Tropical Storm Danny: Cool Moving Picture

Danny is probably not going to become a hurricane, but it may cause some wet weather along the East Coast. But, I did want to draw your attention to a fun bit of animated video. Watch the baby ghost hurricane pop out of the left side of the storm:

CLICK HERE

If you don't look at this some dime today (Aug 27th) you'll probably miss it.

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Weird, it definitely seems to be separate from the primary rotation/storm. Sheer forces causing this I guess?

Either way I'm told we should expect some more good waves on Saturday morning again. Bill's waves occasionally topped 15 feet in some hot surf spots here. Keep in mind we normally consider 5 feet a 'good' day for this area.

That spinning thing might actually be the middle of the storm, or near it. The big clouds may not correspond well to the distribution of the low pressure and the winds. If it all corresponded better, it would be a hurricane!

IANAM (I am not a meteorologist) but that definitely looks like where the storm would have been had it pulled in more of the moisture and coalesced. I wonder how often that occurs and we just don't hear about it.

By ABradford (not verified) on 27 Aug 2009 #permalink

I just looked at it again and you no longer see it popping out ... it is already out and now the clouds are starting to recover it.

It's the low-level circulation separating from the mid-level convection. It's not uncommon and is quite typical in:

  • newly developed cyclones that have vertically-tilted circulations
  • cyclones fighting wind shear
  • weakening systems where the low-level circulation separates from the mid or upper-level circulation

The last storm I recall doing the latter was Hurricane Ivan in 2004 where the low-level circulation actually separted from the mid-level, turned south down the US east coast while the mid-level went out into the Atlantic (different steering currents). The low-level redeveloped and came ashore near the Texas/Louisiana border as a tropical storm.