 |  | | | | Hurricane Season 2006: Carlotta (Eastern Pacific)
|
07.13.06
|
Carlotta's Last Stand in the Pacific
Carlotta, once a hurricane over the weekend of July 15, was downgraded to a
low pressure system in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Monday the 17. Hurricane
Bud dissipated in the eastern Pacific over the weekend of July 15.
As of 6:00 a.m. EDT on Monday, July 17, Carlotta's remnants were located near 21
degrees North and 124 degrees West. The estimated minimum central pressure of
Carlotta's remnants was 1011 millibars and were moving west near 12 knots (14
mph). The low is expected to continue tracking to the west-northwest, weakening
even further in the next two days.
This is an image of the circulation of the winds from hurricanes Bud and
Carlotta as seen on Friday, July 14, 2006 from NASA's QuikSCAT satellite. The
color image represents wind speed and the streamlines or arrows show direction
of the winds. White barbs point to areas of heavy rain. The highest wind
speeds, shown in purple, surround the center of the storm.
The scatterometer instrument on QuikSCAT sends pulses of microwave energy
through the atmosphere to the ocean surface, and measures the energy that
bounces back from the wind-roughened surface. The energy of the microwave
pulses changes depending on wind speed and direction, giving scientists a way
to monitor wind around the world.
Credit: NASA/JPL. Caption: Rob Gutro, NASA GSFC. (+ Click to view a larger version of this image.)
Hurricanes Chasing Each Other in the Eastern Pacific
Click on image to view animation.
Hurricane season in the eastern Pacific in mid-July is currently making
forecasters see double. On Friday, July 14, there were two hurricanes in the
eastern Pacific, Bud and Carlotta, and both are tracking into the open Pacific.
This animation of the storms was created from satellite images from the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Geostationary Operational Environmental
Satellite (GOES). The movie shows Hurricane Bud in front (left) of Hurricane
Carlotta (right) until just after 3:00 p.m. EDT on Friday, July 14. The movie
was created by NASA's GOES Project Science Office at NASA's Goddard Space
Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Where Exactly is Hurricane Bud on July 14th and What's in Store? At 5:00 a.m. EDT (9:00 GMT) on Friday, July 14, Hurricane Bud was located near
19.5 degrees North latitude, and 125.9 West longitude, moving toward the
west-northwest at 15 mph (13 knots). Minimum central pressure is 983 millibars.
Bud was packing sustained winds of 70 knots (80 mph) with gusts to 85 knots (98
mph).
What's in store for the weekend? According to the National Hurricane Center's
(NHC) forecast discussion, cooler sea surface temperatures and an increasingly
stable environment continue to induce a steady weakening of Bud. The NHC
believes that Bud will become a tropical depression on Saturday, July 15th, and
dissipate later.
Where Exactly is Hurricane Carlotta, and What's Her Future? At 11:00 a.m. EDT (15:00 GMT) on Friday, July 14, 2006, the National Hurricane
Center placed Hurricane Carlotta near 18.4 North latitude and 113.7 West
longitude. She was moving west-northwest at 9 mph (8 knots) with an estimated
minimum central pressure of 987 millibars. Carlotta had maximum sustained winds
of 74 mph (65 knots) with gusts to 92 mph (80 knots), just enough to be
considered a category one hurricane.
The NHC reports that the northern half of Carlotta's circulation is over cool
waters and the strongest convection (rapidly rising air that forms
thunderstorms) is limited to the eastern portion of the storm. The NHC said
that Carlotta is expected to be over cooler waters in about 12 to 24 hours (by
11 a.m. EDT on Sat. July 15) so weakening is expected by then and it could
happen faster. Carlotta will lose its hurricane status once that happens.
Credit: NASA GOES Project. Caption: Rob Gutro, NASA GSFC.
Hurricane Carlotta formed in the eastern Pacific on July 11, 2006 off the Pacific coast of Mexico. The tropical depression gradually gathered power and size as it traveled northwesterly over the next several days, roughly parallel to, but well away from, the Mexican coast. The tropical depression was upgraded to tropical storm status and given the name Carlotta on July 12, and the storm was upgraded again to hurricane status the morning of the 13th, becoming the eastern Pacific Ocean's second hurricane of the season. Aletta reached only tropical storm status, and Bud is currently still a hurricane.
Where is Carlotta? At 11:00 a.m. EDT on Thursday, July 13, 2006, Hurricane
Carlotta was located near 17.3 North and 110.4 West. Carlotta's movement
was toward the west-northwest at 12 knots (near 14 mph), and the minimum
central pressure was around 984 millibars. Carlotta is a category one
hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph (70 knots) and wind
gusts as high as 97 mph (85 knots).
This photo-like image was acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Aqua satellite on July 12 2006, at 2:20 p.m. local time (20:20 UTC). At that time, Carlotta was a tropical storm and intensifying towards the hurricane status it achieved some 12 hours later. Sustained winds in the storm system were estimated to be around 100 kilometers per hour (55 miles per hour) around the time the image was captured, according to the University of Hawaiis Tropical Storm information center.
Credit: NASA/MODIS Rapid Response. Caption: Rob Gutro, NASA GSFC. (+ Click to view a larger version of this image. | + Univ of Hawaii Tropical Storm Information Center)
Two Tropical Cyclones Spin in the Eastern Pacific Ocean
This satellite image of the eastern Pacific Ocean shows two active
tropical cyclones in that part of the world on Wed. July 12, 2006.
Hurricane Bud is swirling southwest of Mexico's Baja Peninsula with the
larger Tropical Storm Carlotta just behind. Both are headed west in to
the open waters of the Pacific Ocean.
This image of the Earth was taken by the Geostationary Operational
Environmental Satellite (GOES), operated by the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration. This data was processed by NASA's GOES
Project Science Office at the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Where is Hurricane Bud? At 11:00 a.m. EDT (15:00 GMT) on Wed. July 12, 2006 Bud's center was
located near latitude 15.7 degrees north and longitude 116.2 degrees
west. Movement was toward the west-northwest at 11 knots (12.6 mph), with
an estimated minimum central pressure of 972 millibars. Maximum sustained
winds were near 85 knots (98 mph) with gusts to 105 knots (120
mph). A continued west-northwestward motion is forecast with some
slowing of forward speed.
Where is Tropical Storm Carlotta? At 11:00 a.m. EDT on Wed. July 12, the National Hurricane Center, noted that Tropical Storm Carlotta was moving away from the coast of Mexico, as is indicated in the GOES satellite image. At 8:00 a.m. PDT (11:00 a.m. EDT) the center of Tropical Storm Carlotta was located near latitude 14.5 north and longitude 105.3 west or about 320 miles south-southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico. Carlotta was moving toward the west-northwest near 13 mph and this motion is expected to continue for the next 24 hours. Maximum sustained winds are near 45 mph with higher gusts. Some strengthening is forecast during the next 24 hours. Estimated minimum central pressure is 1002 millibars. Rains along the coast of southwestern Mexico are diminishing as Carlotta moves farther offshore.
Credit: NASA GSFC/NOAA. Caption: Rob Gutro, NASA GSFC. (+ Click to view a larger view of this image.)
Rob Gutro
Goddard Space Flight Center
|
| |
