Posted on 09/16/2003 1:13:54 AM PDT by My Favorite Headache
Hurricane Isabel is falling apart and fast. Re-Con planes have been flying in the storm since midnight and the entire west quad of the storm has disappeared. The eastern portion of the storm has a wind around 110KTS. There is discussion that re-strengthening will occour within 24 hours though so this still remains a threat.
Pressure has dramatically risen as well. Discussion currently is Isabel making landfall in either Northern South Carolina or Southern North Carolina and a due north move after landfall. Thinking is a landfalling Category 2 minimal 3 storm.
I will venture that the 5PM will be even lower and that her winds will be 105-115. She seems to be holding her own. It is looking more and more like she is going to pull a Hugo/Hazel on us.
Please forgive my ignorance, but what are the implications that the central pressure has dropped???
Thanks.
That said the rate it has risen is slowing. Overnight she went from 938 to 956. In the last 6 hours she has only raised from 956 to 959.
I still hold that she will start getting better organized over the next couple days.
I hope it falls apart. I'm planning an outdoor party in upstate NY on Saturday and don't want the rain.
Don't sweat it, I saw your post and said "Hey, He's right it was 966 this morning" - so I compounded it.
a NOAA hurricane hunter aircraft reported that the central pressure continues to slowly rise and the eye has become poorly defined on a radar image transmitted from the aircraft. Peak flight-level winds were 105 kt in the northwest quadrant from 7000 ft...which would support surface winds of about 90 kt. This makes Isabel a category two hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale. Water vapor imagery continues to show dry air in the western part of the circulation... and the convection has weakened markedly over past few hours. Recent images...however...show an improvement in the outflow pattern northwest of the center. The initial motion is 330/7. There has been no significant change to the track forecast. Isabel is on the west side of a deep-layer ridge extending from the Canadian Maritimes south-southeastward to east of the hurricane. A broad area of westerly flow is over the central and eastern United States...with a shortwave trough lifting northeastward through the Great Lakes. Large-scale models indicate that the ridge should build westward as the shortwave lifts out... which should cause Isabel to move in a general north- northwesterly direction through 72 hr. With the deterioration of the central core...additional weakening seems likely over the next 24 hours. Most of the model guidance continues to show increasing anticyclonic outflow over Isabel as a result of a digging and negatively-tilted upper-level trough that should interact with the hurricane in the 24 hours prior to landfall. For this reason...the official forecast allows for some restrengthening. It is possible...however...that the circulation could become so disrupted over the next day or so that Isabel would be unable to respond to the more favorable upper-level forcing. Forecaster Franklin |
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