Three Category 4 Hurricanes in the Pacific Ocean: How Rare Is That?

Hurricanes Kilo, Ignacio and Jemina in the Pacific Ocean on August 30, 2015.

30 August, 2015

A very rare meteorological event occurred Saturday evening into early Sunday morning when three Category 4 hurricanes were ongoing simultaneously in the Pacific Ocean.

At 11 p.m. EDT Saturday, Huricane Kilo (135 mph) was located well southwest of the Hawaiian Islands followed by Hurricane Ignacio (140 mph) to the east of Hawaii and Hurricane Jimena (140 mph) in the eastern Pacific. Kilo was the last of the trio to reach Category 4 status, doing so on Saturday evening. For reference, hurricanes with maximum sustained winds of 130-156 mph are classified as Category 4, which is the second highest category on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Sale.

However, by 5 p.m. EDT Sunday both Kilo and Ignacio had begun to weaken and were classified as Category 3 hurricanes, while Jimena maintained its Category 4 status.

This is the first recorded occurrence of three Category 4 hurricanes in the central and eastern Pacific basins at the same time. In addition, it's also the first time with three major hurricanes (Category 3 or stronger) in those basins simultaneously, according to hurricane specialist Eric Blake of the National Hurricane Center.

This satellite image shows the three Category 4 hurricanes in the Pacific Sunday morning (Kilo - left, Ignacio - center, Jimena - right).

Three Category 4 hurricanes on Sunday morning in the Pacific. Kilo (left), Ignacio (center) and Jimena (right). (NASA)

Dr. Phil Klotzbach of Colorado State University and blogger for wunderground.com said in a tweet on Saturday that this was also the first time the central Pacific, bounded by the International Date Line and 140 degrees west longitude, has had two major hurricanes (Kilo and Ignacio) ongoing at the same time. This piles on to what has already been a record hurricane season in the central Pacific basin.

Blake said on Aug. 21 that Loke was the record fifth named storm to form in the central Pacific basin this season. The others were Ela, Halola, Iune and Kilo. In addition, three eastern Pacific storms have tracked through the basin, including Guillermo, Hilda and Ignacio.

NOAA's 2015 Central Pacific hurricane season outlook cited El Nino's tendency for reduced wind shear and more storm tracks coming from the eastern Pacific as reasons to expect an active season in the central Pacific Bain.

The Pacific tropical activity can be attributed, in part, to impressively warm ocean water.

El Nino is an anomalous, yet periodic, warming of the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. For reasons still not well understood, every 2 to 7 years, this patch of ocean warms for a period of 6 to 18 months.

The eastern Pacific basin also typically sees an increase in named storms during a moderate to strong El Nino thanks to diminished vertical wind shear.

The opposite is true in the Atlantic basin, since wind shear tends to increase in a moderate to strong El Nino, particularly in the Caribbean Sea.

Hurricane Igor is featured in this Sept. 14, 2010, image photographed by an Expedition 24 crew member on the International Space Station. (NASA)

Godzilla Rises. Stunning El Nino Forecasts are Literally Off the Chart

Climate Crocks,

25 August, 2015

Above, NOAA has published a graph of modeling predictions from various professional groups looking at the developing El Nino event in the Pacific.

The dark line that starts at the left is actual observations of what we see so far in unusually warm surface water in the central and eastern pacific. The various colored lines that proceed to the right are the different attempts at predictions. As you can see, they are running hot – very hot, to the point of sailing off the top of the chart…

As you can see from this diagram, global temperatures tend to get a bounce in El Nino years, while La Nina years exert a cooling influence.

Economist:

EL NIÑO is Spanish for…The Niño!” joked Chris Farley on a 1997 episode of Saturday Night Live, a sketch comedy programme. The skit was memorable for its absurdity but it did not do much to explain “The Niño”. It aired during the devastating 1997-1998 El Niño, which caused at least $35 billion in destruction and 23,000 deaths globally. A new El Niño is now brewing. NASA satellite pictures indicate this year’s could be even bigger than the 1997-1998 one, the strongest on record. So what is El Niño?

Spanish for “little boy”, El Niño was so named by Peruvian fishermen in the 1600s in honour of the Christ child. They observed that periodically around Christmastime, Pacific waters grew warmer and fish vanished, migrating to cooler waters. Unlike hurricanes, El Niño is not an individual weather event, it is a climate pattern. In non-Niño years trade winds, which blow east to west, push warm equatorial water into the western Pacific, allowing cold water from the deep ocean to well up in the eastern Pacific. During a Niño, those winds slacken. The warm water that is normally pushed westward pools right across the Pacific Ocean. Water temperature increases, and increased heat and moisture rise into the atmosphere, altering wind and storm patterns. If ocean-surface temperatures are between 0.5 to 1°C above average during a three-month window, America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a federal agency, deems it a Niño. The current one could produce temperatures 2°C higher than average, or more.

Dahr Jamail has written his latest on abrupt climate change.

The World on Fire: Record-Breaking Wildfires, Greenland Melting and Earth's Hottest Month Ever

A massive wall of wildfire smoke, blowing in from record-breaking fires in eastern Washington State, covers Puget Sound and Seattle. (Photo: Dahr Jamail)

When I go up into the mountains, I'm used to being afforded magnificent views of alpine meadows filled with wildflowers, crystal-clear mountain streams, glaciers tucked under the shoulders of high valleys, stratified ridges arcing into the sky, and views so far into the distance one can sense the curvature of earth.

But on August 22, as I carefully climbed my way toward one of the high summits of Eastern Olympic National Park, the solace of the mountains eluded me due to an ominous sign. The view east - toward what has now officially become the largest complex of wildfires in history for Washington State, where over one-quarter million acres have burned - was dominated by a large, greyish-white plume of smoke that stretched as far north and south as I could see.

At first it appeared as a large storm cloud layer, which was confusing given that the weather-folk had called for a stable high-pressure ridge over western Washington through the weekend. But as I continued through the morning, the large white wall neared and slowly began enveloping the entire eastern mountains of the Olympics, and my eyes began to burn as I smelled the smoke.

By the time I reached the summit of my climb, the view south was already obscured by the smoke as it began to fully infiltrate Olympic National Park

For rest of the article GO HERE

Smoke from West coast fires

Unprecedented.

Drifting wildfire smoke from the West coast states, covers the Midwest today, from Hudson Bay in northern Canada, all the way through the Midwest to the Gulf of Mexico.

Arctic Ocean 08 31 2015.

Storm approaching is visible in the upper left hand corner

Western Wildfire Smoke Has Drifted Over the Atlantic

Terra image of wildfire smoke over the Atlantic

Smoke from the treacherous western wildfires of both the U.S. and Canada has wafted across country and out to sea. In this natural-color satellite image collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Terra satellite on August 29, 2015, remnants of the smoke are swirling out above the Atlantic Ocean. Prince Edward Island can be seen in this image as well as New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team. Caption: NASA/Goddard, Lynn Jenner

http://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/western-wildfire-smoke-has-drifted-over-the-atlantic

Arctic sea ice extent on August 28, 2015, was less than 5 million square km