Gustav still has a central pressure of 997 millibars and it is still a Tropical Depression this far inland. Interesting. Once these storms establish a water content they'll continue to have vorticity until the water vapor content drops from rainfall. There are still opportunities for tornadoes with this storm.
September 3, 2008
1830z
UNISYS Water Vapor GOES East Satellite
Hanna just can't get enough water vapor off the equator can it. WOW. Talk about thirsty.
I believe I stated when Gustav made landfall, Hanna would accelerate. To that conclusion I want to point to some facts that are rather interesting.
Gustav made landfall as a Cat 2 Hurricane on September 1, 2008 at 10:30 AM EST over Cocodrie, Louisiana. It is pushing a 12 foot (3.6 meter) storm surge. The central pressure of the storm was 955 millibars.
At the very same time, Hanna was building strength into hurricane status. The central pressure of Hanna was 994 millibars and falling. Within 30 minutes Hanna would have a central pressure of 985 millibars and rank as a Cat 1 hurricane, while Gustav was attaining the central pressure of 957 millibars as a low Cat 2 storm and would continue to rise, hence reducing its status to a Cat 1 storm.
This is where it really gets interesting though. Expecting Hanna to accelerate far faster into a greater storm, there was a building turbulence in the storm now known as Ike. Ike manifested into a Tropical Depression at the very time Gustav made landfall, hence blunting the acceleration of Hanna. At the time Gustav made landfall, Ike formed a centeral pressure of 1005 millibars.
Ike maintained a Tropical Depression status until Hanna obtained a central pressure of 983 millibars. At that point Ike became a Tropical Storm with a central pressure of 1000 millibars and Gustav was still decelerating with a central pressure of 966 millibars.Basically, Earth's troposphere is so hot that even with some cooling occuring with these storms by exchanging heated air for heated water, the elevated warming component of Earth is never really reduced to the place where it was even in the days of Katrina. The year 2005 was a record number of storm, but, none of the storms were as frequent in manifestation as Tropical Depressions and Storms as this season. Earth's cooling capacity is lost and as a result the storms that are appearing in sequence are proof of the chronic heating of Earth's troposphere that is NOT relieved of that heat by these storms as in the past.
Earth's thermostat is broken along with the disappearance of the Arctic Ocean ice as a result of Climate Change due to Human Induced Global Warming.
But to continue, on September 2, 2008 at 0900 gmt, Gustav is increasing its central pressure to 985 and moving from Tropical Strom status to Tropical Depression status, Hanna is now at a central pressure of 978 and within the next thirty minutes will move from a Cat 1 storm to a Tropical Storm status and Ike is maintaining its Tropical Storm status but briefly rises to 1005 central pressure from 1000 millibars. Why is this significant? Because at that very moment, when Gustav, Hanna and Ike were all decelerating another storm would manifest into a Tropical Depression and that is now know as Josephine with a central pressure of 1007.
Getting the picture? It's called oscillation. These storms form and literally react to each other along a continum of heat and tropospheric available water vapor.
What is even more incredible is the 'reach' of these storms to maintain their status and maintain their ability to drive heat into the ocean. In the image above, Hanna is literally pulling 'sparse' tropospheric water vapor from every available source north of the Equator to sustain its presence. Hanna is getting assistance in that dynamic from the vortex over the North Atantic west of the Mid-Atlantic and New England states.
If one doesn't look at the entire dynamics of these system, global systems, it is easy to say "we are having a light hurricane season,' as if nothing is wrong. But, it isn't until the entire global dynamics of Climate Change is taken into consideration that observations relevant to that perspective can be supported.
We are observing a very dangerous and dry troposphere.
