APOD: Hurricane Irene Forms (2011 Aug 27)

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APOD: Hurricane Irene Forms (2011 Aug 27)

Post by APOD Robot » Sat Aug 27, 2011 4:06 am

Image Hurricane Irene Forms

Explanation: How does a hurricane form? Although a complete picture is still being researched, insight into this process might be gleaned by watching the above time lapse movie of the formation of Hurricane Irene, a large storm system currently threatening the eastern seaboard of the USA. Starting as a slight pressure difference visible as nondescript clouds on the lower right, Hurricane Irene is shown growing into large spiraling storm system of low pressure off the coast of South Carolina. A hurricane is powered by evaporating ocean water, and so typically gains strength over warm water and loses strength over land. Besides Earth, other planets that have hurricane-like storm systems include Venus, Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune. Much remains unknown about hurricanes and cyclones, including the exact path they will take.

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racerguy76

Re: APOD: Hurricane Irene Forms (2011 Aug 27)

Post by racerguy76 » Sat Aug 27, 2011 5:31 am

Here is some great footage from the ISS too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Za2411qL ... ture=share

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Re: APOD: Hurricane Irene Forms (2011 Aug 27)

Post by donalgary » Sat Aug 27, 2011 7:11 am

Why can't I see any trace of the day night cycle in the time lapse of hurricane Irene? Even if this is thermal imagery superimposed on a static background image I would expect the cloud top temperatures to change overnight. What's going on?

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Re: APOD: Hurricane Irene Forms (2011 Aug 27)

Post by orin stepanek » Sat Aug 27, 2011 12:12 pm

Very informative news about huricanes in this link. 8-) http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/hurricanes/
Orin

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Re: APOD: Hurricane Irene Forms (2011 Aug 27)

Post by Beyond » Sat Aug 27, 2011 2:40 pm

Well, looks like i was wrong when i said it can't get any more up to date and fresher than having a two day old super nova for an APOD. Irene is a now event. But why are they called Hurricanes? They don't travel very fast, as they only have one eye(no depth perception). They mostly blow everything around in circles.
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Re: APOD: Hurricane Irene Forms (2011 Aug 27)

Post by neufer » Sat Aug 27, 2011 2:55 pm

Click to play embedded YouTube video.
Beyond wrote:
Irene is a now event. But why are they called Hurricanes? They don't travel very fast, as they only have one eye(no depth perception). They mostly blow everything around in circles.
http://weather.about.com/od/h/g/huracan.htm wrote:
<<The American Meteorological Society defines the origin of the word hurricane as derived from ‘huracan’, a Taino and Carib god, or ‘hunraken’, the Mayan storm god. In fact, Mayan hieroglyphics show what may have been the first record of an Atlantic tropical cyclone. The Mayan people knew how to prevent storm damages – They lived inland.>>
http://hurricanes.caribseek.com/ wrote:
<<The name hurricane has its origin in the indigenous religions of old civilizations. The Mayan storm god was named Hunraken. A god considered evil by the Taino people of the Caribbean was called .

A hurricane is a type of tropical cyclone, that is an organized rotating weather system that develops in the tropics. Tropical cyclones are classified as follows:
  • Tropical Depression - An organized system of clouds and thunderstorms with a defined circulation and maximum sustained winds of 38 mph (33 knots) or less.

    Tropical Storm - An organized system of strong thunderstorms with a defined circulation and maximum sustained winds of 39 to 73 mph (34-63 knots).

    Hurricane - An intense tropical weather system with a well-defined circulation and maximum sustained winds of 74 mph (64 knots) or higher. Hurricanes rotate counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere.
In the western Pacific, hurricanes are called "typhoons," and similar storms in the Indian Ocean are called "cyclones".>>
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Re: APOD: Hurricane Irene Forms (2011 Aug 27)

Post by neufer » Sat Aug 27, 2011 3:18 pm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Bob wrote: Image
Robert Underdunk Terwilliger, better known
as Sideshow Bob is voiced by Kelsey Grammer


<<Hurricane Bob was one of the costliest hurricanes in New England history. Although it is not a widely known fact, Hurricane Bob was named after Bob Terwilliger, a popular character in early 90's from the show the Simpsons, because the cyclone looked like his hair and ended when he stepped on a rake. The second named storm and first hurricane of the 1991 Atlantic hurricane season, Bob developed from an area of low-pressure near The Bahamas on August 16. The depression steadily intensified, and became Tropical Storm Bob late on August 16. Bob curved north-northwestward after becoming a tropical storm, but re-curved to the north-northeast after becoming a hurricane on August 17. Bob brushed the Outer Banks of North Carolina as it moved north-northeastward on August 18 and August 19, and intensified into a major hurricane (Category 3+ Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale) shortly thereafter. After peaking with maximum sustained winds of 115 mph, Bob weakened slightly as it approached the coast of New England.

Bob made landfall twice in Rhode Island as a Category 2 hurricane on August 19, first on Block Island and then in Newport. Bob was the only hurricane to make U.S. landfall during the 1991 season. As it continued inland, Bob rapidly weakened, and deteriorated to a tropical storm as it emerged into the Gulf of Maine. Shortly thereafter, Bob made landfall in Maine as a strong tropical storm early on August 20. Bob entered the Canadian province of New Brunswick a few hours later, and transitioned into an extratropical storm. By August 21, the remnants of Bob crossed Newfoundland and re-emerged into the open Atlantic Ocean. The remnants of Bob traveled a long distance across the northern Atlantic Ocean, and finally dissipated west of Portugal on August 29.

Bob left extensive damage throughout New England, totaling to approximately $1.5 billion (1991 USD, $2.42 billion 2011 USD) in damage. In addition, seventeen fatalities were reported in association with Bob. The damage and fatalities that were reported were a result of high winds and rough seas. Bob is also the most recent hurricane to strike New England, as of 2010; Hurricane Edouard brought hurricane force winds to Nantucket in 1996, but the center itself stayed offshore. Due to extensive damage, the name Bob was retired in the spring of 1992, and was replaced with Bill starting in 1997.>>
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The Ocean City hurricane of 1933

Post by neufer » Sat Aug 27, 2011 4:06 pm

.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1933_Chesapeake%E2%80%93Potomac_hurricane wrote:
<<The 1933 Chesapeake-Potomac Hurricane was the eighth storm and third hurricane of the very active 1933 Atlantic hurricane season. The August storm formed in the central Atlantic, where it moved west-northwest. Aided by the warm ocean waters, the hurricane briefly reached Category 3 status on the Saffir–Simpson Hurricane Scale before making landfall along the Virginia/North Carolina coast as a Category 1 storm.

The hurricane caused severe damage along the East Coast of the United States. The state hardest hit by the storm was Virginia, where the center of circulation passed directly over Norfolk. The hurricane was the worst storm to strike Virginia until Hurricane Isabel of 2003. In Washington, D.C., the storm produced a storm surge of 11.3 feet, rainfall of 6.18 inches and winds of 50 mph. In Maryland, the hurricane caused $17 million dollars (1933 USD, $230 million 2005 USD) in damage to crops and buildings. The storm also destroyed a railroad bridge heading into Ocean City and created the Ocean City Inlet between the town and Assateague Island.>>
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Re: APOD: Hurricane Irene Forms (2011 Aug 27)

Post by neufer » Sat Aug 27, 2011 6:13 pm

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/28/us/28forecast.html wrote:
Predicting a Storm’s Intensity Proves Difficult
By HENRY FOUNTAIN: August 27, 2011

<<Irene may be the first hurricane to hit the East Coast in several years, but in one respect it is like all the others that have come and gone before it: forecasters have had difficulty predicting its strength.

While officials with the National Hurricane Center cautioned at mid-day Saturday that the storm was still capable of inflicting heavy damage, particularly from flooding, as it slogged toward New Jersey and New York, they said that it had decreased in intensity, with sustained wind speeds of about 85 miles an hour, down 10 miles an hour from just six hours before. And they acknowledged that they did not know precisely why it had weakened. “There’s some internal dynamics of the storm that we don’t completely understand,” said Todd Kimberlain, a hurricane specialist at the center in Miami.

Mr. Kimberlain said one reason for the weakening may be that the storm had never completed a typical hurricane cycle in which the innermost band of spinning clouds, called the inner eyewall, dissipates and is replaced with an outer band that contracts. “Some hurricanes get through this process, and afterward will strengthen,” he said. “But we don’t know what has to go on internally.” By never completing the cycle, Irene has become less organized, and although it is still a very wide storm, has lower peak winds.

Hurricanes also tend to strengthen over water that is warm and deep, and Irene may have passed over areas that are a bit shallower. “There are some peculiar aspects to the water in that part of the Atlantic,” Mr. Kimberlain said. But it’s very hard to know how the water may have affected Irene “because we don’t have observations everywhere.”

Mr. Kimberlain said despite the uncertainty about the storm’s strength, he was especially concerned about the potential for heavy rainfall, especially in parts of New York and New Jersey that have already received much rain in the past few weeks.

He also said the storm was still capable of producing a surge of 4 to 8 feet over normal tides in New Jersey and New York. Storm surges are only partly related to maximum wind speed; the size of the storm and its overall speed are important as well. Irene has winds over 39 miles an hour over an area about 500 miles wide, which would tend to create higher surges, but at about 15 miles an hour is relatively slow moving, which would tend to lessen them.

The problems in predicting Irene’s strength are typical, scientists say. Hurricane forecasting is far better at estimating where a storm will go. “We’ve had a wonderful history of improving tracking forecasts,” said Clifford Mass, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Washington who works on numerical modeling of storms. A hurricane, he said, is essentially like a top, and it’s relatively easy to gauge the steering winds and other forces that will move it. “But we have not gotten good in intensity forecasts,” Mr. Mass said. “To get the intensity right, we have to get the innards of the storm right.”

The problem is a lack of observational data; it’s very difficult to get information from the heart of a hurricane. Aircraft that fly into them do so at about 10,000 feet, far above the most intense winds and conditions. They carry radar that can gauge some conditions far below, and they also drop sensors on parachutes to measure wind speeds, air pressure and water temperatures. But it is not enough data to plug into a numerical model and can result in a forecast that has a high degree of certainty, Mr. Mass said.

Mr. Kimberlain said the difficulty in gauging a storm’s intensity led the National Hurricane Center to be cautious when updating its forecasts, as it has been doing every several hours in the case of Irene. “We’re slow to make changes to the forecast,” he said. “We’d rather be a little high than a little low.”>>
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Re: APOD: Hurricane Irene Forms (2011 Aug 27)

Post by owlice » Sat Aug 27, 2011 8:31 pm

neufer wrote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/28/us/28forecast.html wrote:“We’d rather be a little high than a little low.”>>
Wouldn't we all.
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Re: APOD: Hurricane Irene Forms (2011 Aug 27)

Post by bystander » Sun Aug 28, 2011 6:28 pm

Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk.
— Garrison Keillor

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Re: APOD: Hurricane Irene Forms (2011 Aug 27)

Post by bystander » Mon Aug 29, 2011 5:04 pm

Hurricane Irene - Updated August 29, 2011
Click to play embedded YouTube video.
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk.
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