Atlantic hurricane season

...started June 1. Predictions are for about normal, which would be an increase over recent years. Nothing of particular interest developing so far. So while we are waiting, have a look at 1938 which had a heckuva storm in the northeast. All that wood...

Hercules Had It Easy Compared to the Great 1938 Hurricane Tree Cleanup - New England Historical Society

 

North Atlantic remains quiet, but I will mention the large typhoon now crossing Taiwan. Most interesting here is that the island is well instrumented, so you can see Doppler rainfall with animation etc. Taitung on SE coast was nearest to center, its barometer already passed minimum of 960 millibars, but rainfall is still increasing. Last posted was 18.7 cm in 15 minutes, which is almost certainly a rainfall intensity you have never experienced. 1 cm/min is like solid water.

 

Nah it just can't be. Taitung is here

Observations

And it must be cumulative rainfall since 00 hour reset.

Thus they are getting about 4 cm/hr at present. That is still a robust rate, but at least it is plausible. Good time to be somewhere else, but I'm loving this data stream.

 

Can't imagine what evil would befall me if somebody else noticed first. Science being self-correcting and all that.

Too early to sum this one up; most if the rain is yet to fall across island. However, at Taitung, lowest baro of 962 and highest wind of 57 gust 124 (already converted to mph for the US market) would not be called "all that". One can hope this turns out to be less of an event than last years' Soudelor.

Taiwan is an excellent typhoon buster (a rather unappreciated gift to the mainland) and radar loop already shows the circulation breaking down.

 

A really juicy atmosphere can hold 10 cm of water above your head. Thus in outstanding precipitation events, it is clear that the atmosphere is being 'refilled' at the same time. That happens from the warm waters upwind along a typhoon's track. Now, water is being squeezed out by Taiwan's mountains. After this passage, there is much less potential for refilling in the China coastal sea because that water is cold.

 

Gawd.

Taiwan has coastal plains west (downwind) of the mountains, where the rain mostly isn't.

 

Thanks for the excellent table.

To get early idea of tropical storms that may be, I recommend

WAVETRAK - North Atlantic - 850mb Vorticity - Latest Available

showing where 'ripples' come off the African coast.

 

Folks in Florida panhandle area are already aware of Hermine. It certainly has 'the look'

NWS radar image from Tallahassee, FL

And will rain approximately thus:

Hurricane HERMINE

In terms of wind this will not amaze us. So, probably no major power outages. So, probably few folks will use gensets indoors to test their superpowers against carbon monoxide poisoning.

 

Unless you are still cleaning up after Hermine, you still find this a boring season.

Something to see in pacific, though

Observations

 

This Merati is interesting for blowing up to supertyphoon (category 5, from 1) status in 1 day while over some not-so-hot water SE of Taiwan:

http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/dataphod1/work/HHP/NEW/2016256np.jpg

Atmospheric 'shearing and steering' did not interfere. It is giving southern 1/3 of Taiwan a thrill, but mountains there impose friction on its north half. Cooler water ahead before arriving mainland China.

 

Wish I could help with 'the cognition thing', but hurricane frequency, major hurricane frequency (posted above), and accumulated cyclone energy

http://models.weatherbell.com/tropical/global_running_ace.png

do not show multi-decadal decreases.

 

Dr. Maue's 2011 paper emphasized "historic low values" circa 2010, which are obvious in these graphs. So. perhaps it is a matter of misunderstood terminology.

Near the bottom of this page

WeatherBELL Models | Premium Weather Maps

See a link to global monthly ACE (.dat file). I put that into spreadsheet and calculated the monthly global accumulated ACE. Then I have numbers for stat which is better than graphs to 'eyeball'.

Across all time, regression has a small positive slope. However R^2 is 0.0205, which falls far short of any significance test.

This is Maue's ACE record, and I doubt he'd approve anyone claiming it says what it does not.