Hurricane Ophelia

[styropyro]

I'm a weather nut so I've been following this storm intensely. Definitely an interesting storm breaking records. The 2017 hurricane season has produced a TON of crazy storms.

But instead the hurricane is thriving of the temperature difference. IIRC, due to coincidence of the jet streams current location, it is putting warm water on one side of the storm and cold water the other, allowing convection and the storm to gather strength where it shouldn’t.

I think the storm is actually thriving from the cold upper atmosphere, not from the gradient in sea surface temperatures. Hurricanes operate like a Carnot heat engine, gathering energy from the difference in temperature between the Earth surface and upper atmosphere. Usually you need hot sea temps to fire a hurricane, but even if the sea isn't super warm, a very cold upper atmosphere can still drive the development of hurricanes due to the large delta T. (see Carnot's theorem.)

The storm is already losing its tropical characteristics, but as the US saw with Sandy, that does not mean conditions will improve. Hybrid storms can be particularly nasty because for one, they don't immediately fall apart over land. If global temps keep rising the way they have been, it is likely that we will see more hybrid storms reaching northern latitudes.

I love crazy weather...so can you send a hybrid storm here instead?? The closest thing we ever got to a hurricane here was this weird super derecho in 2009. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_2009_Southern_Midwest_derecho

 

[CurtisOliver]

Thanks Jerry.
Well, Ophelia is currently a Cat 1 off the coast of Portugal where it was meant to of died as a hurricane. It appears it will lose its hurricane status closer to Ireland than before. It is expected to become a strong extra tropical storm just before landfall resulting in hurricane force winds, heavy rainfall and possible storm surges. It is too early to say what the exact track will be but any Irish members please take care especially. Most of Ireland will have to expect very stormy conditions.

Edit: Styropyro, thanks for your input. I knew it had something to do with a temp difference but couldn’t remember what. It sure is behaving very strange. I saved the satellite images of this storm for future reference.

 

[BowtieGuy]

Best of luck to you guys over there in the UK, hopefully things will fall apart enough so that no damage is done!

I love crazy weather...so can you send a hybrid storm here instead?? The closest thing we ever got to a hurricane here was this weird super derecho in 2009. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_2009_Southern_Midwest_derecho

I think the only crazy weather you're likely to see in Illinois is a nasty tornado, which is crazy enough for me.

 

[CurtisOliver]

Thanks Jeff. Believe it or not the problem is it falling apart now. There won’t be enough time for it to lose its danger, and if it falls apart it will affect a greater area.

 

[3DLaSeRBuiLDeR]

Where did Ophelia move now?
Let's hope it goes as far as possible! otherwise we'll let you see the Blue Metallic Tarantula! and then let's see if it goes away​

 

[CurtisOliver]

It is now heading towards the British Isles as we speak. The winds could arrive by 2am the next morning and the actual storm could arrive by 8am according to the NHC.

 

[3DLaSeRBuiLDeR]

mh .... hopefully good then!
Fingers crossed !​

 

[styropyro]

Ophelia making the extratropical transtion:

I think the only crazy weather you're likely to see in Illinois is a nasty tornado, which is crazy enough for me.

Yeah we get our share of tornadoes. This happened 4 years ago, just a 15 minute drive from my house! IL may not be in the main tornado alley but we get a lot of very strong fall/winter tornadoes.

 

[CurtisOliver]

That storm is as big as Ireland.

 

[3DLaSeRBuiLDeR]

Crazy....! how many victims? how many estimated damages?​

 

[CurtisOliver]

Ophelia is starting to make landfall on the South coast of Ireland now, and over 15000 are without power already. Yet, here in the southeast England this morning had an eerie sense of peacefulness about it. There was no wind here up until a few hours ago. Nice sunshine as well. London is only expected to catch the spinning tail of it while Ireland is looking nasty.

Edit: Make that around 100,000 without power now.

The wind is starting to pick up a bit here in London, even though we are not in the path. I feel sorry for those who are in the path. We're expected to get nothing really apart from higher than average temps and sunshine.

 

[3DLaSeRBuiLDeR]

100,000 without electricity? bestial the thing!
So where are you no danger is correct? just bad weather and forced sunshine?
The earth has never been successful in succession of catastrophic events behind each other, it seems as if the witness passes during a hurry to "damage" these hurricanes.​

 

[CurtisOliver]

Even here we are receiving 40-50mph gusts at times and we’re not meant to be seeing that. This morning you wouldn’t of known of the storm. But now it’s completely different. A huge band of Ophelia is passing over us now causing very stormy skies overhead. But very peculiar is the yellow/orange sun we had earlier and now the yellow/orange storm clouds. Everything looks yellow tinted and feels like you’re on mars or something.

I feel sorry for Ireland as we are only getting a snippet of Ophelia.

120,000 without power and one death as known so far.

Edit: just checked. 360,000 without power and three deaths. :can: Is there actually anyone on this forum being affected by this?

 

[3DLaSeRBuiLDeR]

I'm so sorry for your situation! 1 dead and so much damage to Ireland?
Sure I imagine what you are trying to do! yellow / orange sky perhaps due to the fact that Ophelia walks with the sand of the desert? (so I can not blame you) I could not attribute this strange color of heaven!​

 

[CurtisOliver]

Make that three deaths now 3D. The yellow/orange is both from the Saharan sand and from the Spanish wildfires.

 

[3DLaSeRBuiLDeR]

three deaths? OMG, I had imagined it was a Saharian wind!​