all the visual appearance looked great but what what was her top 1min sustained wind speed?

Surely that info must be out there.

Its not that easy since there is no official monitoring service, but I'm working on getting a figure.

I can say without any doubt more than 45mph sustained which was measured. Gusts were well in excess of 70mph. At the very least TS strength winds.

Kythira in Greece had sustained 1m winds of 49mph at midnight last night. So top wind speed would be a bit greater than that as Kythira didn't see the eyewall until Trixie had begun to weaken.

Right as the sun came up. Visible sat image with mostly cloud free eye.

One quick thing, I've been monitoring some discussion forums and apparantely I missed a medicane this year.

29th February 2016. Very small medicane developed for a few hours on the back of an extremely strong extra tropical cyclone. Due to its tiny size, tiny lifespan and its insignificance compared to its non-tropical parent; I can perhaps be forgiven for the oversight!

And TBF it was outside of the normal medicane season, am I correct (albeit a month)?

 

And TBF it was outside of the normal medicane season, am I correct (albeit a month)?

Yeh, February is pretty late and I stop looking so carefully then.  

 

Its not that easy since there is no official monitoring service, but I'm working on getting a figure.

I can say without any doubt more than 45mph sustained which was measured. Gusts were well in excess of 70mph. At the very least TS strength winds.

 

so just a brief windy spell despite the impressive look to it. 😊

 

so just a brief windy spell despite the impressive look to it. 😊

In terms of wind speeds, these storms will be unable to rival even strong depressions in NW Scotland. The interesting thing about them is their tropical nature, but they can still be very hazardous.

I'm impressed at some of the waves south of Crete- massive. Also impressed that this was a storm predicted to weaken until south of Sicily, then strengthen again, which was on the nail- and this a phenomenon that top synoptic models don't yet seem to deal well with.

I will be watching the next one with interest. Some FI disturbances in the eastern Med look interesting.

A review of current medicanes and prospects for the future here

https://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=3494

I'm impressed at some of the waves south of Crete- massive. Also impressed that this was a storm predicted to weaken until south of Sicily, then strengthen again, which was on the nail- and this a phenomenon that top synoptic models don't yet seem to deal well with.

I will be watching the next one with interest. Some FI disturbances in the eastern Med look interesting.

Conditions are expected to become good for medicane formation

I'll keep everyone posted about particular events.

Possible medicane being shown on the GFS which is unusual in itself as it doesn't usually resolve them.

An upper level cold pool and a lower level warm pool is consistent with this being a medicane; its location also gives it away. Just east of the Baleric islands is the single most common place for a medicane to form.   

Clearly there is potential here, but given that the WRF struggles to model medicanes at 48hr; I'm a little sceptical of the GFS's ability to do so at 162hr!

GFS still showing medicane potential:

Will be interesting to see if its still around when it comes into high res range.

2nd medicane also shown by the GFS near Tunisia:

Clearly there is good potential over the next week.

Stay tuned!

A lot of interesting things appearing now:

Only 36 hours away a medicane develops in the southern Med. The fact that multiple medicanes are being predicted by all the models in the next week suggests its likely we will see at least one.

By the way, you might get a chance to name the system if it becomes a medicane

The name Trixie was chosen here for the last system which I pushed heavily on social media. The name was almost universally adopted by all the European media and used by reputable organisations such as meteogroup and DWD all the way to places like Wunderground! There were meteorologists in the Netherlands actually debating which University coined the name!

WRF +93hr. Tropical-like transition occurring, note how symmetrical the low is in the centre:

Phase space maps very impressive. Warm core developing!

Nice cloud fraction images from ARPEGE, note the eye wall

Only just picked up on your latest observations Q;  how convinced are you that this will develop into a medicane, according to your criteria? I note the conditions and location are right, and a warm core is forecast through to 20th, but the GFS 0z this morning seems to have the 500mb cold spilling into Spain by 20th, with the structured low staying close to the Balearics. Should I be looking higher up than the 500?