Irene continues to weaken
Satellite data and measurements from the Hurricane Hunters show that Irene continues to weaken. A 1:32 pm EDT center fix by an Air Force Reserve aircraft found that Irene's eyewall is still gone, and the central pressure had risen to 951 mb from a low of 942 mb this morning. The winds measured in Irene near the surface support classifying it as a strong Category 1 hurricane or weak Category 2. Satellite imagery shows a distinctly lopsided appearance to Irene's cloud pattern, with not much heavy thunderstorm activity on the southwest side. This is due to moderate southwesterly wind shear of 10 - 20 knots. This shear is disrupting Irene's circulation and has cut off upper-level outflow along the south side of the hurricane. No eye is visible in satellite loops, but the storm's size is certainly impressive. Long range radar out of Wilmington, North Carolina, shows that the outermost spiral bands from Irene have moved ashore over North Carolina. Winds at buoy 41004 100 miles offshore from Charleston, SC increased to 47 mph, gusting to 60 mph at 3 pm EDT, with significant wave heights of 25 feet.
Figure 1. MODIS satellite image of Hurricane Irene taken at 11:50 am EDT Friday August 26, when Irene was a Category 2 hurricane with 105 mph winds. The eyewall collapsed several hours before this image was taken, and no eye is apparent. Image credit: a href=http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/ NASA.
Figure 2. Distribution of Irene's wind field at 3:30 pm EDT Friday August 26, 2011, as observed by the Hurricane Hunters and buoys. The right front quadrant of the hurricane had about 90% of the storm's hurricane-force winds (yellow and warmer colors, bounded by the heavy black line between the "50" and "60" knot thin black lines.) Tropical storm-force winds (heavy black like bounding the light blue area) extended out 290 miles from the center of Irene. Image credit: NOAA/AOML/HRD.
Forecast for Irene
With its eyewall collapsed and just 18 more hours over water before landfall, Irene does not have time to build a new eyewall and intensify. The storm is too large to weaken quickly, and the best forecast is that Irene will be a strong Category 1 hurricane at landfall in North Carolina on Saturday. Based on the latest wind analysis from NOAA's Hurricane Research Division (Figure 2) and Irene's continued weakening trend, I predict that the 80-mile section of North Carolina coast to the right of where Irene makes landfall will receive sustained hurricane-force winds of 75 - 85 mph on Saturday at landfall; the 80-mile section of coast to the left will receive 55 - 75 mph winds. High wind shear of 30 knots will begin ripping into Irene Sunday morning when it is near Southern New Jersey, and more rapid weakening will occur. By the time Irene arrives on Long Island Sunday afternoon, it will probably have top sustained winds in the 65 - 75 mph range. However, since Irene is such a huge storm--tropical storm force winds extend out up to 290 miles from the center--it has set a massive amount of the ocean's surface in motion, which will cause a much larger storm surge than the winds would suggest. At 3:30 pm EDT this afternoon, a wind analysis from NOAA/HRD (Figure 2) indicated that the potential storm surge damage from Irene still rated a 5.0 on a scale of 0 to 6. This is equivalent to the storm surge a typical Category 4 hurricane would have. While this damage potential should steadily decline as Irene moves northwards and weakens, we can still expect a storm surge one full Saffir-Simpson Category higher than Irene's winds when it impacts the coast. Since tides are at their highest levels of the month this weekend due to the new moon, storm surge flooding will be at a maximum during the high tidal cycles that will occur at 8 pm Saturday night and 8 am Sunday morning. Wherever Irene happens to be at those times, the storm surge damage potential will be maximized. I continue to give a 20% chance that a 3 - 4 foot storm surge high enough to over-top the Manhattan flood walls and swamp the New York City subway system will occur on Sunday. The latest 11 am probabilistic storm surge map from NHC shows a 20 - 30% chance of a storm surge in excess of 3 feet in New York Harbor (Figure 4.) Keep in mind that these maps are calculated for normal tide level, and this weekend's high tides will be nearly 1 foot above normal.
Insurance company AIR-Worldwide is estimating that insured damages from Irene in the U.S. will be $1.5 - $6 billion. They estimate losses in the Caribbean at $0.5 - $1.1 billion from Irene.
Figure 3. Storm surge heights, in feet above normal tide level, which have a 20 percent chance of being exceeded during the next 3 days. The graphic is based upon an ensemble of Sea, Lake, and Overland Surge from Hurricanes (SLOSH) model runs using the current National Hurricane Center (NHC) official hurricane advisory. The exceedance heights depend on the historical accuracy of NHCs forecasts of hurricane track, and wind speed, and an estimate of storm size. Image credit: NOAA.
Figure 4. Overall chance that storm surges will be greater than 3 feet above normal tide levels during the next 3 days. The graphic is based upon an ensemble of Sea, Lake, and Overland Surge from Hurricanes (SLOSH) model runs using the current National Hurricane Center (NHC) official hurricane advisory. Storm surge probabilities depend on the historical accuracy of NHCs forecasts of hurricane track, and wind speed, and an estimate of storm size. Image credit: NOAA.
Links
For those of you wanting to know your odds of receiving hurricane force or tropical storm force winds, I recommend the NHC wind probability product.
Wunderground has detailed storm surge maps for the U.S. coast.
The National Hurricane Center's Interactive Storm Surge RIsk Map, which allows one to pick a particular Category hurricane and zoom in, is a good source of storm surge risk information.
Wunderblogger Mike Theiss is in Nassau, documenting the storm's impact on the Bahamas.
Internet radio show on Irene at 4:30pm EDT
Wunderground meteorologists will be discussing Hurricane Irene on a special edition of our Internet radio show, the Daily Downpour, today (Friday) at 4:30pm EDT. Shaun Tanner , Tim Roche, Angela Fritz, and Rob Carver will take your questions. The email address to ask questions is broadcast@wunderground.com.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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Your kidding me?? They removed linking from that site? Unbelievable.
That was the best thing about monitoring Ike. W3e had all of those web cams to views on Galviston Beach area.
That's interesting to know.
Storm Relative 1km Geostationary Visible Imagery
If she continues to look this way over the next 3-6 hours I would agree completely with the NHC forecast, though there is still an outside chance of some reorganization. This is definitely good news for North Carolina though. Hopefully they will get off alright tonight, but it will be rough. I just saw a clip of waves already crashing through the tops of dock pilings on a beach in NC...could see some of those collapse later tonight.
Yeah that only just happened...its a joke.
WILMINGTON
Hurricane season going to get kicking even further now, Could see, according to the models, Katia or Lee in the next week or two... This is one Active season...
Oh wow. Yup, you're definitely in for a long night. Stay safe!
9:46 PM GMT on August 26, 2011
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hurricanehunterapp colallc/id456831217?mt=8
12Z GFS @ 144 hours.
What, did you skip Jose?
I'd be surprised if it wasn't downgraded later today.
you are 100 percent correct , the eye wall might not be full but this storm is acting different then normal canes..this is good because areas north (from its current point)will not get beat up..BUT it will be a storm that all in the area should be very aware of....
Yep. Great news. Turning into a perfect situation. I love riding out cat 1 or small cat 2 and just enjoying the force of mother nature without being scared out of my wits and having everything destroyed around me. Haha, if I wasn't surfing, I would load up car and drive to hang out in storm and surf OBX Sunday evening.
Excellent image showing the presence of a formative inner eyewall as RECON confirmed and then a secondary strong outer rainband around 80-90 miles from the center that is still trying wrestle control of the inner core.
In Texas Jose is a dime a dozen.....:>)
Time: 21:36:00Z
Coordinates: 31.8N 77.2667W
Acft. Static Air Press: 752.7 mb (~ 22.23 inHg)
Acft. Geopotential Hgt: 2,046 meters (~ 6,713 feet)
Extrap. Sfc. Press: 948.7 mb (~ 28.02 inHg)
D-value: -
Flt. Lvl. Wind (30s): From 42° at 9 knots (From the NE at ~ 10.3 mph)
Air Temp: 19.5°C (~ 67.1°F)
Dew Pt: 17.7°C (~ 63.9°F)
Peak (10s) Flt. Lvl. Wind: 12 knots (~ 13.8 mph)
SFMR Peak (10s) Sfc. Wind: 20 knots (~ 23.0 mph)
SFMR Rain Rate: 1 mm/hr (~ 0.04 in/hr)
(*) Denotes suspect data
Every image you posted came back with "Remote Linking Disabled" and a black box requesting to save the image and then upload it to a site like photobucket, etc. It's coming up that way for everyone linking to americanwx.com
Do you think Irene is starting to overcome the dry air..looks like it to me on satellite.
Need Jose first...
Not good.
Gulf pattern
As I noted. Don't have the patience to do all that work just for one image. Hope they find away around that issue.
Chances are low but far from impossible. With the way she looks now she's certainly running out of time to do so.
On Monday and Tuesday, Irene was supposed to be GOM. Long term steering forecast just seem like a waste of breathe as no one really has a clue. That being said, GOM is blocked and EC has a target on its coast.
Storm Relative 1km Geostationary Visible Imagery
is it gurranted the next storm recurves because the gfs in literally all of its runs recurves it
Eh, not concerned with it. It dropped all day yesterday, and the winds went down. I'll start worrying when the winds being found get higher.
REACHING SOUTHERN NEW ENGLAND.
This is great news.
Let me remind you Ike was a Category 2 and Irene hase the IKE (not the storm) of a Category 3 hurricane. Oh yeah and Ike was one of the costliest to hit the U.S. ever. Don't be so blase when it comes to this storm. They've already reported flooding in Georgia and North Caroline and the storm isn't supposed to get there for another 18 hours or so. The East is going to be in for a wild ride even if it's "only" a Category 1 storm.
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