Analyzing Alberto's Life (Jeff Masters)

Alberto struggled over its entire life with wind shear of 20-30 knots overhead. Why, then, was it able to put on a surprising burst of intensification on Monday morning over the Gulf of Mexico? One possibility is that the a brief lull in the wind shear allowed Alberto to take advantage of the warm waters of the Loop Current. As seen in Figure 1, the Loop Current was pumping a long tongue of waters with high heat content into the central Gulf of Mexico. Alberto spent much of its life over this high heat content water. Just as Alberto moved away from the Loop Current, wind shear appeared to drop by about 10%, based on satellite estimates I viewed at the University of Wisconsin's CIMSS site. This small relaxation in shear may have been enough to allow Alberto to take advantage of the warm Loop Current waters and put on a burst of intensification. Shortly thereafter, the shear increased by 10%, Alberto left the Loop Current, and the intensification stopped.

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