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Hurricane Zeta


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BULLETIN
Tropical Storm Zeta Advisory Number   3
NWS National Hurricane Center Miami FL       AL282020
500 AM EDT Sun Oct 25 2020

...ZETA MEANDERING OVER THE NORTHWESTERN CARIBBEAN SEA...
...EXPECTED TO PRODUCE HEAVY RAINFALL AND TROPICAL-STORM-FORCE
WINDS ACROSS PORTIONS OF THE NORTHWESTERN CARIBBEAN...


SUMMARY OF 500 AM EDT...0900 UTC...INFORMATION
----------------------------------------------
LOCATION...17.7N 83.5W
ABOUT 305 MI...490 KM SSE OF THE WESTERN TIP OF CUBA
ABOUT 295 MI...475 KM SE OF COZUMEL MEXICO
MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...40 MPH...65 KM/H
PRESENT MOVEMENT...N OR 360 DEGREES AT 1 MPH...2 KM/H
MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...1005 MB...29.68 INCHES
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3 hours ago, das said:

I gotta be honest, I am most interested in the potential, eventual interaction between what’s left of Zeta and the upper level low that will eject east out of that phased trough in the west. Whopper Halloween storms are fun. 

I second this sentiment. Even before this thing consolidated, the modeled moisture and vort interaction with the trough and subsequent merger into a coastal low type system seemed meteorologically-interesting. You have a potentially strong moisture rich TS interacting with a digging large scale, fall/spring type baroclinic zone. It seems a bit like a Miller A in some ways. In another way it reminds me faintly of Isaias earlier this year which stayed rather strong once inland due to baroclinic interaction. Regardless, that was and is the thing I'm really going to be most interested in watching play out with this thing.

As for Zeta and its direct impacts, it really has a great environment right now. The faster it gets organized, the more it can feed off bomber ssts, and the stronger it would be at peak strength. Given the marginal environment in N. Gulf, the degree of strengthening attained in Yucatan will portend the ending strength of the likely-weakening system at landfall. Like Delta, current environment would favor RI if the storm already had its circulations well aligned. You wouldn't see Delta-level strengthening which was 75kts/24hrs, but RI is 30kts/24hrs, and the environment is clearly capable of that if a well organized system were feeding off of it. You can clearly see available energy is very high due to the persistently strong (aka high topped/cold topped) convection on imagery, shear is low, and upper level outflow is good. But, thus far, Zeta is still trying to organize and as such, its center is chasing the strongest convection and not well defined or well fixed. It will be interesting to see what hurricane hunters find on their next flight. My guess is, they find it's stronger than they think. No scientific explanation for that, just seems that whenever the hhunters go into a storm, it's "significantly stronger than satellite and other data had suggested", lol. Once it better defines its center and that center begins getting steered some direction, we'll see more steady to quick intensification until the storm reaches the gulf.

 

 

MU

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Not rapidly organizing, but on the visible loop, you can see the center consolidating a little closer to the big convective blob. Earlier today it was poorly defined and was elongated to the NW Over the past several hours, it has lost quite a bit of that elongation as pressures fall closer to the blob as evident on recon. Lots of work to do yet with it being decoupled and slightly sheared, but organization continues.

 

in other news are there any Actually Good gif uploading websites? Levi's site turns out gifs that are like 25mb which greatly limits what you can do with them.

 

 

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Zeta looks to be strengthening right now, I am seeing signs of northerly banding from the main convective mass, the convection continues to cool over the center of the MLC, and overall banding features have developed considerably over the past hour (with the potential start of a curved band developing to the left)

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You can tell people are done with this season when there isn't a post here in 10 hrs and the NHC is showing a potential US hurricane landfall in 60 hrs. Albeit Zeta is not likely to be too much more than a nuisance.but I'm sure Louisiana is done with storms at this point.

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NHC quote

---
With the recent improvement in the outflow over Zeta, it appears 
that the shear that had prevented strengthening has abated.  The 
shear ahead of the storm is expected to remain low while the cyclone 
traverses the deep, warm water of the northwestern Caribbean Sea. 
As a result, Zeta is forecast to become a hurricane this morning, 
and continued strengthening is likely until Zeta moves over the 
Yucatan peninsula this evening.

---

Since that bullish update, Zeta has become decoupled.  The naked surface vortex has moved out from under the convection.

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Probably just a significant tilt. This convection envelope reminds me a lot of Hanna. Greatest divergence persists SE of LLC. Lower flow is ESErly. Upper mid level flow is still northerly but weak. Beating a dead horse but if Zeta aligns it likely becomes a hurricane pretty quickly if that intense region of convergence to divergence is centered with the vortex. But will it prior to the Yucatan? I think it will.

c785718d072a6896d56f4833c7c7246b.gif&key=14dcd820019993f805f2954ed16ffa69324da7ad2a01300ac25618a3c0542669

 

 

 

 

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20 minutes ago, hawkeye_wx said:

NHC quote


---
With the recent improvement in the outflow over Zeta, it appears 
that the shear that had prevented strengthening has abated.  The 
shear ahead of the storm is expected to remain low while the cyclone 
traverses the deep, warm water of the northwestern Caribbean Sea. 
As a result, Zeta is forecast to become a hurricane this morning, 
and continued strengthening is likely until Zeta moves over the 
Yucatan peninsula this evening.

---

Since that bullish update, Zeta has become decoupled.  The naked surface vortex has moved out from under the convection.

So the actual center of Zeta is where the green arrow points, not the yellow arrow?

image.thumb.png.d1ae40803e7243b8430dd061642629ed.png

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recon_AF309-0728A-ZETA.png?width=610&hei

 

some rather glaring organizational problems here.

1) The convective bursts at present have been rather singular (as in singular updraft), asymmetric and transient.

2) These bursts are having a hard time really consolidating over the center probably because they're having trouble persisting.

3) The RMW is very broad and there isn't an inner core structure at all, despite the rather intense convective burst ongoing.

4) The large area of 50kt winds on the northern side likely indicates this storm will have trouble building an inner core in short order, at least having a hard time doing it prior to yucatan landfall.

 

As is, I don't really see this intensifying very quickly with rather significant organizational flaws working against it. I think this makes landfall as a weak cane as it stands now. It may be a strong TS now, but it is still *very* disorganized relatively speaking. Not all 70mph TSs are created equal.

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