Monday, January 19, 2009

Eric and Fanele

It's been pretty warm here in Denver for the last couple of days. Downtown has touched 70ºF today which is pretty impressive for January. As I type, the northwesterly winds are gusting occasionally to 35kts with valleys of calm in between. It isn't often windy at my apartment, so it's been interesting.

On to more exciting things ... twin cyclones in the Southern Indian Ocean!

As we saw yesterday, 08S formed just east of Madagascar. Now named Eric, the storm is sideswiping the coast and moving to the south.

The more impressive story is Tropical Cyclone 09S Fanele. It has rapidly strengthened in the Mozambique Channel and is now at hurricane strength. Forecasts on this storm have been a little strange, but the Joint Typhoon Warning Center now has the storm looping and impacting the west coast of Madagascar. Right now, a pin-hole eye can be seen on the storm and it could still strengthen considerably before landfall.







The flare-up of convection in the West Pacific has calmed down and the area is no longer being watched for cyclone development.

Satellite imagery used with permission; courtesy of IPS Meteostar Inc. Click for larger images. Annotations are made by the author of this blog. Tropical cyclone tracking information from Navy/NRL Tropical Cyclone Page.

NOTE: If you've reached this page due to a search result, the most current tropical information can be found in the latest post and not necessarily the post you are reading. Visit http://blog.bigskyconvection.com/ for the most recent post.


Dann.
Currently at Denver (Hampden Heights), Colorado: 60ºF CLR, breezy.

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