Hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean:

Hurricane Omar
Table of contents:

Introduction:
page: 3
Hurricane Omar:
• Arise of Omar page: 4
• Wind history
page: 5
• Rainfall page: 7
Appendix page: 9
Sources page: 10

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Introduction:

In this summary I am going to tell you something more about hurricane Omar. Omar was one
of 5 major hurricanes of the Atlantic Hurricane season 2008. Omar caused a lot of problems in
the Caribbean Sea. The Netherlands Antilles and the Leeward Islands were most damaged by
Omar.

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Arise of Omar:

Omar’s development was caused from a tropical wave of the west coast of Africa. This wave
moved across the Atlantic Ocean into the Caribbean Sea with low convection. But this system
didn’t show any signs of further development, until the system reached the Caribbean Sea.
The system became better organised and became a tropical depression on the 13th of October.
It took long before the tropical depression became a tropical storm. But 18 hours later after its
development it became the new tropical storm Omar. Omar was now located in the
neighbourhood of Aruba. Omar turned counter clockwise and began to move to the north east.
This was caused by a tropospheric trough which was interacting with Omar. Also its moving
forward speed had increased and Omar was moving faster to the Netherlands Antilles and the
Leeward Islands.
A few hours later Omar quickly developed even better and became a major hurricane on
October 15th. This intensity was caused by a wind shear, very warm seawater with a high level
of condensation.
But the intensity didn’t last very long. Omar quickly weakened by the cause of a strong wind
shear which raped the system apart. Also a dry air was interacting with the inner core (the
eye) of Omar. But the wind shear decreased and Omar could intensify again and so it did. Its
moving speed increased again and Omar was now moving quickly to the North.
But the further Omar was moving to the north the smaller its chances were to develop any
further. Omar came in cooler water and the wind shear increased again. Omar disappeared in a
remnant low on October 108th .
The system was still moving, but couldn’t develop or intensified and after a few days the
system was absorbed by the atmosphere.

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Wind History:

Date/time Latitude Longitude Pressure Wind speed Category

(north) (west) (knots)
Tropical
13 / 0600 15.4 69.0 1005 25
Depression
Tropical
13 / 1200 15.2 69.6 1005 30
Depression
Tropical
13 / 1800 14.8 69.8 1004 30
Depression
Tropical
14 / 0000 14.5 69.6 1001 35
Storm
Tropical
14 / 0600 14.3 69.3 997 40
Storm
Tropical
14 / 1200 14.2 69.1 991 50
Storm
Tropical
14 / 1800 13.9 68.8 983 60
Storm
Hurricane
15 / 0000 14.1 68.3 983 65
Category 1
Hurricane
15 / 0600 14.4 68.0 985 70
Category 1
Hurricane
15 / 1200 14.9 67.4 984 75
Category 1
Hurricane
15 / 1800 15.6 66.5 977 80
Category 1
Hurricane
16 / 0000 16.7 65.2 970 95
category 2
Hurricane
16 / 0600 18.2 63.9 958 115
category 4
Hurricane
16 / 1200 19.6 62.1 975 90
category 2
Hurricane
16 / 1800 21.1 60.4 985 70
Category 1
Hurricane
17 / 0000 22.8 58.8 986 65
Category 1
Hurricane
17 / 0600 25.1 57.1 984 70
Category 1
Hurricane
17 / 1200 27.9 55.7 982 75
Category 1
Hurricane
17 / 1800 30.1 54.4 985 65
Category 1
Tropical
18 / 0000 31.3 53.2 988 55
Storm
Tropical
18 / 0600 32.4 52.1 991 50
Storm
18 / 1200 33.0 51.3 996 40 Remnant low
21 / 0600 Dissipated

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This picture shows the
track of hurricane Omar
while it was active in the
Atlantic basin. The picture
is a reference to the table
with the wind history of
hurricane Omar. The track
is almost straight to the
north. That is why Omar
was so quickly weakened
and disappear. The higher
you come in the north east
of the Atlantic Ocean, the
colder the water gets in the
area. That is what happened
to Hurricane Omar. Omar
came in colder water and
began to be disrupted. Omar wasn’t long a major hurricane. As you can see, he was a major
hurricane on the time he was passing through the Leeward Islands. Luckily Omar didn’t make
landfall.

Storm surge caused by Omar in St. Thomas

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Rainfall:

Hurricane Omar’s rainfall was measured on a couple of islands in the area of the Caribbean
Sea. This data is shown in the next table:

Antigua:
Place: Total rain in inches:
Antigua 9.13

French West Indies:

Place: Total rain in inches:
St. Barthelemy Gustavia Meteo 1.97
St. Martin Grand Case Airport 4.53

Netherlands Antilles:
Place: Total rain in inches:
Aruba 4.00
Bonaire 1.60
Curacao 1.70
St. Eustatius 4.02
St. Maarten 5.49

Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands:

Place: Total rain in inches:
St. Thomas Airport 2.42
St. Croix Airport 5.30
Cotton Valley 3.44

The green spots in the table show

the highest measuring of an area.

The image on the right shows a

TRMM picture of hurricane
Omar while it was in the
Caribbean Sea. The TRMM gives
information about the rainfall of
a hurricane. This pictures shows
that the mid of Omar had the
heaviest rainfall of the whole
system. This is shown by the
darker spots seen in the mid of
the system. You may also see that
there are large rainfall spots
around the small islands of the
Caribbean Sea. This includes the
Netherlands Antilles and the area
of Puerto Rico.

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 This page gives you something more about
the rise and shine of Omar’s rainfall during
its activity.
On the left is the first picture of hurricane
Omar showing. This picture is made on
October 14th. This is on the time that Omar
wasn’t a hurricane, but was quickly
developing. You can see this by the picture.
It is one large system, with a lot of rainfall.
If you look to the picture here below, you
can see that an eye has formed. This was a
day later on October 15th, and Omar had now developed into a hurricane. You can see this by
the small red spot in the grey area of the
system. As we look further on the page, we
see a great genesis of Omar. This picture
shows Omar on its strongest point. The
whole system is a very devastating system.
This is perfectly shown by the large grey
spot in the middle of Omar. But the further
Omar went on the Caribbean Sea, the more
it weakened in the rainfall strength. This
doesn’t mean that its normally wind strength
also weakened. This became only stronger,
but I can explain that because of the developing of a hurricane. The system became more and
more stronger and the wind was ripping the rainfall apart and was now not centring the rain.
As you can see on the picture on the left,
which is also made on the same day as the
picture above, the system is weakening and
the rainfall is also weakening. The eye is
almost gone. But the system is still strong
and very dangerous! Even if the eye is gone,
this does not mean that the storm can’t be a
major storm. On the time that the picture is
made on the right, it was a category 3 storm.
But the storm wasn’t as strong as the picture
here right above. But if we look below we
see also Omar, but while he had almost disappeared. You may see how quickly it weakened.
This picture was made a few days after the last picture. The whole system was disrupted and
began to disappear and weaken, and all of
this happened in only 1 day. From a strong
hurricane on October 15th, it went to a
tropical storm a few days later. There is still
small sign of convection, but this also didn’t
last long.

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Appendix:

This summary gives a small indication about Hurricane Omar. Hurricane Omar was a very
dangerous hurricane with one of the strongest ACE counts. But luckily the system weakened
fast, before it could make any landfall. But it didn’t make a landfall because of the wind shear
which pushed the hurricane to the north.

Luckily Omar didn’t make a lot of damage. The damage that it made was estimated to be 60
million dollar. Also 2 people died because of Omar.

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Sources:

http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/?2008289-1015/Omar.A2008289.1745.1km.jpg
http://www.nnvl.noaa.gov/images/112555_m.jpg
http://www.javno.com/slike/slike_3/r1/g2008/m10/y184969808614180.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Omar_2008_track.png
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/283191main_omarnolabeled_20081015_HI.jpg
http://blog.cleveland.com/world_impact/2008/10/large_stthomas-hurricane-omar.jpg

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