The Death of a Storm

Being the "Manic Meteorologist" that I am, I find myself actually getting depressed when I watch the destruction of a tropical storm or hurricane. I love these storms in almost the same way I love Florida (i.e.: I hate to see its destruction and I often go into true depression when I see it). I guess you could call me a Meteophile (and a Floridaphile, thanks to FC for the new vocabulary word.). Anyway, this partly explains why I have not posted as of late. I have been watching a storm get itself shredded apart, and I have a very intereting picture with some captions I have added for you viewing and learning pleasure. The picture still depresses me, and Chris has dissipated and looks like it has no chance at regeneration. Oh well, there will be a Debby very, very soon.
I'd like to make a note here...I love these storms and think they are among the most beautiful and awesome things on this earth. BUT I hate to see extremely strong storms make landfall and cause destruction and death. I add this because there have been times that I have been criticized by people who say I love to see storms make landfall and that I love to see the destruction (people said this to me multiple times after Katrina). Another story for another time.












The yellow arrows represent wind shear, which was extremely strong (40+ knots) and there is also a pink circle just below the arrows on the right. That pink circle encloses the center of circulation. As you can see, those upper level winds just blew that deep convection (high clouds) right off the circulation. I'll explain why this happens in a later post. This picture is a lot better when it is viewed in full-size, but Blogger likes to reduce the size of images when you add them, so this is the biggest I could get it.