Wrath of Wilma

Wow. That’s all I can say about Hurricane Wilma. Last night when Daniel & I last checked before we left Walker Building, Wilma was a weak Category 1 hurricane. So when I got to Walker this morning, Mario told me that it was a Cat 5, and that its central pressure was a stunning 882 mb, I thought he was joking, especially since none of the models had Wilma ever intensifying to something bigger than a Cat 3. I was incredulous that such an amazingly rapid intensification was even possible. So when Dr Nese walked by, Mario asked him to convince me that it was true, that Wilma had blown up to a Category 5 overnight (and a wicked Cat 5 at that). Wilma’s peak intensity this morning of 882 mb blew away the record for all-time lowest pressure ever recorded in the Atlantic basin (the old record was 888 mb, set by Hurricane Gilbert back in 1988 I believe). By comparison, Katrina’s lowest pressure was an intensely low 902 mb, and Rita hit 897 mb (mean sea-level pressure is around 1000 mb). In essence, the lower the pressure, the stronger the hurricane. Also, it’s eye was a miniscule 2 miles across for much of the day. Normally, a hurricane’s eye would be about 10-15 miles across.
So as you might expect from a bunch of weather weenies in meteorology grad school, we’ve all been following Wilma’s progress closely today. And that includes checking for updated reports being issued by the National Hurricane Center. The 5pm discussion today was actually pretty hilarious, I thought. Here is the relevant part from it (emphasis mine):
AGREEMENT AMONG THE TRACK GUIDANCE MODELS…WHICH HAD BEEN VERY GOOD
OVER THE PAST COUPLE OF DAYS…HAS COMPLETELY COLLAPSED TODAY. THE
06Z RUNS OF THE GFS…GFDL…AND NOGAPS MODELS ACCELERATED WILMA
RAPIDLY TOWARD NEW ENGLAND UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF A LARGE LOW
PRESSURE SYSTEM IN THE GREAT LAKES REGION. ALL THREE OF THESE
MODELS HAVE BACKED OFF OF THIS SOLUTION…WITH THE GFDL SHOWING AN
EXTREME CHANGE…WITH ITS 5-DAY POSITION SHIFTING A MERE 1650 NMI [nautical miles]
FROM ITS PREVIOUS POSITION IN MAINE TO THE WESTERN TIP OF CUBA.
THERE IS ALMOST AS MUCH SPREAD IN THE 5-DAY POSITIONS OF THE 12Z
GFS ENSEMBLE MEMBERS…WHICH RANGE FROM THE YUCATAN TO WELL EAST OF
THE DELMARVA PENINSULA. WHAT THIS ILLUSTRATES IS THE EXTREME
SENSITIVITY OF WILMA’S FUTURE TRACK TO ITS INTERACTION WITH THE
GREAT LAKES LOW. OVER THE PAST COUPLE OF DAYS…WILMA HAS BEEN
MOVING SLIGHTLY TO THE LEFT OR SOUTH OF THE MODEL GUIDANCE…AND
THE LEFT-MOST OF THE GUIDANCE SOLUTIONS ARE NOW SHOWING WILMA
DELAYING OR MISSING THE CONNECTION WITH THE LOW. I HAVE SLOWED THE
OFFICIAL FORECAST JUST A LITTLE BIT AT THIS TIME…BUT IF WILMA
CONTINUES TO MOVE MORE TO THE LEFT THAN EXPECTED…SUBSTANTIAL
CHANGES TO THE OFFICIAL FORECAST MAY HAVE TO BE MADE DOWN THE LINE.
NEEDLESS TO SAY…CONFIDENCE IN THE FORECAST TRACK…ESPECIALLY THE
TIMING…HAS DECREASED CONSIDERABLY.
What should all of you take away from this? Weather forecasting is still a very inexact science, and there is still much that we have yet to learn. We’ll all be keeping our eyes peeled on Wilma though. At this moment, it looks like it’ll whack Cozumel and Cancun pretty hard (even if the eye doesn’t make landfall), and then she’ll make a right turn and make a bee-line for southern Florida (with the eye probably aiming for around Fort Myers on Saturday evening). It’ll pass over Florida, then turn northward, posing great problems for water-logged New England early-mid next week as a powerful extra-tropical cyclone (it won’t be a tropical system anymore, but it’ll still be a very strong low pressure center (storm)). But then again, that could all change, especially considering how all the models’ forecast tracks are in total disarray and not agreeing with each other at all.
As for what’s going on with me, one bright spot amidst an entire day of grading labs yesterday was a phone call from the camera repair place. My digital camera’s all fixed and got shipped out yesterday! Woohoo! Hopefully this means that I’ll have a working camera this weekend, I can’t wait! I know that as recently as Friday I’d been told it’d be another 4-6 weeks, but hey, I’ll take it being fixed earlier than that. 🙂