Hurricane Lorenzo packs Category 4 winds -- and presents an ominous climate signal
Source: Washington Post
Hurricane Lorenzo packs Category 4 winds — and presents an ominous climate signal
National Hurricane Center: It’s "one of the largest and most powerful hurricanes of record for the central tropical Atlantic.”
By Matthew Cappucci September 27 at 11:06 AM
As Tropical Storm Karen withers away, Hurricane Lorenzo has become “one of the largest and most powerful hurricanes of record for the tropical central Atlantic,” according to the National Hurricane Center.
Now packing 140 mph winds, Lorenzo became a Category 4 storm Thursday farther east than any other previous storm on record, save for Julia in 2010. While far from any populous land masses at the moment, Lorenzo could be having an impact on the Azores in less than a week’s time — all the while marking a potentially ominous climate signal.
The Category 4’s sprawling cloud shield spans more than 1,000 miles — roughly the distance from Washington, D.C., to Miami; including its outflow, it would be large enough to cover the entire East Coast beneath overcast.
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For the time being, Lorenzo’s dance is just a show for meteorologists. But beneath the surface, it is the latest overachieving storm to fit into a pattern ripe with overachieving storms.
Lorenzo’s central air pressure was lower than that of any other hurricane on record this far east. It also became the strongest hurricane east of 45 degrees west longitude on record. Lorenzo is very much out of bounds.
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It’s also only the 10th major hurricane on record east of the 40 degrees west marker. Five of those have occurred in the past decade, a number that National Hurricane Center forecaster Eric Blake called “probably no coincidence.” Ocean water temperatures in the corridor swept over by Lorenzo are up to a few degrees warmer than their former average baseline, making the lower atmosphere replete with fuel to spin up a beastly storm.
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/09/27/hurricane-lorenzo-packs-category-winds-presents-an-ominous-climate-signal/