This advisory is very conservative, because ADT estimates the storm to be much stronger than that.
My weather app calling it cat3 now. Man, it’s building fast!
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so pressure keeps dropping…
anyone have the stats from lets say katrina when it made landfall?
being that the water in warmer coming north, will this gain strength or lessen thru that passage?
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The storm has about 36 hours to strengthen before it starts to weaken due to cooler waters and shear.
The storm will likely strengthen a lot tonight, because tropical cyclones have more convection during the overnight hours.
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5pm PST update from the NHC on Hilary is she is gaining strength quickly. Up to 120MPH winds and pressure drop to 955MB. She is now a category 3 major hurricane and now forecast to go over 140MPH at her peak. The stronger she gets the less time she has to weaken and move north.
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In 24 hours this storm has gone from a 40 MPH tropical storm to a 120 MPH monster. 80MPH increase is extreme rapid intensification. Going to be crazy to watch the development in the next 48 hours. A Cat 5 is not entirely out of the question.
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East Pacific hurricanes are not like their Atlantic cousins… They fall apart much faster and do not have the same energy. Typhoons( west Pacific ) hurricanes are a different story. Much of this has to do with not only with water temperature and depth of the water temperature but the atmosphere as well. The Gulf of Mexico has much warmer water and a different climate that is more conducive to large storm development. The waves that come off of Africa and are the genesis for hurricanes develop a lot of energy over the warm waters of the Caribbean and the Gulf. They then enter an atmosphere that has higher dew points and more humidity. We have deserts here… that dry air tears the storms apart.
You can watch dry slots of air during Atlantic hurricanes, high pressure in the right spot will tear the storms apart or “destructively” phase with the storms and cause them to fall apart.
While the SST off the coast of Baja are warm they are no where near what the Gulf of Mexico is.
This will be impactful and will cause some damage from flooding but will not be anything like the storms that hit the SE.
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“Strong” storms in the SE made me recall this. This was attention grabbing to my layperson eyes - to think that even more extreme storms occurred under a cooler climate than today! Yikes! #BeforeRecordKeeping
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Thanks to Alex Tardy for this.
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The storm is likely to put on another round of rapid intensification tonight, as the SHIPS-RI index is pretty high.
Hilary is currently going through an eyewall replacement cycle, which could explain the pause in intensification. If the storm completes the EWRC in the next few hours, it will likely reach category 5 status at some point tomorrow.
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I’m not sure Hurricane Doreen in 1977 impacted the fires you mentioned.
Marble Cone started 8/1/77 I believe. Pondosa and Scarface started 8/3/77 (I know, I was there) and I’m not sure about the Mt Diablo Fire you referenced, but I don’t think it lasted too long.
Those fires had made their significant runs and were in pretty good shape well before Hurricane Doreen even formed off Baja on 8/13/77.
Now there was a significant fire outbreak on the Klamath starting around 8/11/77 similar to this year. They may have been affected by the Hurricane, but I don’t know.
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8PM PST update……Hilary has now strengthened again to 125 MPH and a central pressure of 953MB. Tomorrow morning will tell us so much more after the 1st hurricane hunters get involved
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I’m hearing rumors of OES standing up multiple USAR RTF’s for potential flooding and damage to structures with debris flows possible.
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ORC/OES Type 6 strike team will be inservice 0900, Sunday. And I’m sure that’s just the beginning.
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Woohoo. Trudging through snow in the mountains around the Bay Area all winter wasn’t fun enough!
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12:00 AM MDT Fri Aug 18
Location: 16.8°N 110.4°W
Moving: WNW at 14 mph
Min pressure: 942 mb
Max sustained: 140 mph
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