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Related: About this forumWhy Did Hurricane Michael Become Such a Monster Storm So Quickly?
By Megan Gannon, Live Science Contributor | October 10, 2018 01:47pm ET
Forecasters watching Hurricane Michael barrel toward the Gulf coast of Florida earlier this week saw the storm do something "most unusual."
The hurricane intensified despite encountering wind shear a change in wind speed or direction at different levels in the atmospherethat might have normally weakened the storm.
"Michael's steady intensification over the past 48 hours in the face of 20-knot [23 mph] westerly shear defies traditional logic," hurricane specialist Stacy Stewart wrote in a memo from the National Hurricane Center on Monday (Oct. 8). "Either the shear calculations are unrepresentative or Michael has become more inertially stable due to its large eye and large outer wind field, making it more shear-resistant."
So how would forecasters typically expect wind shear to affect a storm? That's explained in part by the shape of a hurricane. [Hurricane Season 2018: How Long It Lasts and What to Expect]
More:
https://www.livescience.com/63795-why-hurricane-michael-intensified.html
Va Lefty
(6,252 posts)That certainly contributed to it's growth.
Judi Lynn
(160,623 posts)Pacifist Patriot
(24,654 posts)Interesting stuff. I'd never seen the impact of wind shear or the need for straight eye walls like a chimney before.
Duppers
(28,127 posts)Fasten our seatbelts, this is going to increase and become the norm. The hurricane scale will have to be updated in a few years.
2030 is just around the corner.
Va Lefty
(6,252 posts)Sadly, I've a 31yo son who doesn't want to hear about what he's going to have to deal with, what the world is going to have to deal with in his lifetime. What we are leaving him.
I feel immense guilt as any parent should. Look what we've done to our kids!! I knew this was coming back in the Zero-population days, yet I still had one child, hoping the planet had more time. I've cried over this. Over my horrible misjudgment, over the destiny of the planet. Try talking about this in GD forum. Bam! The snackdowns come fast and low.
Thanks for reading my braindroppings, Lefty.