Hurricane Jimena hours from landfall, weakening to a category two

Hurricane Jimena has been suffering from a case of lower SST and even lower OHC.  Jimena has been downgraded considerably to a category two hurricane – still extremely capable of producing category four-strength storm surge along with the same 15+ inches of torrential rains.  Jimena is likely to make landfall before noon CDT, 10AM PDT today.  Afterwards, the system will struggle with the mountainous terrain as it begins to wind down for good.

Satellite Presentation

Jimena is visibly shaken by strong southwesterly winds hitting the hurricane between 10-20kts/mph.  While this isn’t enough to cause Jimena to weaken considerably more before landfall, it is enough to help prohibit any strengthening.  Most of the convection lies to the east of Jimena’s center of circulation – which itself is detached at multiple levels per the latest NHC storm discussion.  Upper-level wind flow over Jimena is carrying cloud cover and rains well into eastern Mexico, southern Texas and the Gulf of Mexico.

You can also see the IR image below Jimena has little area of very cold cloud tops – another sign of weakening.  The TPW below right shows dry air has been drawn into the system as well further weakening the storm.

All of these conditions, though, will not weaken Jimena much more prior to landfall.  Even with the current weakening, Jimena will continue to bring with it category three-to-four-strength storm surge – that water just doesn’t disappear.  Furthermore, heavy rains will continue to fall in most locations along the Baja Peninsula and some considerable flooding and mudslides can be expected in many regions.

Sea Surface Temperatures

In the images below you can see that while Jimena has plenty of water ahead of it that is capable of supporting tropical cyclones (26°C or 80°F), Jimena has very little to no OHC remaining.  This, in addition to the upper-level winds mentioned earlier as well as Jimena’s close proximity to land pretty much asures Jimena’s best days are gone.

Forecast

The NHC is thinking Jimena will continue to move north-northwesterly up the western Pacific coast of Baja coming inland south-southeast of Guerrero Negro as a minimal hurricane.  From that point, Jimena is forecast to move more northwesterly and gradually make a counter-clockwise turn back to the souteast and back into the Pacific.  This is a rather significant difference from earlier forecasts that had the storm continuing it’s north-northwest path.  Jimena is expected to be a weak tropical depression at that point and likely won’t even exist due to tear of the core structure from interaction with the land mass.

Interestingly, there is still significant divergence of Jimena’s forecast by the various computer models.  Some take Jimena back offshore but resuming a north-northwest track.  Others take Jimena inland and north while some turn Jimena clockwise and south towards or inland into Mexico.  One, the HWFI takes Jimena racing southeast back into the Pacific tropical regions.  Take of it what you will but the ultimate question is:  will Jimena even survive after the next couple of days.  My gut says likely not and this system is likely to decouple – as it appears it already has – and the low-level circulation will become too disrupted and become absorbed in other atmospheric features.  Either which way, Jimena will be a ghost of it’s former self and with dry air surrounding the system it isn’t likely that even by that time it will be a significant rain event.

Track Hurricane Jimena and get the latest NHC forecast and wind radii on our interactive hurricane tracking chart.