Overnight and up through this morning, Hurricane Flossie in the Northeast Pacific--having started out as a category 1 storm--rapidly intensified into a weak Category 4 with a well defined eye, as you can see in the infrared image below:
I think it's fair to say Flossie's behavior took everyone by surprise. The National Hurricane Center forecasters were not predicting it, or anything close. Neither were the models. This is yet another indication of how bad we still are at forecasting hurricane intensity. But you can't blame the forecasters, really. I'm looking at some of the same data they did, and I'm just scratching my head. Typically, in order to rapidly intensify a hurricane needs deep warm water. But look at the figures below, first the Northeast Pacific sea surface temperatures as of August 10, and then the tropical cyclone heat potential as of the same date. (Click the images for ...
