re: Hurricane Maria - Visiting the Outer Banks before Moving OTS

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Okay Duke, time to teach 50 something new. WTF is a hot tower

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Big arse convective burst. They look like wrinkly clouds on a sat image. Those burst cool the hell out of the warm air it's picking up (those black, grey, and even pink colors on IR showing super cold cloud tops), liberating all sorts of heat energy for work.

Seeing those indicates a storm is rapidly gaining strength.

To quote the article I shared with it:

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Enough water vapor was condensing into rain inside of this cell that rapid updrafts developed, rapid enough to lift the precipitation until it froze and then even higher until it penetrated (lol) into the lower stratosphere at 16.75 km altitude," said Owen Kelley of NASA Goddard's Precipitation Processing System.. 

"This tall cell (also known as a "hot tower") was part of a sequence of such cells that were seen by infrared satellite instruments, such as the one on the recently launched GOES-16 satellite. Meanwhile, Maria put on an unexpectedly fast intensification from category 1 to category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson scale on Monday (Sept. 18)."

Research conducted at NASA, at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and elsewhere suggests that a sequence of hot towers, also known as a "convective burst," is one a way to detect that a hurricane's heat engine going into high gear.  The end result is intensified winds circling the eye at the ocean's surface.

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Learn something new every day! Thanks guys!

A bit of a silver lining here, but neither the GFS nor the Euro indicate any additional tropical activity over the next 10 days.

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Big arse convective burst. They look like wrinkly clouds on a sat image. Those burst cool the hell out of the warm air it's picking up (those black, grey, and even pink colors on IR showing super cold cloud tops), liberating all sorts of heat energy for work.

Seeing those indicates a storm is rapidly gaining strength.

To quote the article I shared with it:

quote:
Enough water vapor was condensing into rain inside of this cell that rapid updrafts developed, rapid enough to lift the precipitation until it froze and then even higher until it penetrated (lol) into the lower stratosphere at 16.75 km altitude," said Owen Kelley of NASA Goddard's Precipitation Processing System.. 

"This tall cell (also known as a "hot tower") was part of a sequence of such cells that were seen by infrared satellite instruments, such as the one on the recently launched GOES-16 satellite. Meanwhile, Maria put on an unexpectedly fast intensification from category 1 to category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson scale on Monday (Sept. 18)."

Research conducted at NASA, at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and elsewhere suggests that a sequence of hot towers, also known as a "convective burst," is one a way to detect that a hurricane's heat engine going into high gear.  The end result is intensified winds circling the eye at the ocean's surface.

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Convective burst are still poorly understood and there is still a lot of uncertainty to what role they play in hurricane strengthening and maintenance but they appear play a key role. The problem with studying them is that they are storm scale features (smaller than mesoscale) that don't last very long. It appears that CBs closer to the center, with higher vertical velocities and higher rain rates are associated with better storm structure and chances for intensification. The other problem with them is that they can't be resolved by current computer models and can't be predicted. Maria is in a relatively low shear environment and the mesovorts in the eye (clearly seen on sat images) will play a role in future CBs since they can force mixing between the eye and eyewall.

Looks like a thread with good info. Thanks guys. I'm just lurking.


.... or maybe I could be the one to make it more interesting. Should I give you my gut feeling, cuss you out for the cone existence or because you are too dumb to use triangles. <- joking of course.

Thanks for sharing info.

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How the hell does Venezuela have anything to aid anyone with?

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I was thinking the same thing.

I know these storms will wobble, but I don't recall a storm that has wobbled more than Maria:



I guess this was to be expected with a name like Maria.

A lot going on with those convective burst and wanes going on and the little eye shows all the little movements I suppose.

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I guess this was to be expected with a name like Maria.

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Keeping it SWF really limited my opportunities.

Hints of a second big eyewall showing up on radar now. Little dry slot on the NW side, looks like higer reflectivity wrapping around. Glad recon is inbound to confirm, since we don't have a full picture from SJ.

And yeah, I bet the second plane is sampling the upper levels to help the models out some.