Bob Henson for Weather Underground 4:47 AM GMT on October 01, 2015:
Joaquin still lacks a crisp, well-defined eye on infrared satellite imagery, but its showers and thunderstorms have continued to intensify and consolidate into a large and increasingly symmetric central core. Hurricane-force winds remain confined to a radius of 35 miles from the center of Joaquin, while gales extend out up to 140 miles. The most recent minimal central pressure was 951 millibars, a hefty drop of 37 millibars in roughly 18 hours. Very warm sea-surface temperatures of around 30°C and relatively deep ocean heat content will support even more strengthening over the next couple of days. Hurricane warnings are in effect for the central and northwestern Bahamas, with a hurricane watch for Bimini and Andros Island and a tropical storm warning for the southeastern Bahamas and Andros Island. My Wednesday afternoon update with Jeff Masters has more detail on potential impacts to the Bahamas from this formidable hurricane.
Moderate northerly shear will relax significantly on Thursday into Friday, and it’s possible that Joaquin will have outflow jets helping to ventilate the storm on both its west and east flanks. Together with record-warm SSTs, these factors could help make Joaquin a dangerous Category 4 storm, in line with the latest NHC outlook, which produces peak sustained winds of 140 mph on Thursday night.
Key takeaway – several models show the storm impacting US East Coast, the very well respected ECMWF says it’s going to veer away. When Sandy hit the US, it was the ECMWF that called Sandy’s hard left hook into New Jersey. Other modelers say they’ve upped their game since then.
Stay tuned.
Below, let’s review Sandy with Kerry Emanuel of MIT.