Climbing mike said:
Wow went from a tropical storm to cat 5 hurricane in 24hrs, with the possibly the lowest pressure ever recorded in the Atlantic basin. That has to be one if not the fastest growing hurricanes ever! Mike
Here's the interesting part of this storm. The waters in a band from Jamaica, west to Belize are the warmest of all the Carribbean. Water here, at around 86 degrees F vaporizes very readily and goes up to create clouds. This was shown in all the images leading up to today's hurricane. Mega-tons of water being evaporated to the sky.
How a tropical depression forms in the first place, I don't really know. What we do know is the properties of water, like at 86 degrees it evaporates readily. We also know that evaporation rate increases as the atmospheric pressure drops. We also know that water evaporates more as winds pick up and waves churn and froth.
So, this little area of dropped atmospheric pressure develops over really warm water, the water starts churning, the pressure drops some more, an exponential rate of evaporation increases. As the storm gets bigger, the pressure drops even lower, winds get higher, larger waves, larger winds a much LARGER area over really warm water, the storm grows bigger, the pressure drops to the lowest ever recorded out there. THAT is where we're at right now. Remember, the lower the pressure, the higher the rate of evaporation. Look where the storm is. It is right on top of that super-warm band of water, and it is category 5 and it is still growing, if not in further wind speed then in sheer size.
We are guaranteed a couple of things. Once the storm reaches full size, it will not get any smaller. it may drop a category, or maybe two,
but the storm at the time of landfall will be HUGE.
Given all the conditions, I fear that Wilma can be as destructive or more a storm than Katrina. This storm is bigger than Katrina ever was, right now, and this time yesterday it was a tropical storm. this is a scary-fast growth rate. Very, very dangerous potential.
