'ers now think Sandy was the nightmare scenario. I can't picture them taking the warnings seriously. In the times that I've mentioned NE hurricanes in conversations with people, they immediately jump to power outages, like that's really the worst that can happen. 

[CoastalWx]

Hopefully James chimes in.

[HimoorWx]

3 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

Hopefully James chimes in.

He's still busy cleaning up after the recent GFS 384 storm!

[Typhoon Tip]

1 hour ago, Tater Tot said:

What scares me about another potential 1938 is that NE'ers now think Sandy was the nightmare scenario. I can't picture them taking the warnings seriously. In the times that I've mentioned NE hurricanes in conversations with people, they immediately jump to power outages, like that's really the worst that can happen. 

That's everywhere actually ... 

There's an endemic P.R. problem NWS has in the post-mortem of high alert/headline events, pretty much across the board.

It's probably a systemic failing on the part of all Government agencies, too, more than just NWS. 

The problem is, when there is a hurricane warning, or a blizzard warning, a volcano warning, solar storm warning, a train coming ... you name it.  The person that crawls out from what they are left thinking was "the wreckage/aftermath," they dust off and carry away with themselves a sense of what those warnings really mean, based almost entirely upon that one experience.  Then ...they are at a social gathering where weather is always an instrumental small talk device, and then all those people come away thinking that NWS always blows things out of proportion - it won't be that big-a deal. 

There is no follow-up effort to educate ...or in the least just inform the affected public exactly what it was/is that struck them.  

I think the reason why is fearing culpability.  There is no culture of accepting blame that goes on, and ..fairly, there should be no "blaming" to begin with.  But, if the NWS gets into the PR business they probably open them selves up to liability.  

There's also a bit of Darwinism in play, too.  Seriously...  Any idiot that thinks they lived through a category three hurricane because they were in a warning but only happened to encounter tropical storm force gusting, probably should do society and human gene pool a favor and venture out of doors the next time there is another warning. 

[Cyclone-68]

I'm just hoping to have something to track. Doesn't even need to impact my area. 

[tamarack]

2 hours ago, Damage In Tolland said:

What we wouldn't give for that or to have witnessed that. Just salivating 

One of the opening scenarios in the book is of a young fellow walking home on a country road, having a huge white pine come down behind him (with the wind so loud he didn't hear the crash), then hiding under that tree to avoid being hit by its neighbors as the entire stand blew over.  I'd have been salivating all right, like our dog was salivating after yesterday's breaker-tipping lightning strike - in terror.

[Typhoon Tip]

Texas tower is putting up an SST of 81 F ... that's really pretty close to the bite water area S of LI ...and is well N of the g-string... 

I've often wondered if it would be any worse for a hurricane to turn the corner this early and take advantage of that climo waters ... I mean, granted the thermocline is shallow ...we're only talking maintenance for a system accelerating up the coast.  interesting

[LongBeachSurfFreak]

8 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

Texas tower is putting up an SST of 81 F ... that's really pretty close to the bite water area S of LI ...and is well N of the g-string... 

I've often wondered if it would be any worse for a hurricane to turn the corner this early and take advantage of that climo waters ... I mean, granted the thermocline is shallow ...we're only talking maintenance for a system accelerating up the coast.  interesting

That's the whole point. 38 was moving north at 50+ Mph  at 40n. With today's warm anomalies the storm probably could have maintened even more tropical energy and thus winds then it did in 38. Yes the thermocline would quickly overwhelm a storm moving 15mph but not 38. It's only a matter of time before 38 returns, only stronger. 

My house 3 blocks from a canal was ironically built in 37. The 38 storms center passed about 20 miles to east. My next door neighbor has been in the neighborhood since 68 and knew some of the original owners when they were still around who lived through 38 in this neighborhood. Water came out of what was then marsh land closer to the bay but never made it inside the houses. From what I can tell it sounds right on par with sandy. The house is at 8' and during sandy water filled the street but never went over the curb. So sandy and 38 on western LI (eastern Nassau county) were fairly equal for observed surge. 

[Typhoon Tip]

11 hours ago, LongBeachSurfFreak said:

That's the whole point. 38 was moving north at 50+ Mph  at 40n. With today's warm anomalies the storm probably could have maintened even more tropical energy and thus winds then it did in 38. Yes the thermocline would quickly overwhelm a storm moving 15mph but not 38. It's only a matter of time before 38 returns, only stronger. 

My house 3 blocks from a canal was ironically built in 37. The 38 storms center passed about 20 miles to east. My next door neighbor has been in the neighborhood since 68 and knew some of the original owners when they were still around who lived through 38 in this neighborhood. Water came out of what was then marsh land closer to the bay but never made it inside the houses. From what I can tell it sounds right on par with sandy. The house is at 8' and during sandy water filled the street but never went over the curb. So sandy and 38 on western LI (eastern Nassau county) were fairly equal for observed surge. 

Obviously talking hypotheticals ..but, Sandy was actually "over-publicized" ?

Believe it or not, that is the case.  The sensationalism leading the event was ratcheted up a notch over what actually took place - which ...actually that's a good thing. 

( I know I'm digressing here...)

It's good because people seem to need to be 'shocked into action'; though not too extremely so or the opposite effect of inaction (deer in headlights) takes place. If Sandy were anticipated as a TS and not a hurricane, and the press/media leading were less dramatic, the fact that water literally filled some of the NYC sub-surface infrastructure ...to mention, the denudation along the NJ Coast ...those results probably would have led hell to pay. 

Now, imagine if Sandy were a category 3 storm? 

Sandy was barely a category 1 hurricane (and some would argue that it wasn't) at time of landfall.  Most of what took place up the coast away from the southern NJ could probably be considered an unusually large cold-conveyor event.  From north of Cape May some distance, from ~ there all the way up to to D.E.M., ..that expanse' wind experience was entirely gradient driven between -NAO pulsed high over the NW Atlantic Basin, to that of the 'general' lowered pressure domain of the "hurricane". More over, the PGF is not often existing on a smooth rate-of-change gradient. You have bands where are steeper; thus embedded jetlets and so forth.  It would have been possible to 'sneak' a more intense hurricane into southern NJ and not have had stronger winds result up toward the NY Bite region/LI Sound.  In like vein, a weaker system in that over all set up, could take place with some steeper gradient band displaced away from the center, such that an usual easterly fire-hose wind power blasts the upper MA. These things are not idealized, mechanically.

Processing all that .. it's not a huge leap of thought and imagination to conclude that as big of a deal as Sandy was, heh ...whatever.  Really - there are possibilities for vaster extremes well within the envelope of Terran physical plausibilities.

Then as you say, the 1938 sort of paradigm too.  What historical re-analysis type charting I have seen from that recreates a scenario where there was less actual blocking hight NNE of the EC, but enough to direct the steering field NNW up along the Seaboard.  Much of the wind and oceanic abrasion event was more centric to the storm its self, rather than the expanded gradient induced wind model type ... such that Sandy was.    

As far as the climo/SST part of the discussion.  I don't actually know (personally) if the waters are warmer now than 1938 ...or 1600's and so forth).  I can imagine they are ...just by proxy of GW and the fact that most oceanic SST's have been rising for decades.  But that's not a measurement.   I was thinking along the lines of "any given year" ... the best time for TC maintenance N of ~ Cape Hatteras, may just be now through about August 10.  Heh, it may just be a saving quirk of all that most strikes up in that region occur toward the end of August and throughout autumns.

[LongBeachSurfFreak]

On 7/22/2017 at 10:50 AM, Typhoon Tip said:

Obviously talking hypotheticals ..but, Sandy was actually "over-publicized" ?

Believe it or not, that is the case.  The sensationalism leading the event was ratcheted up a notch over what actually took place - which ...actually that's a good thing. 

( I know I'm digressing here...)

It's good because people seem to need to be 'shocked into action'; though not too extremely so or the opposite effect of inaction (deer in headlights) takes place. If Sandy were anticipated as a TS and not a hurricane, and the press/media leading were less dramatic, the fact that water literally filled some of the NYC sub-surface infrastructure ...to mention, the denudation along the NJ Coast ...those results probably would have led hell to pay. 

Now, imagine if Sandy were a category 3 storm? 

Sandy was barely a category 1 hurricane (and some would argue that it wasn't) at time of landfall.  Most of what took place up the coast away from the southern NJ could probably be considered an unusually large cold-conveyor event.  From north of Cape May some distance, from ~ there all the way up to to D.E.M., ..that expanse' wind experience was entirely gradient driven between -NAO pulsed high over the NW Atlantic Basin, to that of the 'general' lowered pressure domain of the "hurricane". More over, the PGF is not often existing on a smooth rate-of-change gradient. You have bands where are steeper; thus embedded jetlets and so forth.  It would have been possible to 'sneak' a more intense hurricane into southern NJ and not have had stronger winds result up toward the NY Bite region/LI Sound.  In like vein, a weaker system in that over all set up, could take place with some steeper gradient band displaced away from the center, such that an usual easterly fire-hose wind power blasts the upper MA. These things are not idealized, mechanically.

Processing all that .. it's not a huge leap of thought and imagination to conclude that as big of a deal as Sandy was, heh ...whatever.  Really - there are possibilities for vaster extremes well within the envelope of Terran physical plausibilities.

Then as you say, the 1938 sort of paradigm too.  What historical re-analysis type charting I have seen from that recreates a scenario where there was less actual blocking hight NNE of the EC, but enough to direct the steering field NNW up along the Seaboard.  Much of the wind and oceanic abrasion event was more centric to the storm its self, rather than the expanded gradient induced wind model type ... such that Sandy was.    

As far as the climo/SST part of the discussion.  I don't actually know (personally) if the waters are warmer now than 1938 ...or 1600's and so forth).  I can imagine they are ...just by proxy of GW and the fact that most oceanic SST's have been rising for decades.  But that's not a measurement.   I was thinking along the lines of "any given year" ... the best time for TC maintenance N of ~ Cape Hatteras, may just be now through about August 10.  Heh, it may just be a saving quirk of all that most strikes up in that region occur toward the end of August and throughout autumns.

I threw sandy into the mix because, likely west of the center of 38 it was the surge event of events. obviously east of the center 38 was a far greater surge producer. You can throw western Long Island in with the jersey shore with sandy as far as major coastal damage. (Long Beach my former home town received catastrophic damge to ocean front structures) It's just hard to get major damage very much west of a 38 track. Sandy exposed the NYC area to a side of a storm it rarely if ever sees. So the absolute worst case Senerio for monetary damages in the NE US would be a track north of Sandy into the NY bight as a fully tropical Cat 3. Although it's often stated it's possible I don't think a cat 4 is. 

[USCAPEWEATHERAF]

Sandy wasn't nearly the event here in SNE as it was in NYC and NJ, but duh it made landfall in NJ.  OK that was expected.  Now we have the SST analysis on our side for a major tropical cyclone event.  Along the East Coast I heard SSTs near 40N latitude from 60w to 70w are above normal, and in some spots 10F above normal.  Honestly just the SST study alone supports a category five hurricane sitting about 200 miles south of Nantucket at this point in July, imagine in a few weeks during SST peak heating climo.  Now we need the atmosphere to come around to produce such an event.  I believe this year could be it for us.  It just makes sense.

[Typhoon Tip]

i get the opposite impression... 

anomalously low TC production on the Atlantic side

anomalously cool/wet summer for New England (almost surgically targeted to turn out that way it symbolically seems)

anomalously hot in the SW U.S. and associated ridge anchored there being more powerful than god himself to change

...while the east Pacific poops out ensemble line TCs out of a mere CU fields...  

All of which is taking place against the grain of the Global signals...  We should have had a hot summer in the east, with an active Atlantic basin... and a neutral west.  

 

[LongBeachSurfFreak]

3 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

i get the opposite impression... 

anomalously low TC production on the Atlantic side

anomalously cool/wet summer for New England (almost surgically targeted to turn out that way it symbolically seems)

anomalously hot in the SW U.S. and associated ridge anchored there being more powerful than god himself to change

...while the east Pacific poops out ensemble line TCs out of a mere CU fields...  

All of which is taking place against the grain of the Global signals...  We should have had a hot summer in the east, with an active Atlantic basin... and a neutral west.  

 

We are way above normal to date in the Atlantic. The early development in the MDR usually leads to a hyperactive season. Once we clear out the dry air and head into the historical peak I would look for some serious long track Cape Verde storms. If you look back at some of the "big ones" in the NE they often come during wet summers. 38 and Irene are good expamples. Had Irene been 100 miles east and experienced less land interaction it would have been a solid hit for eastern NE. 

I wouldn't throw in the towel on the season because of development issues in July.

[Typhoon Tip]

15 minutes ago, LongBeachSurfFreak said:

We are way above normal to date in the Atlantic. The early development in the MDR usually leads to a hyperactive season. Once we clear out the dry air and head into the historical peak I would look for some serious long track Cape Verde storms. If you look back at some of the "big ones" in the NE they often come during wet summers. 38 and Irene are good expamples. Had Irene been 100 miles east and experienced less land interaction it would have been a solid hit for eastern NE. 

I wouldn't throw in the towel on the season because of development issues in July.

you may be right about everything else here but in my humble opinion we are not "way" above anything...?

What we are doing is we are naming storms that should not have been named because of the PR nightmare of having systems moving headlong at the Windward islands and people needing step up warnings - 

those were weak gyres at best.  poor convection...  weakly closed...  I'd like to see 3 or 4 50 kt TC with psuedo eye features before we start hoisting trophies.   

Either way, i would not be shocked if October rolls around and we haven't seen the advertised "type" of season that was predicted.   

Could be wrong sure    ...I will say, in 1995...the season was pretty banal until the 2nd weak of august... then it went nuts.  So perhaps that's the sort of quick ramp up we have in store.  

[MJOatleast7]

5 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

i get the opposite impression... 

anomalously low TC production on the Atlantic side

anomalously cool/wet summer for New England (almost surgically targeted to turn out that way it symbolically seems)

anomalously hot in the SW U.S. and associated ridge anchored there being more powerful than god himself to change

...while the east Pacific poops out ensemble line TCs out of a mere CU fields...  

All of which is taking place against the grain of the Global signals...  We should have had a hot summer in the east, with an active Atlantic basin... and a neutral west.  

 

Yeah I wondered why that is... in the absence of a strong ENSO signal. Could it be just an expression of the above normal SSTs in the tropics generally... a summer cousin to the endless high tropical heights that wouldn't aloow anything to dig last winter?

[LongBeachSurfFreak]

2 hours ago, Typhoon Tip said:

you may be right about everything else here but in my humble opinion we are not "way" above anything...?

What we are doing is we are naming storms that should not have been named because of the PR nightmare of having systems moving headlong at the Windward islands and people needing step up warnings - 

those were weak gyres at best.  poor convection...  weakly closed...  I'd like to see 3 or 4 50 kt TC with psuedo eye features before we start hoisting trophies.   

Either way, i would not be shocked if October rolls around and we haven't seen the advertised "type" of season that was predicted.   

Could be wrong sure    ...I will say, in 1995...the season was pretty banal until the 2nd weak of august... then it went nuts.  So perhaps that's the sort of quick ramp up we have in store.  

I agree, pre satellite era those wouldn't have been named. And ACE wise we are probably near or slightly below normal. It was however a good sign to see strong waves coming of Africa early in the season. Let's see what happens in August as the MJO becomes favorable. 

[Typhoon Tip]

39 minutes ago, LongBeachSurfFreak said:

I agree, pre satellite era those wouldn't have been named. And ACE wise we are probably near or slightly below normal. It was however a good sign to see strong waves coming of Africa early in the season. Let's see what happens in August as the MJO becomes favorable. 

Yeah the wave frequency early on was encouraging for those seeking action ...   I agree there. 

I also agree with mentioning ACE  ...cyclone energy output is probably the better way to look at it, because at a physical level ...that's what it's all about. It's about moving surplus regions to sink regions.  If values are lower ...it "seems" intuitive to conclude things should be construed as lower regardless of what TPC labels what -

[40/70 Benchmark]

20 hours ago, LongBeachSurfFreak said:

We are way above normal to date in the Atlantic. The early development in the MDR usually leads to a hyperactive season. Once we clear out the dry air and head into the historical peak I would look for some serious long track Cape Verde storms. If you look back at some of the "big ones" in the NE they often come during wet summers. 38 and Irene are good expamples. Had Irene been 100 miles east and experienced less land interaction it would have been a solid hit for eastern NE. 

I wouldn't throw in the towel on the season because of development issues in July.

Hyperbole at best, drugs at worst.

[LongBeachSurfFreak]

5 hours ago, 40/70 Benchmark said:

Hyperbole at best, drugs at worst.

I clarified in a later post. Moving forward for arguments sake let's stick with what works ACE. 

[40/70 Benchmark]

2 hours ago, LongBeachSurfFreak said:

I clarified in a later post. Moving forward for arguments sake let's stick with what works ACE. 

I'm just messing..

[USCAPEWEATHERAF]

As I examined the latest 18z run of the GFS model, I saw the surface lay out and then the mid level layout, and then realized that the depictions although 14 days out, could be accurate if the GFS has an idea on the wave.  While development looks imminent already for the wave before it emerges out into the Atlantic, by the way, the NHC has 2 day odds at 10% and 5 day odds at 30% already, this wave could already have a closed surface circulation before reaching the eastern Atlantic Ocean and it stays between 10N and 13N latitude it will develop quickly and be steered by a large central to western Atlantic ridge to the west and WNW at around 10-15mph.  Current and forecasted conditions favor intensification of the wave into a tropical cyclone.  Just watch this system and we have plenty of time to watch it for the next 14 days

[Typhoon Tip]

That experimental tool, "Roundy Probabilities" ... it used to be mentioned in TPC discussions (and NCEP) from time to time to herald intra-montly periods of enhanced chances. I haven't seen it reference/ read in any discussion in recent years tho. I'm only mentioning this because I don't know what it's verification scoring/technique is, and why/if NCEP has stopped referencing it ..."maybe" that means it's not useful?  I'm not sure if they do use it... 

Lotsa 'who knows' in that paragraph. But, the product does still exist out there and is available to general web consumption. 

Right now, it is flagging the Cape Verdi "rail-system" as mid-grade positive anomaly chances for development over the next three to five days, which is interestingly ..right when rather abruptly the operational versions of the main player global numerical model types have begun developing/tracking a system of interests.  

As usual, the CMC has a Category 6.4 Jesus H. Christer preparing to denude the Windward Islands off the face of the planet... While in a shocking move by the Euro, with its proclivity to ignore zygote tropical waves entirely ... it even "dents" the PP (a remarkable achievement for that particular guidance source).  Whether it does or does not lend support/confidence to any genesis actually occurring, the Euro "seems" like we could say, 'see, even the Euro thinks so!'   The last two runs of the GFS have it as well, the latter of which was quite robust/intense actually, with a long tracker CV hurricane implied.  

That all said, there a giant wave that has just scooted off western Africa/Sierra Leona ... Rumor has it, it's trapped the Ebola virus in its circulation envelope and is going to deliver that particular cargo along with storm's entertainment to the dystopian zealot base of internet social-media users ...all the way across the ocean. 

No ..of course not, heh.  But, that is a pig circulation!  Truly enormous.  One thing I have noticed about the tropics so far this season is that SAL (Saharan Air Layer seen below) has been preponderant, and most probably culprit in laying strong-ish tropical waves into the annuls of failed spin ups.  

We can't "blame climo" ...doesn't work that way.  What we can do is look at climo, and then if there are a dearths (or opposite) of activity ...go investigate why the dearth (or opposite) tend to take place. Now, I don't know if SAL is an endemic circumstance of pre-August Atlantic seasons more so than later in the seasons?  But, it has definitely been so far this year, intermingling with these circulation zygotes a lot this year.  It's a toxin, and therefore initially safe to assume as having limited development to date. As we can see in the below image... this particular tropical wave of interest is more free of that toxic air mass interaction.  

So .. fwiw, we have a few indicators that suggest we headed for some increasing activity/things to watch in the tropics.  August typically is a month that sees spikes inactivity as the curve of frequency is pretty positively sloped over the next several weeks.