Earl poised to rapidly intensify ; now pounding northern Lesser Antilles
It's time to make final preparations and get ready to ride out the storm if you live in the northern Lesser Antilles Islands tonight, as Hurricane Earl is on your doorstep. Earl continues to intensify steadily, though not explosively. An Air Force Hurricane Hunter aircraft found a central pressure of 972 mb at 7:38 pm EDT. This is a significant drop of 13 mb in ten hours. As is usually the case, it takes six or so hours for a hurricane's winds to respond to a major pressure change, and Earl's winds are now beginning to ramp up. Top flight level winds at 10,000 feet seen by the Air Force were 106 mph. Using the usual rule of thumb that the surface winds are 90% of the 10,000 foot flight level winds gives one surface winds of 97 mph, which is right at the border of Cat 1/ Cat 2 strength. Top winds seen at the surface by the Air Force's SFMR instrument were lower, 78 mph, but a NOAA research P-3 in the storm recently saw surface winds of 88 mph. I expect that the Air Force will be measuring Cat 2 surface winds before their mission is over tonight. Martinique radar shows that Earl has a large, 35 mile wide eye. Earl initially formed a smaller eye, but this collapsed almost immediately, and the larger diameter eyewall took over--kind of an instant eyewall replacement cycle right as the eye initially formed, something I don't recall ever seeing before. The latest eye report from 7:38 pm EDT showed that the temperature difference from outside the eye to inside the eye had increased from 3°C to 8°C in just 1 1/2 hours. This is a huge spike in temperature, and indicates that Earl may be on the verge of a period of more rapid deepening, which will likely carry it to Category 3 or 4 strength by Monday night. Recent satellite imagery shows the storm is lopsided, with much more intense thunderstorm activity on the southern side. This is due to 10 knots of wind shear from strong northerly upper level winds, courtesy of the outflow from Hurricane Danielle. This shear has steadily decreased today, and will continue to decrease tonight and Monday.
Figure 1. Radar image of Earl taken at 8:45 pm AST. Image credit: Meteo France.
Track forecast for Earl
Latest radar animations out of Martinique and St. Maarten show that the eye of Earl is on track to pass just to the northeast of the islands of Barbuda, St. Barthelemy, Anguilla, and St. Maartin in the northernmost Lesser Antilles Islands tonight and Monday morning. Since the eye is so wide, it appears that portions of the southern eyewall will pass over these islands. The southern eyewall is where the NOAA aircraft just measured 88 mph winds, so Barbuda could well see sustained winds of 90 mph for a period of up to two hours, since the storm is moving near 14 mph and has a 35-mile wide eye. Since Earl will probably start intensifying rapidly in the next few hours, Anguilla, the last island in the path of Earl's southern eyewall, could see sustained winds near 95 - 105 mph between 7am - 9am AST. These are worst-case scenarios, and hopefully Earl's southern eyewall will barely miss these islands, bringing winds just below hurricane force.
The latest set of model runs (18Z, 2pm EDT) show Earl shooting the gap between Bermuda and the U.S. East Coast over the next five days, and none of the models take Earl ashore over the U.S. North Carolina is now outside the cone of uncertainty. Recall that the average error in a 5-day track forecast is about 300 miles, so it is still too early to be confident Earl will miss the U.S. The most likely landfall location, were Earl to hit the U.S., would be Cape Cod, Massachusetts. A more likely landfall location appears to be Nova Scotia or Newfoundland, but it is too early to say which province is most at risk.
Hurricane History for the northern Lesser Antilles
The last hurricane to pass through the northern Lesser Antilles Islands was Category 4 Hurricane Omar, on October 16, 2008. Omar's eyewall missed all of the islands, but the storm did $80 million in damage to the Caribbean, mainly on the islands of Antigua, Barbuda, Dominica, the SSS Islands (Saba, St. Eustatius, and St. Maarten), and the U.S. Virgin Islands. No direct deaths were attributed to Omar, and the name Omar was not retired from the 6-year rotating list of hurricane names.
Links to track Earl
Martinique radar
St. Maarten radar
Wundermap of the northern Lesser Antilles Islands
St. Maarten weather history for August 29
Long range radar out of San Juan, Puerto Rico (now back up!)
Visible rapid scan satellite loop
I'll have a full update in the morning.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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ponce es ponce. no wind, slight rain, testigos de jehova outside knocking doors, business as usual. :)
5-3-2
We're not even in September yet lol...
KK5, I totally agree. And it had better due it before Earl gets real big. Not sure what law of Physics defines it, but a large mass moving in one direction becomes much harder (slower) to change direction especially when you consider the interaction between the storm and the ocean/land acting as a drag on a turning movement of such a mass.
That is a totally untrue comment. The storm does not know what is "underneath" it. It is complete fluid dynamics. Earl will respond to the path of least resistance regardless of size or as you said "mass".
Interia, but it's based on mass and acceleration, so if Earl's forward movement slows, it would more than offset the size increase.
Trust the models, there is a tight consensus.
SFMR Peak (10s) Sfc. Wind: 105 knots (~ 120.7 mph)
SFMR Rain Rate: 30 mm/hr (~ 1.18 in/hr)
central preassure 957mb 105kts 120,7 mph
Floyd
Rita
Katrina
Ike
Danielle
All 5 made turns in excess of 30 degrees in a short time.
Lets hope its the begining of the expected turn to the north.
Looking at the water vapor, it seems this will get dangerously close to the Carolinas, then skirt the Northeast brining quite a scare for them. Even if it turns north early, it's good for PR, but doesn't mean much for the Northeast and Canada.
Hopefully it will be a trend and not a wobble, but as you said in anither post it means little to the East Coast unless it makes a definite turn to the North or NNW.
Hopefully it will be a trend and not a wobble, but as you said in anither post it means little to the East Coast unless it makes a definite turn to the North or NNW.
000
WTNT42 KNHC 302047
TCDAT2
HURRICANE EARL DISCUSSION NUMBER 22
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL072010
500 PM AST MON AUG 30 2010
THE RECONNAISSANCE AIRCRAFT MEASURED 116 KT FLIGHT-LEVEL WINDS AND
108 KT SFMR SURFACE WINDS SHORTLY AFTER 1500 UTC. THIS WAS THE
BASIS FOR THE EARLIER INCREASE IN INTENSITY. SINCE THAT TIME...THE
PRESSURE HAS CONTINUED TO DROP AND WAS DOWN TO 955 MB ON THE LAST
DROPSONDE RELEASED IN THE EYE AROUND 1700 UTC. SINCE THE AIRCRAFT
DEPARTED EARL...THE EYE HAS CONTINUED TO CLEAR AND IS SURROUNDED BY
CLOUD TOPS TO -70 DEGREES CELSIUS OR COLDER. OBJECTIVE SATELLITE
INTENSITY ESTIMATES HAVE INCREASED TO JUST ABOVE 6.0 ON THE DVORAK
SCALE AND SUPPORT AN INITIAL INTENSITY OF 115 KT...CATEGORY FOUR ON
THE SAFFIR-SIMPSON HURRICANE WIND SCALE.
EARL IS EXPECTED TO REMAIN IN A LOW SHEAR ENVIRONMENT AND OVER WARM
WATER DURING THE NEXT FEW DAYS AND SOME ADDITIONAL STRENGTHENING IS
LIKELY IN THE SHORT TERM. THEREAFTER...EYEWALL CYCLES WILL LIKELY
INDUCE SOME FLUCTUATIONS IN INTENSITY...WHICH ARE DIFFICULT TO
PREDICT. THE NHC FORECAST IS AGAIN NEAR THE HIGH END OF THE
INTENSITY GUIDANCE. AT DAYS 4 AND 5...THE HURRICANE IS FORECAST TO
MOVE OVER COOLER WATER AND INTO AN AREA OF INCREASING SHEAR WHICH
SHOULD RESULT IN WEAKENING.
THE INITIAL MOTION IS 290/13. THE FORECAST REASONING REMAINS
UNCHANGED AS EARL IS EXPECTED TO TURN NORTHWESTWARD IN ABOUT 24
HOURS AROUND THE WESTERN PERIPHERY OF THE SUBTROPICAL RIDGE. THE
TRACK GUIDANCE HAS SHIFTED NOTICEABLY WESTWARD DURING THE FIRST
48 HOURS...WITH THE GFS AND ECMWF ON THE EASTERN EDGE OF THE
ENVELOPE. THE OFFICIAL FORECAST HAS BEEN ADJUSTED WESTWARD...
PRIMARILY THROUGH 72 HOURS...AND LIES BETWEEN THE GFS/ECMWF AND THE
MULTI-MODEL CONSENSUS.
THIS IS A GOOD TIME TO REMIND EVERYONE THAT NHC AVERAGE TRACK
FORECAST ERRORS ARE 200 TO 300 MILES AT DAYS 4 AND 5. GIVEN THIS
UNCERTAINTY...IT IS TOO SOON TO DETERMINE WHAT PORTION OF THE U.S.
EAST COAST MIGHT SEE DIRECT IMPACTS FROM EARL.
FORECAST POSITIONS AND MAX WINDS
INITIAL 30/2100Z 19.3N 64.7W 115 KT
12HR VT 31/0600Z 20.2N 66.3W 125 KT
24HR VT 31/1800Z 21.7N 68.1W 130 KT
36HR VT 01/0600Z 23.4N 70.1W 130 KT
48HR VT 01/1800Z 25.8N 72.1W 125 KT
72HR VT 02/1800Z 31.6N 74.7W 115 KT
96HR VT 03/1800Z 38.0N 71.0W 95 KT
120HR VT 04/1800Z 45.5N 63.0W 70 KT...INLAND
Viewing: 2301 - 2321
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