Its that time of year again! The 2017 Medicane (Mediterranean hurricane) season is about to start. For those of you that are new to these threads, I've been tracking 'medicanes' for 3 years now. They are basically mini hurricanes that appear in the Mediterranean sea that have tropical properties but tend to be neglected. Although sea surface temperatures are low over the Med, 'medicanes' do not require temperatures of 26C, they are perfectly happy at around 18C due to the high vertical thermal gradients due to cold air incursions. You will note that normal hurricanes (e.g Vince) that form in the north atlantic also form over 'cold water' too. Nevertheless despite their unusual location they share all the tropical characteristics of normal hurricanes. Think of them as 'bonsai' hurricanes!

Last year was a doozy, we kicked off early with the bay of Biscay storm on the 15th September. 

Although not technically in the Mediterranean, I still elected to accept her as part of the cohort due to the similarities of the Bay of Biscay. Note the very large eye feature indicative of a subtropical storm. Indeed she was colloquially known as 'subtropical storm stephanie'. 

 

After Stephanie we had to wait until October for some more action, but it really delivered! An unusually strong medicane developed in the last week of October. Here at TWO we named her 'trixie' (shoutout to bertwistle) but she was also known as 90M. The name 'trixie' actually went viral in meterological circles and was used by official sources including the German government! There was actually a debate on Wunderground as to whether the name came from Danish scientists! So that's an advantage of following this thread, you may get to name a medicane as people on here did last year! I actually did some in depth research into Trixie as part of my 2nd masters degree; unfortunately the research isn't publishable because the model simulations couldn't spin the storm up. However I'd be happy to take additional queries about this.  Below is an image of Trixie at peak intensity. 

It was difficult to confirm exactly how strong Trixie was but observational, simulated and flyover data suggested Trixie was between strong tropical storm strength and weak category 1! i.e if medicanes weren't so neglected this could easily have been a bonefied hurricane!

 

Beyond the thrills of Trixie there were a few hybrid type systems but nothing to write home about. However this is 2017 and I started this thread 2 days early for a reason. A first candidate medicane is showing up on the WRF output! 

This is for the 3rd September. The WRF model wants to generate a medicane in the Adriatic sea. Adriatic medicanes are quite rare even as medicanes go. I'd guess no more than a 25% chance of development, even so enough to warrant opening this thread early.

Now the fun begins! 

 

 

 

 

 

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Thanks for this Q'

Maybe we might see an 05'-esque recurve of a Cape Verde trying to enter the basin again? That should turn heads!

and what of the warm core Baffin storm from a few weeks back? Is that one of these beasties?

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I still can't get rid of the idea of the name "Medicane" as something you can buy from the chemist for bad wind.  

Kidding aside, I'll pop in this thread from time to time for a look-see.

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Thanks for this Q'

Maybe we might see an 05'-esque recurve of a Cape Verde trying to enter the basin again? That should turn heads!

and what of the warm core Baffin storm from a few weeks back? Is that one of these beasties?

Polar lows are quite similar to medicanes, they are just even smaller and weaker. Medicanes are much closer to conventional hurricanes than polar lows are, although still interesting. 

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Development potential dialled down today. Not all that suprising, Adriatic medicanes are extremely unusual.

 

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Still a small chance of development. The 0.05 degree WRF has it hit Italy too early on and dissipate before intensification.

 

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Models have gone off the idea so I think this is very unlikely now. Nevertheless convection has blown up in the area, I'll be watching in case one does form later tonight or tomorrow.

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Still hints of something happening tomorrow morning. I think this will come to nothing but I will be watching the satellite imagery. 

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A collection of thunderstorms has formed in the south Ionian, which is a very active region for medicanes. ~30% chance this could develop.

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Great that this thread is up and running and could keep us company through to the New Year, potentially. It was a fascinating watch last year and there were several on-the-edge-of-seat moments like (I presume- I don't follow football) the 'one off the crossbar').

There are some very warm 850 temps forecast in places over the Med over the next few days- more especially in the east; I think I asked a similar question last year; will this supress early Medicane development or do we need to be looking at the 500s and up?

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Obviously you don't recall 2005?

We are in as position , forecasts tell us , that we could have 3 'canes on the basin next week( fully formed ) so you can figure out yourself the Fujiwhara  impact on the track of those storms?

Should such position the ragged remnants over water suitable for re-intensification ( over 26C) then what will we see?

We might think Florida 'packed full' of folk but compare that to south Spain or Italy????

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We were on a cruise ship between Barcelona and Cannes on the night of 14/15 July 2016 in a hurricane force 12 wind (as reported by the ships instruments). The ship listed considerably (we were told it was because the ship - Ventura - behaved like a giant sail). I don't think it was a medicane as such - probably the Mistral - but very frightening all the same.

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The convection has now developed some rotation. Interesting that the models did not predict anything like this, but it seems to be spinning up quite fast. 

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We were on a cruise ship between Barcelona and Cannes on the night of 14/15 July 2016 in a hurricane force 12 wind (as reported by the ships instruments). The ship listed considerably (we were told it was because the ship - Ventura - behaved like a giant sail). I don't think it was a medicane as such - probably the Mistral - but very frightening all the same.

Even without medicanes, the med can be a surprisingly violent place. The gulf of genoa is one of the most cyclogenically active places on the planet due to the alps creating orographic lee lows.

 

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Great that this thread is up and running and could keep us company through to the New Year, potentially. It was a fascinating watch last year and there were several on-the-edge-of-seat moments like (I presume- I don't follow football) the 'one off the crossbar').

There are some very warm 850 temps forecast in places over the Med over the next few days- more especially in the east; I think I asked a similar question last year; will this supress early Medicane development or do we need to be looking at the 500s and up?

Medicanes tend to be characterized by a warm core of high 850s but their formation is catalysed by deep cold air aloft (at the 500 level in particular). In order for them to develop you usually need a cold air outbreak, however once they have spun up it is no longer necessary as they can maintain their strength with the surface/ocean interaction much in the same way Hurricanes do.

The key difference is that Medicanes are powered by cold upper air, as opposed to the warm SSTs but warmer SSTs do usually mean stronger medicanes. 

 

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So , as I've been saying about tornado 'inflation' across the Uk, all you need is an increase ( so less 'modification') of warm/cold inteaction and off you go?

 

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Makes more sense now, note the cold cutoff low just north of scicily. While the WRF did not develop a medicane under it, there is no reason, in principle, one shouldn't develop. 

The system really does look to be spinning up now. I can't see the environment being ideal for long enough though for one to form. We will see anyway.

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If this had a few more hours I reckon it could become a medicane, however the environment looks to be turning quite unfavourable by tomorrow with high wind shear which should break it to pieces. Impressive development though in such a short space. 

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This is pretty impressive. Almost willing to call this an actual medicane.

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From satellite, the whorl certainly looks convincing and the scale is right. GFS swallows it up by Monday in the southern zone of the Atlantic low over N Europe, but then as explained previously, the models are notoriously bad at forecasting their behaviour. Anything to note about surface windspeeds or sea conditions?

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