Ike Over Warm Gulf Waters

Written by: Brian Neudorff

Ike had a busy Tuesday, it made a second landfall in Western Cuba around 11 a.m. EDT. At that time, Ike was minimal hurricane with a strong hurricane look, its maximum sustain winds at landfall were 80 mph. Ike maintained its hurricane strength as it moved over Western Cuba with sustained winds of 75 mph making it a border line hurricane/ tropical storm. After being on land for about 6 hours, the NHC 5 p.m. EDT advisory announced that Ike had emerged into the Gulf of Mexico and was back over open waters. During Ike’s time over land the one thing I have noticed was its structure. Since its landfall on Monday and then again on Tuesday it maintained a pretty symmetric structure. Unlike Gustav, which took a good beating from Cuba when it made landfall, now that Ike is back over the warm deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, it appears it will rapidly strengthen back into a major hurricane of either a category 3 or 4. One reason for this is that it appeared that Ike was able to maintain a well organized core structure as it moved over Cuba.

Now that Ike has emerged into the Gulf of Mexico, and is back over open water you can see in the satellite loop above (from 6pm EDT to 12:41am EDT Tuesday into Wednesday) Ike has redeveloped a small but pronounced eyewall structure. (click for current IR satellite loop) The southeast Gulf of Mexico will have favorable conditions to support intensification overnight, as mentioned above. These conditions will include ocean water temperatures of 82 degrees with significant deep warm water, little or no upper level shear and minimal dry air to get entrained into Ike’s circulation. We could see Ike intensify to a category 2 hurricane later today Wednesday or tonight, and as we saw earlier in Ike’s history over the Atlantic, it could even get back to major hurricane strength especially with its central pressure hanging around 967 mb.

The big questions, and probably the most important, are "where will Ike go?" and "how strong will it be when it gets there?" From all that I have looked at, study and read it appears there is no definitive answer on EXACT location but it appears we are getting a clearer picture. Right now I still think anyone from Texas/Mexico border all the way to the Texas/Louisiana border need to watch Ike, but a potential landfall could take place, at this time it appears to be Port Lavaca, with the models clustered between Corpus Christi and Galveston Island. The image to the right is of Ike and we have the NHC forecast from Tuesday evening in the thicker orange color, the other thin lines are of the computer models.

Again the NHC says it perfectly by stating, "ONE SHOULD NOT FOCUS ON THE EXACT LANDFALL FORECAST POINT DUE TO THE INHERENT UNCERTAINTIES." I totally agree. When Ike was crossing Cuba the first time it didn't make the NW turn as soon as all the forecasts had predicted. These small change can have huge implications on intensity and landfall, just look at this animation of all the past NHC forecasts for Ike and how they have moved from South Florida last weekend to now South Texas.

If you have time I recommend reading the following blog post from other meteorologist and amature meteorologist on Ike. [WX-Man's Perspective, Brian Neudorff's Personal Weather Blog] [Dr. Jeff Masteres Wunderground Blog] [Pajamas Media “Weather Nerd” Brendan Loy] [Alan Sullivan’s Fresh Bilge] [Houston Chronicles SciGuy Eric Berger] [AccuWeather.com Weather Matrix Blog] [RaceWeather.net Tropics Discussion out of Texas]