Typhoon Roke batters Japan; Ophelia forms in the Central Atlantic
Typhoon Roke hit Japan near Hamamatsu at 14:00 JST Wednesday as a Category 1 typhoon with 80 mph winds. Roke brought sustained winds of 62 mph, gusting to 83 mph to the Tokyo airport at 5:25 pm local time, and a wind gust of 89 mph was reported at Shizuhama Airbase. Roke has dumped heavy rains of 155 mm (6.20") at Hamamatsu and 125 mm (4.86") at Tokyo. Damage due to flooding from Roke's heavy rains will likely be the main problem from Roke, as the soils over much of Japan are saturated from the passage of Tropical Storm Talas during the first week of September. Talas was a very slow moving storm, and brought extreme rainfall amounts of over six feet to some portions of Japan. Roke brought winds less than 25 mph to the damaged Fukishima-Dai-Iche nuclear plant northeast of Tokyo, and heavy rains of 189 mm (7.50") to Hirono, located 8 miles south of the plant.
Figure 1. Radar image of Typhoon Roke as it made landfall at 14:00 JST on September 21, 2011. The typhoon brought a large area of rainfall of 50 mm/hr (2"/hr) to Japan. Image credit: Japan Meteorological Agency.
Figure 2. MODIS image of Typhoon Roke taken at 3:55 UTC on Wednesday, September 21, 2011. At the time, Roke was a Category 1 storm with 80 mph winds. Image credit: NASA.
Tropical Storm Ophelia forms in the Atlantic
Tropical Storm Ophelia formed last night in the Central Atlantic from the tropical wave (Invest 98L) we've been tracking this week. Satellite imagery shows that Ophelia is suffering the classic symptoms of high wind shear, with the low level center of circulation exposed to view, and the storm's heavy thunderstorms pushed to the northeast side of the center of circulation. An analysis of wind shear from the University of Wisconsin CIMMS group shows a high 20 - 30 knots of wind shear due to strong upper level west-southwesterly winds affecting Ophelia. We don't have any ship, buoy, or hurricane hunter observations of Ophelia's winds, but an ASCAT pass from 7:27 pm EDT last night found top winds of 45 mph in the northeast quadrant of the storm. Ophelia will be passing south of buoy 41041 late tonight. Water vapor satellite images show dry air to the the west of Ophelia, and the strong upper level west-southwesterly winds bringing high wind shear to the storm are also injecting dry air into the storm's core, interfering with development.
Figure 3. Morning satellite image of Ophelia showing the low-level center exposed to view, with all the storm's heavy thunderstorms pushed to the northeast side.
Forecast for Ophelia
The latest SHIPS model forecast predicts that Ophelia will experience moderate to high wind shear of 10 - 25 knots over the next five days, and will move into a region with drier air. The combination of shear and dry air should keep Ophelia from strengthening, and could dissipate the storm, as predicted by the ECMWF and HWRF models. The Northern Lesser Antilles could see some wind gusts of 30 - 40 mph and heavy rain squalls from Ophelia on Saturday and Sunday, but right now it looks unlikely that the islands would see sustained tropical storm force winds of 39+ mph, since they are likely to be on Ophelia's weaker (dry) side. At longer ranges, Bermuda will have to keep an eye on Ophelia, since a large cut-off low pressure system over the Eastern U.S. should turn Ophelia to the northwest and then north early next week. Ophelia may eventually be a threat to Canada, but it is too early to assess the odds of this happening.
Ophelia is the 15th named storm this year, putting 2011 in 10th place for the most number of named storms in a year. Ophelia's formation date of September 21 puts 2011 in 4th place for earliest date of arrival of the season's 15th storm. Only 2005, 1936, and 1933 had an earlier 15th storm. With only three of this year's fifteen storms reaching hurricane strength, though, this year has been near average for destructive potential. Atlantic hurricane records go back to 1851.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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i'm beggen ya please
get down on your knees
and come home..babe
Link
Ophelia at 60 MPH? wow. thinking she could peak out at 65 Mph, or 70 Mph. But with so much shear she will be in for most of her life, she won't be capable of reaching hurricane status. The only possibility is that the wind shear knocks her down to a weak TS, and allows her to move a little more westerly than forecasted, and would put her in a little less wind shear. At this time it's pretty obvious hurricane status won't be reachable. Though the next things to watch after Ophelia in the next 5 to 10 days is one last Tropical wave, developed by the GFS, and tracks just almost identical to what Ophelia is going to do, and a Monsoonal/tropical wave development in the SW/NW Caribbean, Developed by the Euro and GFS, and takes the TS North and then into SW Florida.
For her I feel so afraid
On her twenty-second birthday
She already is an old maid
To her, death is quite romantic
She wears an iron vest
Her profession’s her religion
Her sin is her lifelessness
And though her eyes are fixed upon
Noah’s great rainbow
She spends her time peeking
Into Desolation Row
-- Bob Dylan
and quite apt
That si some funny looking Crow!
"Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. Soft you now,
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered"
YEAP 230KV!
Guess you are the only one who read it. lol
Blog update:
Tropical Tidbit for Wednesday, September 21st, with Video
I heard the Oak Ridge Boys perform this one many moons ago
Are you talking Conus or just US? I think PR is part of the US.
Generally when we say "U.S. landfall" we mean the CONUS. If we mean PR, then we say PR.
GOES-13 Ophelia IR Loop
ESL by LSU IR Loop
Levi...
Nicely done and very informative as always!!! Thanks!!
Do the couple of clockwise spinners in the GOM bear watching?
All Active Year
Atlantic
99L.INVEST
16L.OPHELIA
East Pacific
09E.HILARY
Central Pacific
West Pacific
98W.INVEST
97W.INVEST
18W.ROKE
Indian Ocean
92B.INVEST
Southern Hemisphere
FM FWC-N
BT
UNCLAS
MSGID/FWC-N/OVLY2/0087/SEP
OVLY/ATL STORM 16L/211200Z6/SEP/1OF1/TROP STORM OPHELIA(16L)/METOC
TEXT/12//G/130000N4/0424800W8/S
TEXT/12//G/133000N7/0482400W8/S
TEXT/12//G/144200N1/0531200W1/S
TEXT/12//G/164800N9/0574800W4/S
TEXT/12//G/190000N0/0620000W8/S
TEXT/12//G/210000N3/0653000W4/S
LINE/6//G/130000N4/0424800W8/133000N7/0482400W8/1 44200N1/0531200W1
/164800N9/0574800W4/190000N0/0620000W8/210000N3/0 653000W4
ARC/0/G///130000N4/0424800W8/200NM/200NM
ARC/0/G///133000N7/0482400W8/200NM/200NM
ARC/0/G///144200N1/0531200W1/200NM/200NM
ARC/0/G///164800N9/0574800W4/180NM/180NM
TEXT/12//G/110000N2/0401800W3/TROP STORM OPHELIA
TEXT/12//G/100000N1/0401800W3/21 SEP 1200Z
TEXT/12//G/090000N9/0401800W3/MAX 50 KT
TEXT/12//G/080000N8/0401800W3/270 AT 14 KT
TEXT/12//G/070000N7/0401800W3/34 KT RADII SHOWN
TEXT/12//G/140000N5/0442400W4/2212Z MAX 45
TEXT/12//G/150000N6/0491200W6/2312Z MAX 45
TEXT/12//G/164800N9/0534800W0/2412Z MAX 45
TEXT/12//G/190000N0/0580000W3/2512Z MAX 40
TEXT/12//G/210000N3/0613000W0/2612Z MAX 35
ENDAT
BT
#0001
NNNN
3/4" of rain yesterday and some showers today again.
This is good, because it looks like Ophelia will pass north of here dragging all the clouds along with her.
It's been the pattern so far with these systems this year, and it has been a pretty dry 6 weeks.
Hopefully the ITCZ can re-establish itself overhead soon and bring us a proper Rainy Season for the next couple of months.
He'll never admit to being stormtop.
Hardly! If you want a completely wrong idea of what the weather is going to do, listen to this guy. He's so stuck on himself and his "expert" opinions that he doesn't see what a joke he really is. What an ego this guy has. GEEZ!
Hey Basti, didn't you say it was going to get into the mid 40's near NOLA this weekend? Give me a break! I will personally send you $100 if anywhere in LA gets into the 40's this weekend. You've been wrong 75% of the time this season. After this weekend, I see those percentages going up even more :)
Give it up man!
Levi Puerto Rico again????
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