Not a Hurricane, but Hurricane Winds

   So, I've been gone awhile...
   But I haven't been ignoring the tropics. I was pretty amazed that I was able to anticipate the formation of both Jelawat and Ewiniar in the NWPac before any agency reported them. Successes like these are really important to me, as I hope to work with TC's someday. In the NEPac there has been Miriam and Norman, both rather short lived. Finally there's Nadine in the Atlantic, still alive after more than two weeks.
  While focusing on these tropical cyclones, I almost missed a rather extraordinary extratropical cyclone up north. On September 26, a low pressure system moved into the Gulf of Alaska while rapidly intensifying. At its peak, it had a central pressure of about 950mb, this is the same pressure I would typically expect to see only in a major hurricane. The big difference here is that this storm, like most extratropical cyclones, was MUCH larger than most tropical cyclones. Below is a water vapor satellite loop from 00Z on the 26th to 04Z on the 27 made by NOAA's Ocean Prediction Center (OPC). Note the streak of dry air (colored yellow and red) work its way into the storm's tight spiral (colored blue, green, and white) as it intensifies.

And here is a high resolution visible image of the storm from around 00Z on the 27th, so near the end of the above loop.

Next is an image made by the UW Atmospheric Sciences department showing the infrared image of the storm from the same time as the image above, with lines of constant pressure (isobars) and surface observations overlaid on top. At the very bottom right of the image is the dying Miriam, notice how small its circulation is compared to the extratropical storm!

Finally, here, also from UW, is a visible satellite satellite image of all of the GOES-WEST's view of the northern hemisphere. Once again it is from 00Z. With this image the size of the storm becomes clear, especially when compared to Miriam and the developing Norman in the bottom right. As for that long, relatively narrow band of clouds the begins just east of the storm and wraps around and extends far to the west, that is the cold frontal zone. If you look closely, there is a very thin band of bright clouds along some zone's southern edge; that is the front itself.