Kyle looks rather sad with his lopsided convection, but the thunderstorms east of the center are build well with cold cloud tops. The shear north of the storm has been up to 50 knots - extremely strong shear that would tear any storm to pieces - but has been decreasing dramatically in the last few hours and should remain low to moderate in the next two days. There is decent agreement among the hurricane guidance products on intensifying the storm to minimal hurricane strength at 48 hours (Saturday morning) with a Sunday AM passage over the Eastern Gulf of Maine.
There are some new questions that come to mind and must be answered in the next 12 to 18 hours.
- Will the storm move as slowly as forecasted, or will it sling quickly north in the developing southerly flow?
- Will this same southerly flow tear the top off the storm and effectively leave the surface circulation behind while the tropical moisture surges northward?
- Will the warm front backing in from the ocean across New England, then stalling, serve as a boundary to focus more heavy rainfall than was initially expected, making it last longer through Saturday and into Sunday, or is the front too far removed from the storm to have this effect?
- Will Kyle perform much like a poleward moving tropical cyclone and have a distinct separation of wind to the south and east of the track, and heaviest rain west, or will the combination of the frontal boundary and the increasing pressure gradient ahead of the high building over Southern Canada increase wind on the west side of the storm circulation?
- How will the lack of convection on the west side play out in the life and longevity of the storm?
- Will the rather ominous ECMWF (pictured below) verify? It certainly is west of the hurricane track guidance, but is disconcerting to consider as a possible solution.
For me, I need some rest and will re-examine these questions in the morning (getting up at 2 AM will do that to a guy!). But, if you have thoughts you'd like me to read when I sit down to analyze everything in the early AM, feel free to leave them in the comments section of this post! In the meantime, check out tropical analysis and forecasting links on the Tropical Page of NationalWeatherOnline.com.
Matt
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