Ernesto's Last Chance
Ernesto has finally cleared Florida, and is back over the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. The passage over the peninsula took a toll on Ernesto, and he's only a tropical depression at this point. Still, he's got some rain bands kicking up offshore and will probably become a tropical storm again soon. He's got a brief chance to strengthen before his date with the Carolinas, but won't get a chance to do much. At best he's got an outside chance at 55 mph winds. Most likely they'll be in the 45 mph range that Ernesto sustained across Cuba and South Florida.
The Pacific has the big stories of the day. Hurricane John is sliding up the Mexican coast. He was a Category 4 storm earlier today, but has dropped back to Category 3 with a current eyewall replacement cycle underway. He should be back up to Cat 4 tomorrow. The official track makes a sharp left turn once he reaches Baja California, but the model suite is dividing into two camps. The NOGAPS and GFDL want to keep John going northward instead of making that turn. Dr. Jeff Masters notes that theoretically one of the few ways that an Eastern Pacific hurricane could affect the U.S. is to go straight up the Gulf of California. The warm waters are there, but it's an incredibly long and narrow target for a storm, and none in history has managed to do it without hitting one of the coastlines and dissipating. I would note that the GFDL track is very close to going right up the right side right now, and has been trending slightly westward with each run. John may just be getting ready to try...
The other big Pacific story is Super Typhoon Ioke which is about to run over Wake Island. Ioke is packing an 18-foot storm surge (much lower than Katrina's because water has more room to spread out in the wide open Pacific, and has no shoreline to pile against) with a 50 foot significant wave height on top of that. Essentially this means that every third wave generated by Ioke is reaching up to 68 feet above sea level or higher. This will be more than enough to totally submerge Wake Island. The entire population has been evacuated to Hawaii, and nothing on the island except the concrete military structures is expected to remain after the storm.
Finally, John's little sister Kristy is just short of hurricane strength herself. She'll probably get a brief run as a hurricane out at sea, and there may be some interesting interactions between Kristy and John later on.
The Pacific has the big stories of the day. Hurricane John is sliding up the Mexican coast. He was a Category 4 storm earlier today, but has dropped back to Category 3 with a current eyewall replacement cycle underway. He should be back up to Cat 4 tomorrow. The official track makes a sharp left turn once he reaches Baja California, but the model suite is dividing into two camps. The NOGAPS and GFDL want to keep John going northward instead of making that turn. Dr. Jeff Masters notes that theoretically one of the few ways that an Eastern Pacific hurricane could affect the U.S. is to go straight up the Gulf of California. The warm waters are there, but it's an incredibly long and narrow target for a storm, and none in history has managed to do it without hitting one of the coastlines and dissipating. I would note that the GFDL track is very close to going right up the right side right now, and has been trending slightly westward with each run. John may just be getting ready to try...
The other big Pacific story is Super Typhoon Ioke which is about to run over Wake Island. Ioke is packing an 18-foot storm surge (much lower than Katrina's because water has more room to spread out in the wide open Pacific, and has no shoreline to pile against) with a 50 foot significant wave height on top of that. Essentially this means that every third wave generated by Ioke is reaching up to 68 feet above sea level or higher. This will be more than enough to totally submerge Wake Island. The entire population has been evacuated to Hawaii, and nothing on the island except the concrete military structures is expected to remain after the storm.
Finally, John's little sister Kristy is just short of hurricane strength herself. She'll probably get a brief run as a hurricane out at sea, and there may be some interesting interactions between Kristy and John later on.
posted by grishnash at 9:15 PM
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