Re: Hurricane Gonzalo at 11pm AST on Thursday: 140mph
Posted by
Chris in Tampa on 10/17/2014, 12:42 am
It seems like a good comparison for this storm:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Fabian#Bermuda
Even the NHC kind of made the comparison:
"Significant coastal flooding on Bermuda is likely if Gonzalo
continues on the current NHC forecast track. Although specific
amounts cannot be forecast for Gonzalo, Hurricane Fabian produced an
estimated 10 feet of storm surge when it moved over Bermuda as a
major hurricane in 2003, and similar values could occur with
Gonzalo."
How close to that, better or worse, remains uncertain. The storm is large enough now that it will not be all or nothing, they will get damaging winds, but even less than twenty four hours out its hard to know to what extent. I really wish they were doing recon continuously. They have about an eight hour gap between missions right now with twelve hour center fixes (Which maybe over a 3 to 4 hour period they usually do several penetrations into the eye) rather than the 6 hour fixes if this were heading toward the US.
You can see in the image in the main post in this thread that the strong flight level wind recorded when recon was in the storm was around 25 nautical miles (nm) away from the center. Earlier there was an inner and outer eyewall. The inner one was eroding away, something you might actually be seeing on satellite right now still:
http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/TROP/floaters/08L/08L_floater.html
You can't trust appearances with this storm on satellite. Like Wilma, this storm had a pinhole eye at one point and at times has not looked like the category of hurricane it actually was. That inner eye had a diameter of 17 nautical miles earlier (20 miles) and the outer one 42 nautical miles. Then later they reported "ABOUT THIRD OF INNER EYEWALL REMAINS NW SIDE". So at the moment the eye is larger, meaning if the center point of the storm were 20 nautical miles from Bermuda, with a 40 nm wide eye, they would be in the worst spot. The eye may contract some. Maybe the process may repeat again by tomorrow with an eyewall replacement cycle. Who knows, the eye could be bigger or smaller. The NHC covers that here:
"No significant change in strength is forecast for the next 12
hours while Gonzalo remains over warm water with little shear,
although some fluctuations are possible due to internal eyewall
cycle dynamics."
Basically, that is not something that is predictable. It's just going to be a long wait for those on Bermuda taking shelter. |
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