The other has it veering more sharply to the north, close to the Big Island. One has it blowing past slightly south of the islands, with effects still likely but no direct hit. Two of the most respected dynamic weather models, fed by vast amounts of real-time data, have come to different conclusions so far on Lane’s path. As of Tuesday evening, the cone enveloped at least part of all of the islands. Lane’s cone is based on error rates in hurricane predictions over the past five years, Bravender said. The cone is the familiar image on television news screens and weather websites, illustrating the range of possible routes for a hurricane. Welcome to the “Cone of Uncertainty” - not a philosophical work, a psychological condition or sci-fi headgear, but life on the Hawaiian Islands as Lane approaches. But out here in the middle of the Pacific, that difference “means day and night,” said Pao-Shin Chu, professor in the atmospheric sciences department at the University of Hawaii and the state climatologist. The models may only vary by a couple hundred miles. On the scale of the globe, the differences are not big. A trough of low pressure to the west of Hawaii is generating higher-altitude winds out of the southwest expected to push the hurricane to the north, toward the islands.ĭespite advances in dynamic prediction models, it’s challenging to predict the pivot point of a hurricane that’s turning course, said Bravender, warning coordination meteorologist at the Central Pacific Hurricane Center. A strong ridge of high pressure to the north of Hawaii acted as a kind of brick wall, keeping the storm from wandering far enough north to do damage. Only two weeks ago, Hurricane Hector passed safely to the south of the islands, as many hurricanes do. A satellite image of Hurricane Lane on Tuedday. Other planes, flying at much higher altitudes, survey the environment that the hurricane is moving toward to get a sense of how atmospheric forces will steer it or influence its intensity.ĭata like that is used to predict the path of Hurricane Lane - a subject of intense interest for residents of Hawaii over the next few days. The plane, for instance, releases “dropsondes” - cylinders holding monitoring equipment, floating by parachute into the hurricane. And it was a chance to see how the data they depend upon is collected. The turbulence was severe enough that the plane had to miss a mission Tuesday morning as the ground crew made sure it was fit to fly.Īpart from the obvious wonders of flying through a Category 4 hurricane, Bravender was struck by how the air crew uses the predictions that he and his colleagues generate to determine where to fly and what to measure. He and the others on board were jostled as the plane - a P-3 operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - hit the eye wall. He witnessed the “stadium effect” - immense walls of clouds surrounding the eye, with clear blue sky above. The sun was still up Monday when the four-engine turbo prop plane made a pass through the eye wall of Hurricane Lane.įor meteorologist John Bravender, it was a first in-person glimpse of the kind of monsters he tries to measure, whose paths he aims to predict.
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