Chris Mooney is a visiting associate in the 
From forecaster James Franklin:
BASED ON OPERATIONAL ESTIMATES...HUMBERTO STRENGTHENED FROM A 30 KT DEPRESSION AT 15Z YESTERDAY TO A 75 KT HURRICANE AT 09Z THIS MORNING...AN INCREASE OF 45 KT IN 18 HOURS. TO PUT THIS DEVELOPMENT IN PERSPECTIVE...NO TROPICAL CYCLONE IN THE HISTORICAL RECORD HAS EVER REACHED THIS INTENSITY AT A FASTER RATE NEAR LANDFALL. IT WOULD BE NICE TO KNOW...SOMEDAY...WHY THIS HAPPENED.
Well, that's blunt enough, no? I'm not entirely clear on what Franklin means, though--the record hinges on "near landfall", I guess. Obviously there has been more rapid strengthening over the open ocean.
Perhaps he's saying that what we've observed with Humberto is particularly scary because it suggests that more rapid intensifications may occur just before a storm strikes land than previously thought possible.
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Regardless if it has anything to do with climate change it is scary for a forcaster. It a case like this one, they could not issue needed warnings because they didn't think the storm would be very strong, and then get blindsided.
Posted by: bigTom | September 13, 2007 4:31 PM
Well, he can ask Chris Landsea, but perhaps the Gang of Five has a better grasp on the problem.
Wasn't Humberto moving somewhat parallel to the coast during that time? If so those near-shore ocean temps must have been warm pretty far down, maybe all the way to the bottom since IIRC it's fairly shallow there.
Anyway, now we add this event to the very rare cat 5 landfall recorded earlier in the season.
Posted by: Steve Bloom | September 13, 2007 4:44 PM
If memory serves, total NHC budget - of which research is only a part - is about $6 million. It might be that finding out why Humberto intensified so quickly so close to land might be cheaper than war in Iraq.
Posted by: llewelly | September 13, 2007 9:13 PM
steve, I'm not a meterologist, but have a pretty good feel for a lot of scientific stuff. My gut feeling would be that the rate of intensification is a function of water surface temperature (and other atmospheric conditions). The amount of excess heat consumed by the storm is probably related to the energy dissapation of the storm. The later is a rapidly rising function of intesity. So the depth of warm water to support a major hurricane is substantial, for a storm undergoing a tropical strom to cat 1 intensification, probably not that much energy is needed.
If any experts are reading. Is Ingrid doing some good, i.e. consuming a significant amount of the latent heat available to generate hurricanes, in it's apparentlt futile attempt to become a hurricane? Or does a weak storm like this simply consume too little of the excess heat to matter?
Posted by: bigTom | September 14, 2007 12:25 AM
Hurricanes do not consume heat per se - they move it from the lower atmosphere to the upper troposphere or to the tropopause. (Strong hurricanes also move heat from upper ocean waters to deeper ocean waters.)
Posted by: llewelly | September 14, 2007 2:37 AM
Chris,
I got to this discussion a little late.
When I followed your link in the posting, I didn't find the quote you excerpted.
Did the NOAA political officer sanitize this?
Posted by: Jim Ramsey | September 14, 2007 7:29 AM
1) NOAA doesn't have political officers thank you very much. If they did, they'd be tarred an feathered by the mostly liberal staff.
2) Following the link at present will send you to the latest advisory. If you go out a couple of pages, you will find the advisory archives, and I believe the quote you are looking for is in advisory 6 at 2100 UTC.
3) Ingrid is still a Tropical storm, so its attempt to become a hurricane may no longer be futile.
Posted by: philip H | September 14, 2007 8:28 AM
Chris,
It looks like your birthday may not be ruined after all. Humberto appears to be bring much needed rain inland - and becoming less of a threat to party plans at the same time?
Posted by: Emily | September 14, 2007 8:54 AM
philip H,
Thanks for the correction.
Posted by: Jim Ramsey | September 14, 2007 11:48 AM
Thanks for the comments all. Yes, Emily, I'm here in NOLA and not a drop of rain!!!
Posted by: Chris C. Mooney | September 15, 2007 10:26 AM