Tropical weather
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In the last day, Hurricane Patricia in the Eastern Pacific Ocean has reached an unprecedented pressure of 880 mb and sustained winds of 200 mph with gusts to 250 mph. This is the strongest hurricane ever measured, although some past storms may have surpassed it but were not directly measured. No doubt its rapid growth…
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What do we expect this coming winter now that the strong El Niño is here? Mike Halpert of NOAA discusses the likely conditions across the US in the Climate.gov blog post here and shows the variation of previous El Niño winters from strong to weak years. Even in the strong years, there is still quite…
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You probably could not guess it from our quiet Atlantic tropical season, but 2015 has already experienced a record number of tropical storms this year. According to Minnesota Public Radio meteorologist Paul Huttner in this blog post, this year has set new records in both number and intensity of the storms, based on extremely active Pacific…
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The 11 pm forecast track for Hurricane Joaquin shows the tendency toward moving the track east is continuing, with the latest track now holding the center of the storm well off the East Coast as it travels north. This will result in less hurricane-based impacts from the storm in the Southeast. The 10:30 pm infrared NOAA…
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As of 2 pm, Hurricane Joaquin is now considered a dangerous category 4 hurricane with winds of 130 mph battering parts of the Bahama Islands. The latest projected path keeps it off shore, although there is still a lot of range in what the models are predicting. However, the strong flow around the storm directing…
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My meteorologist friends have been filling up social media today with the latest information on Hurricane Joaquin, currently a strong category 2 storm in the Atlantic Ocean. (Note: at 11 pm it was increased to a major Category 3 hurricane.) It is moving slowly southwest now but is expected to make a sharp right turn and…
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Hurricane specialists have noted that this has been one of the quietest hurricane seasons in the Western Atlantic since records began. You have to go back to 1914 to find a year with so few hurricanes in that region (through September 22). A number of news articles have been written about this hurricane “drought”, including this one…