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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Actually, if you google TUTT, you do get some hits:
TUTT The Universe Think Tank (TUTT Group)
TUTT Technologies United Trade Trust (Des Moines, Iowa USA)
TUTT The United Trade Trust (TUTT Group)
TUTT The Universe Trade Trust (TUTT Group)
He just has to pick one...
i thought it won't matter what portion melts..if you place an ice cube in water and it melts inside the cup, doesn't mean it will overflow just because it melted..
Born and raised in Tampa, Don't think we will see a Major creeping up the mouth of the bay come Oct.
Its funny how you guys go by the logic that if nobody quotes him, he will go away.
Guess what? That isn't happening!
The trolls won't stop until they are banned.
Not to be mean but there is a very large land mass under the ice on the south pole. You are actually making my point.
If you don't know, research it people. I guess people forgot how to do that....and now back to weather and not to quoting trolls or people who think they are...
nope didn't know that, i never really learned anything about Antarctica, looks like I need to go and learn about it so i can be educated about it...
Thanks :-)
Archimedes Principle. Doesn't apply at S Pole though....
Funny...I see people quoting the "troll" left and right.
I really don't see the issue with Basti. Leave that person alone to give his opinion.
Is it only "certain" people that are allowed to voice their opinions on here??? If that person is not in the "group" then they are a troll, or if their opinion differs?
Hmmm, I didn't realize this blog was junior high.
It'll look horrible tonight, just like the same cycle 99% of these pathetic storms have went through.
We've been RELATIVELY lucky this season, considering.
It's actually quite beautiful. I have a friend who spent a year down there as a radio operator. He took some awesome pictures!
Thanks for that couldn't think of the name of the principle
Why won't the floating ice caps melting in the North Pole/Arctic Ocean affect sea level? (Because this floating ice is already displacing its own volume in water.) Only the ice that breaks off or melts from land, i.e. the Greenland ice sheet, Antarctic ice sheet, and mountain glaciers can raise sea level.
If you called a number and got a message that it was disconnected, would you still try calling that number? Try ignoring them and do not quote them. It does work. They cannot control their behavior, you can. They have an illness and can't help it. You enable them everytime you answer them.
+1000
And announcing on the main blog, where they can read it, that if we ignore them, they will go away, isn't helping . Will just make them want to post more, because they know you are paying attention XD
I wish they would add a "Ban Troll" button to the blog.
Yep.
First ever.
There are a number of factors that we are seeing convection somewhat more equatorward over Africa. One factor is the current passage of a convectively-coupled Kelvin wave over West Africa, which increases thunderstorms closer to the equator than a normal African easterly wave would. Another factor is that we are beginning to see the retreat of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ) towards the equator. I have attached a 90 day latitude-time plot of TRMM 3B42 rainrate averaging over the longtidudes of 10-20W (West Sahel). This plot suggests that the West African Monsoon is beginning to weaken as we would expect during this time of year, and would suggest the number of seedlings for tropical cyclones will begin to reduce. It does not necessarily mean we will not see a developing tropical cyclone over the main development region this year... but it suggests we probably won't see multiple tropical cyclones at one time there.
I have seen worse too. I don't ignore anyone either, although it's tempting at times.
I just find it funny that those who are calling someone a troll are actually the ones acting trollish. I can also see why this blog is going quickly downhill. It seems to me a certain group thinks they run this place now and apparently, are getting away with the nonsense.
What a shame. There are lots of folks like me that have lurked for many years and rarely post. I wonder how many that we don't know about, have been run off.
Here in Trinidad,western areas of the island average between 60-80 inches a year,hilly areas like where i live and eastern areas average more than 120 inches.
Last year i recorded 157inches of rain between May 14th and December 31st.
That's a lot of rain...
Low, yes. But all the major models are showing varying levels of development over the next several days...
I have 45W, 13.2N.
they do it's call the "!" and the "-" do those in that order...it may take 15-20 mins...but it gets the job done
Close enough for me.
I always hate it when people say a Hurricane "eye" hit somewhere 20 miles south of them, then say "thank god it missed us", really irks me and the vein on my forehead grows....
you have too un stall google earth 6.0 too in stall 6.1 be come when you hit updates the updates wont work
I personally don't think the conditions will be good enough to produce a major, but then again is the weather anything is possible. I just don't see it happening as of right now.
I admire your tenacity. Don't let the bullying attitude here run you off.
You are free to express your opinion just as the rest are. If you are incorrect about S. Florida, then so be it. There are many here that are wrong quite a bit. No one should be getting info here on the blogs to make life and death decisions with anyway. That is for the NHC, etc.
Carry on...
Sounds kind of scary..Glad you're ok!
Any new and exciting features?
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