south pacific Tropical Cyclone Kofi

[Somerset Squall]

After a 3 week lull, the next tropical cyclone of the South Pacific has formed, just east of Fiji. The precursor to this cyclone has meandered over Fiji over the last couple days, bringing heavy rains here. A ridge to the northeast should take 16S away from Fiji over the coming days, on a track to the southeast. 16S has winds of 35kts, and has formative banding features wrapping into broken convection over the LLCC. The environment supports at least some slow intensification over the coming several days, before waters cool and shear increases with latitude, which will eventually bring about extratropical transition. Before this occurs, JTWC expect a peak of 60kts.

[noonoo418]

Believe this has now been named Kofi and is expected to pass south of Tonga

[Somerset Squall]

Indeed, it was named Kofi yesterday. Kofi's winds are currently at 45kts. Kofi continues to move southeastwards, steered by a ridge to the east. The cyclone had some pretty deep convection over the LLCC last night, with good banding features. Although Kofi has retained the banding features today, the central convection has started to weaken. Kofi has probably about peaked, as sea temps will decline further along track and shear values also rise. Extratropical transition is expected to begin in about 24hrs time.

[Somerset Squall]

Kofi peaked at 50kts, and is now beginning to weaken. As Kofi continues to gain latitude, it will become extratropical over cold water northeast of New Zealand.

[Vorticity0123]

Kofi has become extratropical over the southern Pacific. The JTWC issued their last advisory on Kofi a day ago. All that is left is a well-defined of an extratropical cyclone, as can be seen below:

 

 

The center is located around 37S, 158W.

 

The GFS suggests Kofi is currently in the stage of dissipation. This can be seen in the image below:

 

 

What can be seen is that the C (current position) and Z (end position) are just 6 hours (one bullet) from each other. This means that the cyclone has only about 6 hours to live, according to this model. However, given that the satellite signature of Kofi is still robust, I suspect that the extratropical cyclone may live a little bit longer.

 

Sources:

http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/TROP/floaters/16P/16P_floater.html

http://moe.met.fsu.edu/cyclonephase/gfs/fcst/archive/14030412/1.html

Edited March 4, 2014 by Vorticity0123