#rapid intensification

[tomorrowusa]

Melissa leaps from tropical storm to Category 4 hurricane in 18 hours » Yale Climate Connections

Catastrophic impacts are becoming increasingly likely for Jamaica, with Melissa - now a Cat 5 - expected to crash onshore by early Tuesday.

The era of rapid intensification of tropical cyclones continues. Melissa went from from tropical storm to Category 4 in less than a day.

Since the first draft of the article above was published, Melissa strengthened to Category 5 with 160 MPH/257 KPH winds and is headed to Jamaica where mandatory evacuations have been ordered in some areas.

As predicted and feared, Hurricane Melissa has become a formidable hurricane in the central Caribbean that is positioned to wreak havoc over Jamaica early this week. Melissa’s top sustained winds vaulted from 70 mph at 11 a.m. EDT Saturday, October 25, to 140 mph at 5 a.m. EDT Sunday, marking one of the most rapid intensifications on record in the Atlantic. Melissa is predicted to reach Category 5 strength as it drifts west through Monday, then to make a sharp right turn – feeling the tug of an intensifying upper low over the eastern United States – and accelerate into the south coast of Jamaica early Tuesday. As of 2 p.m. EDT Sunday, Melissa was located about 110 miles (180 kilometers) south of Kingston, Jamaica, moving west at 5 mph (7 km/h). Melissa’s top sustained winds remained at 140 mph (220 km/h). Update: At 5 a.m. EDT Monday, the National Hurricane Center upgraded Melissa to Category 5 strength, with top sustained winds of 160 mph and a central pressure of 917 millibars.

FYI: 917 millibars = a barometric pressure of 27.08 inches.

Most models show Melissa making a direct hit for Jamaica late Monday night or early Tuesday morning after its expected sharp right turn. However, we’ve seen in the past how the high terrain of the island can play crazy tricks with the path of an approaching hurricane. [ ... ] There is now strong model agreement that Melissa will accelerate north-northeast by midweek, bringing the hurricane across eastern Cuba on Tuesday night. Melissa’s strength at that point will hinge largely on the hurricane’s exact track across Jamaica, but a Hurricane Watch was already in effect on Sunday for eastern Cuba, and significant hurricane impacts are quite possible there.

The Atlantic basin tropical season once started winding down in mid October but there's been an increase in destructive late season storms this century. 2012's Hurricane Sandy occurred days before Halloween. Hurricane Wilma in October of 2005 was and is still the most intense hurricane in Atlantic basin history. Category 5 Hurricane Michael made landfall in Florida on 10 October 2018.

Warm seas nurture tropical cyclone development. Warmer water means later and more powerful storms.

[lifewithchronicpain]

Meteorologist gets emotional discussing Hurricane Milton intensity: ‘Just horrific’

NBC 6’s John Morales, who has worked in meteorology for more than 40 years, warned of Hurricane Milton’s “horrific” power.

NBC 6’s John Morales, who has worked in meteorology for more than 40 years, warned of Milton’s “horrific” power as it approaches Florida.

The man got completely choked up as he was explaining that storm dropped 50 millibars in 12 hours. This is fucking insane.

[rjzimmerman]

In six years there have been six historic hurricanes in the continental United States, all which intensified quickly before making landfall. Climate change helped fuel them.

(I think I’ve posted links to a whole bunch of stories just like this over the past few years. But this one has a good infographic and tells the story really well.)

Excerpt from this Washington Post story:

As Hurricane Ian barreled toward Florida this week, it did what six other storms did over the past six years as they approached the United States: It intensified, quickly.

A few factors help account for the shift, including the warming waters — fueled by climate change — that give hurricanes more energy to release through crushing winds and pounding waves. Climate scientists suspect the slow movement of storms like Ian also stems from global warming, giving them a greater opportunity to strengthen and destroy as long as day-to-day conditions remain ripe.

Since 2017, an unprecedented number of storms rated Category 4 or stronger have lashed the U.S. shoreline: Harvey, Irma, Maria, Michael, Laura, Ida and now Ian. They all qualify as “rapid intensification events,” when a storm’s wind speeds increase by at least 35 mph within 24 hours.

These kinds of storms have increased in number in recent decades. Sixteen of the 20 hurricanes over the past two seasons in the Atlantic basin have undergone rapid intensification.Ian was only the latest case when its winds nearly doubled within a 24-hour period, going from a low-end hurricane with sustained 75 mph winds Monday to a Category 3 storm with 125 mph winds Tuesday. Then, as it approached Florida on Wednesday, its winds surged even faster, going from 120 mph around 2 a.m. to 155 mph by 7 a.m.

A hotter ocean, along with low vertical wind shear, have helped drive the rapid intensification of recent storms.

Generally, ocean waters must be above 79 degrees Fahrenheit for a hurricane to develop and persist. In recent decades, the ocean has warmed at record rates because of human-emitted greenhouse gases, making this threshold easier to reach. As Ian was moving away from Cuba, sea surface temperatures were approaching 86 degrees.

Rising global air temperatures also mean that waters, especially in bodies like the bathub-esque Gulf of Mexico, are warming beyond just their surface. The deeper that warmth goes, the more fuel can flow to a slow-moving storm like Ian. The warm seawater evaporates and pumps moisture into the air, which can recondense into storms, clouds and rain.

[tomorrowusa]

Project 2025, written by members of the Trump administration and Trump's political cronies, wants to get rid of NOAA which includes the National Hurricane Center. They are hardcore climate deniers who wish to erase all evidence of climate change to protect the fossil fuel industry.

While no two hurricanes are alike, there is something potentially worrisome about Category 4 Hurricane Helene. It has been the latest in rapidly intensifying storms. The era of rapid intensification probably began in 1992 with Cat 5 Hurricane Andrew. But Helene moved through the Gulf of Mexico at a rapid rate for a hurricane at such latitudes. At one point it was moving at 24 MPH/44 KmH. What that means is that its momentum took it further inland with less loss of intensity than a slower moving storm.

So at 2 AM Friday, Helene was still a full-blown hurricane well into inland (as opposed to coastal) Georgia.

People in Savannah were probably astonished to have a hurricane 150 miles to the west rather than one 150 miles to the east.

With rapid intensification AND rapid movement of hurricanes, areas further inland are now in greater danger. The Trump/Project 2025 destruction of our ability to monitor cyclones would do to climate and meteorology what the destruction of Roe v. Wade has done to reproductive health.

[tomorrowusa]

How scientists pinpoint climate’s ‘telltale signs’ on Hurricanes Milton and Helene

POLITICO discussed the emergence of attribution science and the human fingerprints on Helene and Milton with Gabriel Vecchi, a Princeton Uni

Scientists can now identify the influence of climate change on tropical cyclones. It's a field called attribution science.

Known as attribution science, the technique measures the likelihood of extreme weather events occurring against a range of scenarios — including one without all the planet-heating gases from fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas that scientists say have been the primary reason for the 1.3 degrees Celsius (2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) rise in temperatures since the mid-19th century. POLITICO discussed the emergence of attribution science and the human fingerprints on Helene and Milton with Gabriel Vecchi, a Princeton University professor of geosciences who contributed to an analysis of Helene as part of World Weather Attribution, a collective of climate scientists and researchers. Vecchi said all the “telltale signs” of climate change were present for both Helene and Milton: abnormally warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico that fueled the cyclones’ energy and rapid intensification from smaller tropical storms to massive hurricanes. That aligns with recent scientific literature that climate change makes it more likely for hurricanes to become stronger whenever they form. “Milton went up from a Category 1 to a Category 5 in less than 10 hours,” Vecchi said. “That’s sort of outlandish. I couldn’t believe it when I saw it.” The WWA’s analysis released on Friday estimated that climate change boosted Milton’s rainfall between 20 and 30 percent and wind speed by 10 percent.

This probably won't stop twits like Marjorie Taylor Greene from claiming the government is creating hurricanes with Jewish space lasers. But it's now easier to connect the use of fossil fuels to the increasing number of extreme weather events.

[tomorrowusa]

Warming seas supercharge existing tropical storms and have caused the Atlantic Basin hurricane season to start earlier and end later.

Rapid intensification has been happening more often than in the previous century.

No two storms are exactly alike – that's one factor which makes hurricane observation so interesting. While Hurricane Idalia was powerful, it was also compact. Its relatively modest footprint was good news for Floridians away from its direct path in terms of wind damage.

[meteorologistaustenlonek]

"Leveraging 27 years of radar scans from Hurricane Hunter aircraft, NOAA and partners reveal new insights into one of the most elusive phases of the tropical cyclone lifecycle – vertical alignment of the vortex, a critical precursor to #RapidIntensification." NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Laboratory

NOAA researchers leverage 27 years of radar data to reveal four factors underpinning hurricane vertical alignment.

[meteorologistaustenlonek]

" #HurricaneErin achieved something most storms do not this weekend. "Extreme #RapidIntensification". Did climate change play a part? Science says, yes. In 12 hours winds increased by ~65 mph. Only 3 other storms have done that and Erin was the earliest & only August storm to do so. 1/

Jeff Berardelli (@weatherprof.bsky.social)

Hurricane Erin achieved something most storms do not this weekend. "Extreme Rapid Intensification". Did climate change play a part? Science

"Also, there was a 78 mb drop in 24 hours, a feat only achieved by 2 other storms since 1980, and those were both in October (Milton & Wilma). Erin was the 5th earliest cat 5 on record. 2/"