When Hurricane Ioke went out of the range of the Central Pacific Hurricane Center and crossed the International Dateline, the last update said this:
IOKE COULD ENTER THE RECORD BOOKS FOR LONGEVITY AS A CATEGORY 4 OR GREATER STORM.
Now the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, with new responsibility for Supertyphoon Ioke, says this:
THE STORM HAS MAINTAINED SUPER TYPHOON STATUS FOR FIVE CONSECUTIVE DAYS. WITH THE EXCEPTION OF POSSIBLE INTENSITY FLUCTUATIONS DUE TO INTERNAL CONVECTIVE PROCESSES, STY 01C IS FORECAST TO MAINTAIN ITS INTENSITY THROUGH TAU 48 IN THE ABSENCE OF ANY DISRUPTIVE SYNOPTIC INFLUENCES. THE SYSTEM SHOULD WEAKEN SOMEWHAT AFTER TAU 48 AS IT ENCOUNTERS SLIGHTLY
LOWER SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURES.
My question for tropical cyclone geeks is, when does Ioke actually break this very significant record, and if/when it does, what storm will it surpass?
Meanwhile Hurricane John is a Category 4 ass kicker in the Eastern North Pacific and is skirting awfully close to land....
I don't know my Mexican geography very well but the Baja California peninsula is definitely a possibility for this storm. As you can see on Kerry Emanuel's website, some models even bring the storm into the Sea of Cortez. Weirdly, though, as I was running on the treadmill this morning, the media were obsessed with Tropical Depression Ernesto rather than John. I guess they haven't sent any TV crews out to the Pacific yet....
- Log in to post comments
Google returned this:
Longest Lived: 30 days for Hurricane Ginger (North Atlantic, 1971; Avila, personal communication, 1993), also 20 days for Tropical Cyclone Elinor, south Indian Ocean, 1983; and Typhoon Rita (79 warnings were issued) western North Pacific, 1972 (Jeffries et al., 1992).
The longest-lived records don't seem to relate to longest lived at Cat. 4 and above:
H Ginger,1971 - never reached Cat. 4
TC Elinor,1983- Cat. 4 for 3-4 days
Typh. Rita,1972 - Cat. 4 for 2 days
www.hurricane.com/hurricane-records.php
has a list of longest-lived Cat. 5 storms:
(not their total lifetime, just their time as Cat. 5)
Atlantic-Allen,1980,3 days
E. Pacific-Raka,1997,2.5 days
W. Pacific-Nancy,1961,5.5 days
A Cat. 5 storm is 135 knots, and a Super Typhoon is 130 knots. 5 days as a Super would seem to be close to the record.
well, maybe it's nancy that holds the record, then....I don't know if Ioke has been a Cat 5 the entire time it has been a supertyphoon, because of the weird overlap it's hard to say
I think cat 5 is >= 136 knots.
I think you've made a boundary error. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saffir-Simpson_scale
Note that the NHC, the JMA, and the JTWC only estimate wind speeds in 5 kt increments. So in practice, 135 kts is cat 4, and 140 kts and up is cat 5.
My reading of the JTWC track file leads me to the following:
Category 4: 180 hours (7.5 days) total.
From 2006082200 to 2006082212
From 2006082412 to 2006083100 (present) and beyond.
Super Typhoon: 144 hours (6 days) total.
From 2006082506 to 2006083100 (present) and beyond.
Category 5: 72 hours (3 days) total
From 2006082506 to 2006082518 (18 hours)
From 2006082612 to 2006082718 (36 hours)
From 2006082918 to 2006083006 (18 hours)
So Ioke needs another 2.5 days as cat 5 to match Nancy. The latest JTWC forecast (as I write this) forecasts only another 24 hours or so as cat 5.
I think it is the first two (lifespan at cat 4+ and lifespan at Super Typhoon + ) which are potential record breakers.
Llewelly,
Those statistics are incredible. Someone more mathematical than me ought to calculate the power dissipation. And then do one of those comparisons with the total world electrical generating capacity....