Isabel
(1) Isabel has winds of 160 mph (central minimum pressure, 932 mb), after weakening late last night and restrengthening. Its re-forming center is approximately 600 km NE of San Juan, Puerto Rico. I will just note that Isabel has an unusually large eye for a hurricane of its strength. Typically, strong hurricanes have 10-15 NM diameter eyes. Isabel's eye has recently contracted from 35 NM to 30 NM. Basically, this means that Isabel's mass is distributed further away from its center of mass than a typical hurricane, giving it a higher moment of inertia than hurricanes with smaller eyes. Therefore, Isabel requires high amounts of energy to rotate and circulate heat towards its core. It's an inefficient system, and hopefully it will remain inefficient, so that it will weaken faster as it experiences greater wind shear and cooler waters ion the future.
(2) and (3) Isabel will make landfall somewhere on the Delmarva Peninsula (at the moment, most model output suggests that Isabel will skirt the East Coast for 24 hours at least) in 146 hours. Its maximum sustained winds will be 115 mph at that time (minimum central pressure 958 mb).
ESA(20030913.1)
(1) Isabel has winds of 160 mph (central minimum pressure, 932 mb), after weakening late last night and restrengthening. Its re-forming center is approximately 600 km NE of San Juan, Puerto Rico. I will just note that Isabel has an unusually large eye for a hurricane of its strength. Typically, strong hurricanes have 10-15 NM diameter eyes. Isabel's eye has recently contracted from 35 NM to 30 NM. Basically, this means that Isabel's mass is distributed further away from its center of mass than a typical hurricane, giving it a higher moment of inertia than hurricanes with smaller eyes. Therefore, Isabel requires high amounts of energy to rotate and circulate heat towards its core. It's an inefficient system, and hopefully it will remain inefficient, so that it will weaken faster as it experiences greater wind shear and cooler waters ion the future.
(2) and (3) Isabel will make landfall somewhere on the Delmarva Peninsula (at the moment, most model output suggests that Isabel will skirt the East Coast for 24 hours at least) in 146 hours. Its maximum sustained winds will be 115 mph at that time (minimum central pressure 958 mb).
ESA(20030913.1)
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