at 5:17 PM by Pierce Larkin

The Week in Tropical Weather

I have come to the conclusion that I post way too much about the tropics. I am no expert in tropical meteorology, I wouldn’t even call myself an amateur. Tropical Meteorology is a much different animal than mid-latitude meteorology, and as such, it is difficult for me to apply my knowledge of mid-latitude meteorology to tropical meteorology. However, in light of that, I will be establishing a weekly post about the Tropics. Whether is be the eastern Pacific or the Atlantic or the western Pacific, the Tropics are fairly active around this time of the year. So, without further ado, I give you the first installment of: The Week in Tropical Weather.

The past week of tropical weather has been really interesting. The storm of special note is Typhoon Meranti in the western Pacific ocean. Holy moly, this storm was crazy. The storm rapidly intensified over a couple days, and headed for Taiwan and China.

The storm peaked in intensity with 190 mph sustained winds. 190 mph sustained winds! That is insane. The storm itself was beautiful, and had fantastic symmetry.

The storm made its first official landfall on a small Taiwan island, an created one of the single coolest images from any tropical cyclone that I have ever seen.

Luckily, that small island was relatively spared, as there wasn’t a single death related to the storm. What is interesting about this storm is that there is a bit of controversy surrounding its strength. I don’t know much about Tropical meteorology, but I do know that when the storm began to show signs of weakening, the Japanese Typhoon Warning Center indicated that it was as strong, or stronger than the previous advisory.

That makes little sense, and the fact that they placed this Typhoon in the same category as the infamous Super Typhoon Haiyan is fairly ridiculous.

However, I know little about tropical meteorology, so I don’t know a ton about this topic. I just think Tropical Cyclones are really cool things. The most interesting story of last week was the surprise and sudden formation of Tropical Storm Julia.

giphy-6

Julia formed on the coast of Florida. Literally inland. It was so cool, especially because she didn’t really do anything. The NHC waited quite a long time that day before declaring her alive, and then she lived on for days…and days…and she is still sort of alive. Her remnants have been impacted the Mid-Atlantic states today.

Outside of Julia, the Atlantic has been fairly quiet and subdued. Tropical storm Karl formed, along with Lisa today. Both are weak, and aren’t really expected to do all of that much. Additionally, Ian formed last week, but also dissipated.

The forecast track for Tropical Storm Karl. h/t NHC
The forecast track for Tropical Storm Karl. h/t NHC
The forecast track for Tropical Storm Lisa. h/t NHC
The forecast track for Tropical Storm Lisa. h/t NHC