|
The meteorological history of Hurricane Gordon consisted of a thirteen-day period in which the storm's path was erratic, persistent, and highly unusual. The hurricane formed near Panama in the southwestern Caribbean Sea on November 9, 1994. As a tropical depression it brushed Nicaragua and spent several days in the waters off the country's coast. Strengthening slightly into a tropical storm, Gordon wound its way north into the Greater Antilles. Despite warm waters, persistent wind shear prevented significant strengthening. Executing a slow turn to the north and then the northwest, Gordon made two more landfalls, on eastern Jamaica and eastern Cuba, while delivering tremendous rains to western Hispaniola. As Tropical Storm Gordon made its fourth landfall crossing the Florida Keys, it interacted with a cyclone in the upper-troposphere and a series of cyclonic lows which lent the storm some sub-tropical characteristics. After a few days as an unusual hybrid of a tropical and a subtropical system in the Gulf of Mexico, the storm re-claimed its fully tropical form and made yet another landfall, this time across the Florida peninsula, and continued into the Atlantic Ocean. In the Atlantic, Gordon rapidly strengthened to a Category 1 Hurricane. Gordon's characteristic wandering briefly brought it near North Carolina, but ultimately the storm headed south, weakening into a minor tropical storm before making its sixth and final landfall on Florida's east coast. Hurricane Gordon was the seventh named storm and third hurricane of the 1994 Atlantic hurricane season. Although it never made landfall as a hurricane, in its meandering course the storm included six separate landfalls: four as a tropical storm and two as a tropical depression. Three of its landfalls were in the U.S. state of Florida. ==Formation== During the first week of November a large area of disturbed weather accumulated just north of Panama over the southwestern Caribbean Sea. A tropical wave passed through the area and gave it mild convection. A second wave passed through the area on November 6 and introduced cyclonic circulation to the disturbance. Over the next two days the system gradually organized and sparked a deep convection off Nicaragua's southeast coast. This organization, with initial maximum sustained winds of 30 mph (45 km/h), was designated Tropical Depression Twelve. Moving northwest, the storm began to slowly strengthen〔 and its upper level outflow became favorable to further development. Spots of convection flared on the morning of November 9; banding features appeared as its center made landfall on the northeastern Nicaraguan coast near Puerto Cabezas. A full day later a trough to the storm's northwest over the Gulf of Mexico moved the depression offshore, to the northeast, and over the warm waters of the western Caribbean Sea.〔 Fueled by these warm waters, on the night of November 9 it strengthened into Tropical Storm Gordon with 40 mph (65 km/h) winds. Lacking firm movement because of weak steering currents,〔 Gordon meandered north-northeast in the presence of mild west-southwesterly wind shear,〔 unable to strengthen under the adverse conditions. By November 11, a trough prodded Gordon to the north-northeast at 8 mph (13 km/h), and it strengthened by 6 mph (9 km/h) as it moved through the central Caribbean Sea. The trough continued steering Gordon, bending it eastward towards Jamaica on the afternoon on November 12. Despite the warm waters, Gordon did not strengthen that day as strong upper-tropospheric shear hindered development, disorganized the upper level circulation, and reduced its winds to 40 mph (65 km/h). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Meteorological history of Hurricane Gordon (1994)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|