Warren G. Phillips

BREAKING: Hurricane Lowell, about 590 miles south-southwest of Kauai, Hawaii, is a CATEGORY 5. Eyewall winds have reached 160 mph. It's a beautiful, mesmerizing, terrifying and awe-inspiring pageant of power and elegance. It's the atmosphere at its most dynamic, raw and extreme. It’s sinister perfection. The hurricane has to have an absolutely flawless, undisturbed balance. It's an extremely rare feat. A Category 5 is like a spinning top whirring on a table; even the slightest jiggle can knock it off-kilter – like bumping the table. There must be virtually no shear, or changing winds with height. The upper-level winds around the system must be relatively calm. It's incredible to think that the planet's most furious storms are born out of an abundance of calm. The waters must be exceptionally warm – upwards of 86 degrees – to be replete with "oceanic heat content," or heat energy for the hurricane to draw upon. The warm waters heat and moisten the air above. That air rushes into the building hurricane. As air nears the center of the storm, it expands due to the hurricane's low pressure. That expansion releases heat energy to the environment, encouraging air to rise and powering the storm. In theory, that air parcel (pocket) should cool, but it doesn't. Why? It's still being heated by the oceans below. The ocean is constantly re-heating the lower atmosphere – and energizing the storm – at the exact same rate the air is releasing heat energy into the storm. Most of the moisture in the air condenses and produces rain, releasing even more "latent heat" to the environment. Near the hurricane's center, there's a lot of heat energy. So much so that the air rises, as if in a chimney. That rising air literally lifts air up and away from the surface. There's literally less air, and therefore less air weight, or *pressure*, at the center of the storm. Most Category 5 hurricanes are "missing" about 8-10 percent of the air from the middle. It's that deficit of air that behaves like a vacuum of sorts. Air from outside the storm rushes in to fill the void, like water spiraling into a sink drain. The greater the deficit, the faster the winds. The wind increases exponentially closer to the center of the storm; Category 5 hurricanes have winds over 157 mph. So why doesn't the eye, with the "missing" air, just "fill in?" Because the hurricane is rotating so furiously! The air is flung outwards by the "centrifugal force" at the exact same rate it's being pulled inwards by the "pressure gradient force." The air can never fully reach the eye – and instead it swirls around and around, like water perpetually sloshing around the edges of a toilet. We call that "cyclostrophic balance." Thus, the eye doesn't fill in. The storm charges on. And – until the system is torn apart by disruptive upper-level winds or moves over cooler waters/land – it continues. Fortunately, Lowell will weaken somewhat in the days ahead, and should stay far enough west of Kauai to spare the Hawaiian archipelago any direct wind impacts.