A strange 2011 Eastern Pacific hurricane season
The Eastern Pacific's late season surprise, Hurricane Kenneth, is falling apart nearly as fast as it intensified. Kenneth, now a Category 1 hurricane with 90 mph winds, was a powerful Category 4 storm with 145 mph winds yesterday, and was by far the strongest hurricane to appear so late in the year in either the Eastern Pacific or Atlantic Oceans. Kenneth is moving over colder water and into a region with higher wind shear, and will continue to deteriorate over the next few days. Kenneth is not a threat to any land areas.
Figure 1. GOES-West satellite image of Hurricane Kenneth taken at 11 am EST November 22, 2011. Image credit: NOAA Visualization Lab.
The 2011 Eastern Pacific hurricane season: a strange one
Hurricane season officially ends next week on November 30 in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and it is likely that we won't see any more named storms in either basin. It was a strange hurricane season in the Eastern Pacific, but in the opposite sense of the Atlantic's strange season. The 2011 Eastern Pacific hurricane season featured a well below-average number of named storms--eleven (fifteen is average). However, all but one of these storms reached hurricane strength, the highest proportion of hurricanes in a single season ever recorded. Six of the hurricanes became intense hurricanes, double the normal. An average Eastern Pacific hurricane season has 15 named storms, 8 hurricanes, and 3 intense hurricanes. It is common for an Eastern Pacific hurricane season to have fewer named storms than usual during a La Niña year, like this year. It is unusual to have so many hurricanes and intense hurricanes in a La Niña year. The only La Niña years to record so many intense hurricanes in the Eastern Pacific were 1971 and 1985 (six and eight intense hurricanes, respectively.) The strongest Eastern Pacific storm of 2011 was Hurricane Dora, which topped out as a Category 4 hurricane with 155 mph winds. The deadliest cyclone was Tropical Depression 12-E, which made landfall near the Mexico/El Salvador border on October 13. At least 105 people died in Central America due to TD 12-E's flooding rains. El Salvador recorded an astonishing 1.51 meters (4.96') of rain in a ten-day period due to TD 12-E and its remnants.
Figure 2. Tracks from the 2011 Eastern Pacific hurricane season.
Have a great holiday weekend, everyone, and I'll be back Friday with a new post.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 — Blog Index
Yeah I like to take a gander at his Blog every now and then as your right he is one of the best out there.
I will take a look at Tambora too... History tells us that it is not IF another large eruption will occur, but 'when'. The problem with the 'when' is that our individual life time is so short (77 yr. avg), geologically speaking, that you and I have a good chance of missing the next big, global scale, eruption. But it is interesting, nonetheless.
Don't you just hate a longish one and it disappears...
No problem! GFS does do well with CV systmes I must say.
Given the tellies and the overall setup. I'd Go with the GFS/NAM/SERP or at least a compromise between the Euro/Ukie and those three models above.
If it breaks-off, eastern Tennessee/northern Georgia/upstate north-south Carolina looks to be the spot before moving northeastwards towards Cape Hatteras. The Euro cuts-off the low too far west given the overall synoptics.
I'll try again.
- Depends what you mean by mini ice age. Taking into account the last ice age compared to now, the temperature difference was something around 6c or so (at least in temperate areas, some places had a more drastic drop, others not so much).
- Krakatoa and Pinatubo dropped temps by a degree or two at VEI 6. Krakatoa and certainly Tambora (at VEI 7) caused volcanic winter conditions (some places had average drops of 3c due to Tambora), but this was still quite a way short of a mini ice age. Obviously, ice ages can be a little warmer than the last 'Younger Dryas' one.
- To put in perspective, as well known and powerful Krakatoa was, there have been at least two, if not three more powerful eruptions in just the last millennium (Taupo [Hatepe], Tambora and possibly Changbaishan. There may have been another c.535AD, but this is unverifiable). None of those caused ice age conditions, but the climate must've been wild.
- To cause such a huge drop in temps from now would require some serious volcanism. You're probably looking at a higher end VEI 7 at least, but more likely a VEI 8. Toba was suspected by some to maybe have hastened glacial conditions, though it's disputed. These are for the more 'explosive' (ignimbrite?) eruptions. That said, even Toba may not have done. Did even La Garita?
- Flood basalts are more likely to cause such a drastic change as they tend to pump out more gases which cause these effects (such as LIPs like Iceland; see Siberian, Deccan traps). Outpourings on such a large scale are rare, often with big continental or tectonic rifting. However, it may be more of a cumulative effect as opposed to a sudden change. It may cause similar conditions, but it would be built up over years, maybe even longer.
- Of course, that's all based on a volcanic inducing ice age-esque condition sequence. A 3C drop globally, for example, would be horrible on its own (with all the weird climatic dysfunction on top of that).
Yellowstone's got a long time to go (at least the big eruption. It may well have hydrothermal explosions and smaller magmatic ones in the meantime). The last one was 640,000 years ago (low end 8). 650,000 previous to that was the Henry's Fork Caldera.
'course, some think that it's due anytime due to a similar distance of time between the last two. It could go whenever it likes, that's volcanoes. However, the 1.3mya eruption was much less powerful than the one 650k ago (280km3 to 1,000km3 or such). Prior to the 1.3mya eruption, there was a 2.1mya eruption (which was a lot larger). So, looking at a 800,000 year gap at least. This isn't including the Yellowstone hotspot's tendency to drift, meaning there are some occasions of relative non-activity (say the gap between Yellowstone and Heise, which is just over 2 million years).
As the last one was an 8 and it needs time to reload if you will, suspect that it may be quiet for a loooooong time yet. Naturally, we don't understand the big beasts of the volcanic world that well yet.
Taupo, another supervolcano, is much more active.
There's calm in your eye.
And I'm gettin' blown away
To somewhere safer where the feeling stays.
I want to love you but I'm getting blown away."
? No it hasn't...Its like this every year.
Tambora has erupted since 1815 and it has been largely small eruptions. It takes a long time to recover all the magma and such that it belched out so destructively two hundred years ago. It's highly probable to be another smaller eruption as opposed to something cataclysmic.
Either way any VEI 7+ will not be good. Definitely not for the immediate area and possible the globe will have some consequences.
Looking at populations in the area, it appears that much larger groups of people now live in the path of these potential eruptions. (not just Tambora and Anak Krakatoa)
ESL by LSU
New Loop Current Eddy in the Gulf of Mexico
i think i like it better when the tropics were more active, lol
That's pretty far north Pat. Thanks for sharing!
Coastal Flood Statement
Statement as of 5:57 AM CST on November 25, 2011
The combination of high seasonal tides and moderate onshore winds will produce above normal tides this evening. This may cause minor coastal inundation of low lying areas outside of hurricane protection levees for a few hours around high tide from this evening to just after midnight on Saturday.
The affected areas will be the lowest lying... coastal shell roads and community roads and ditches near the coast.
98B getting act together:D
You get used to the sudden quiet down of the blog a few seasons in, this is going to be my 7th post-season on WU.
National Weather Service New Orleans la
630 am CST Friday Nov 25 2011
Long term...
still have a fairly wide range of solutions for the up coming system to affect the area. Anything from a fast moving open wave which swings a cold front through the County Warning Area by Saturday evening.
On the other end of the spectrum is the European model (ecmwf) which is slower with the boundary and actually cuts off an upper low at the base of the trough near
MS/Alabama and doesnt eject out till later on Tuesday.
For this forecast thinking was to take what seems like the best compromise of these models and so went with the cmc(canadian). It is in the middle of
the two extremes in timing and while it does close off a low it does keep this feature on the move and tracks it out of the area progressively.
Doing this also helps to keep some consistency from
forecast to forecast sent out. Little change made in temperatures through the period but some will be noted in probability of precipitation which may need to be
increased even more.
Should be dry forecast for a few days after this weekend/S system
moves through. Expect below normal temperatures Sunday through probability the rest
of the forecast period.
Meffer
: )
...all the other kid's with their pumped up Kick's..
Oh, definitely. The world would feel it if such a big eruption occurred. It would be difficult to deal with (depending on which volcano went ultra-plinian) at any time, but in times of economic difficulty that we currently endure, it'd be even worse. That's globally, not even just the immediate blast radius.
Of course, for immediate areas, it doesn't have to be so powerful. As Pompeii so graphically shows, it doesn't have to be all powerful to cause unbelievable damage (Vesuvius' eruption of 79 was about a 5). Guess that's why there's specific attention is paid to some volcanoes (though interestingly, Anak Krakatoa is not a decade volcano).
We've been lucky in a way that so far in the Holocene epoch, there hasn't been a truly gigantic eruption. Even the VEI7s have all been in the lower end of that spectrum (100-180km3).
Speaking of large eruptions, a BBC drama depicted the Minoan eruption (Santorini, borderline 6/7) which was aired earlier this year. Think it's on youtube somewhere if someone was so inclined to see it.
Location, Location, Location...
I found the youtube on Minoan eruption, sounds like it was narrated by Leonard Nemoy..
2011 - The unusual Atlantic Hurricane season. 11/25/11
Changbai Shan...are you sure? That includes the famous Mt. Baekdu, which recently saw enough increased activity that the two Koreas' vulcanologists collaborated to set up scientific monitoring on the mountain in the past year or two.
(2011, November 2) Korea, Japan to Monitor Volcanic Activity on Mt. Baekdu
NEW BLOG
Oh, how times have changed...Eh, Pat?
Oh'll deyh audeh keets viffs daahr po'ompde auehp keegkz zdey betdah RRAHN RRAHN RRAHN...fesstah daahn mahf booleet
Happy post-Thanksgiving Black Friday to Americans.
Speaking of cartoons. ;)
">
More info compiled by Houston-Galveston NWS office is here. Their drought information statement gives details. Current statement is from November 18 and will be updated on Dec. 2.
I noticed the picture of a guy with stacks of soda cans in the walls of his house to provide insulation. I knew someone who tried doing that. Turned out they made great roach motels.
Viewing: 401 - 441
Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 — Blog Index