Talking the Tropics With Mike: Hurricane Lane affecting the Hawaiian Islands

Aug. 23, 2018 — The "Buresh Bottom Line": Always be prepared!.....First Alert Hurricane Survival Guide... City of Jacksonville Preparedness Guide... Georgia Hurricane Guide.

Watch "Surviving the Storm".....

I'll begin where all the "action" is.... the Central Pacific..... Hurricane "Lane" reached Cat. 5 intensity Tue. night & has clearly peaked while turning northwest & northward as shear out of the southwest increases & will only become stronger in the coming days. A trough of low pressure developing west & northwest of Hawaii is helping to pull Lane more northward until the hurricane significantly weakens at which time the much more shallow circulation will turn sharply westward steered by the trade winds. Hurricane WATCHES & WARNINGS have been posted for the entire Hawaiian Island chain. Lane is expected to move well west of the big island through Thu. night & south of Honolulu by Fri. evening at which point the trend should be for pretty rapid weakening while the tropical cyclone makes the turn to the west. This does not look like a direct hit (eye moving over land) on the islands, but the center will be pretty close to the central islands in particular & a track to the coast is not out of the question. For what it's worth... the GFS has been much better than the European model on depicting the northward move this week.

The image below - with Lane's forecast path superimposed - courtesy CIMMS shows the dramatic increase in shear out of the southwest in advance of Lane:

Dr. Phil Klotzbach, CSU tweeted the image below showing only 8 "major" (Cat. 3+) hurricanes since 1950 within 150 nautical miles of Lane's Wed. position:

The Atlantic Basin, on the other hand, remains quiet. In fact, there's an overall lack of much cloud cover until the far Eastern Atlantic. A stalled front is over the far Western Atlantic but no signs of any developing low pressure. Dry air in the mid & upper levels is widespread across much of the basin. I expect to see some changes - with potential storm development - by the first week to 10 days or so of Sept. In fact, a formidable wave is moving off the coast of Africa with some gradual development possible.

Mid & upper level wind shear (enemy of tropical cyclones) analysis (CIMMS). The red lines indicate strong shear......

The Atlantic Basin....

Caribbean:

Gulf of Mexico:

Water vapor imagery (dark blue indicates dry air):

Deep oceanic heat content continues to increase over the Caribbean & Gulf of Mexico as one would expect now that we're in August.....

Sea surface temp. anomalies are below avg. across much of the middle & Eastern Atlantic ....

SE U.S. surface map:

Surface analysis centered on the tropical Atlantic:

Surface analysis of the Gulf:

Caribbean:

Meanwhile.... the West Pacific is still active. "Cimaron" will move over Japan through Fri. producing very heavy rain & gusty winds, flooding & landslides.... while fast weakening "Soulik" moves over S. Korea with heavy rain & gusty winds.