Oct 15, 2009

North Atlantic Storm


A storm off the coast of Newfoundland just had an an incredible pressure drop of 27 mb (0.79 inches) in 12 hours and an almost unbelievable 49 mb (1.44 inches) drop in 24 hours. It is now at 953 mb (28.14 inches) - lower than any Atlantic tropical cyclone this year except Hurricane Bill.
Category 3 Hurricane Fred - the only other Atlantic hurricane this year - had an estimated minimum central pressure of 958 mb. Despite the sparsity of buoys in the North Atlantic, 24.6 foot waves (station 44138) and 62.2 knot wind gusts (station 44139) have been measured - and that was just before the 27 mb pressure drop! Those measurements were taken when the storm was south of Newfoundland - where buoy data is available - not east of Newfoundland where it became a 953 mb storm and there are no buoys. Satellite scatterometer data shows winds at 50 knots in several locations between areas of possible rain contamination (indicated by black wind barbs).

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