Masters' blog
Posted by
cypresstx on 6/15/2015, 2:14 pm
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=3018
a few bits:
Although 91L has tropical storm-force winds, the plane has not yet found a well-defined surface circulation, and the system did not qualify to be named Tropical Storm Bill by the National Hurricane Center on Monday morning. Satellite images showed that 91L's heavy thunderstorms have increased in intensity, and were beginning to consolidate near the low-level center of circulation, which was becoming much more defined.
Michael Lowry, hurricane specialist with The Weather Channel, points out that three of the five wettest tropical cyclones on record for the U.S. mainland occurred in Texas, and none of them attained hurricane strength.
The "brown ocean effect" and how it could keep 91L going
Tropical cyclones normally dissipate soon after coming ashore, but research over the last few years has shown how it's possible for a tropical cyclone to maintain its strength or even intensify over land. The most dramatic example is Tropical Storm Erin, which weakened to a depression after landfall on the Texas coast before unexpectedly strengthening over west central Oklahoma three days later. On the night of August 18-19, 2007. Erin's central pressure dropped from 1007 to 995 mb, and its peak sustained surface winds jumped from less than 25 mph to around 60 mph. A 2011 study in Monthly Weather Review led by Clark Evans (now at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) found that large amounts of latent heat being released from unusually wet soils appear to have helped boost the storm's intensity, although Evans is continuing to investigate the role of other factors. |
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