Unfortunately, this inward and upward movement also causes the new eyewall to spin even faster (like a figure skater pulling their arms inward).Īs a result, surges in lightning activity in the storm’s inner core and eyewall tend to be associated with periods of rapid intensification. This upward surge can enable the clouds to get tall enough at a fast enough rate to temporarily develop ice crystals in them, and those colliding crystals can generate the static charge needed to produce lightning. As this happens, a new ring of wind and rain will sometimes contract inward and surge upward to replace the old eyewall. It’s a natural part of the hurricane lifecycle for the eyewall to weaken over time. Both are tied to a process called eyewall replacement. There’s an interesting connection between Ian’s unusual lightning activity and its exceptional strength. As the storm approached and struck Florida, AEM’s network of weather stations and lightning sensors recorded no less than 98,176 lightning flashes and 839,858 lightning pulses over 48 hours. Hurricanes typically don’t produce prolonged lightning activity in and around their eyewalls. Over a three-hour period, Ian’s wind speeds increased from 120 mph to 155 mph as measured by AEM’s weather network – leaving it only a few miles per hour short of the most dangerous Category 5 classification on the Saffir-Simpson scale. The devastation was made worse by the fact that Ian went through a period of rapid intensification only hours before hitting the coastline.
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