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Hurricane Lane Discussion Number  14
NWS National Hurricane Center Miami FL       EP142018
200 AM PDT Sat Aug 18 2018

The satellite presentation of Lane has improved significantly during
the past several hours with a distinct eye surrounded by very deep
convection and symmetric outflow. T-numbers from both TAFB and
SAB are 6.0 on the Dvorak scale, and on this basis, the initial
intensity has been increased to 115 kt.  The hurricane is moving
within an environment of light shear, and this should allow some
additional strengthening during the next 12 to 24 hours. After that
time, guidance suggests that a slight weakening should begin
perhaps to a modest increase in shear.  The NHC forecast does
not weaken Lane as fast as indicated by the intensity guidance.

Lane continues to move toward the west-northwest or 285 degrees at
14 kt, steered by the trade winds south of the subtropical high.
Since the steering pattern is not expected to change much, this
general motion should continue during the next 3 to 5 days. An
expected weakening of the trades should result in a small decrease
in the hurricane's forward speed. Track models are tightly clustered
during the first 72 hours, and this increases the confidence in the
forecast. After that time, the model agreement is not as good,
resulting in a wider guidance envelope bounded by the GFS to the
north and ECMWF to the south. The NHC forecast follows very closely
the multi-model ensemble and the corrected consensus HCCA which are
in the middle of the envelope. No significant changes were made to
the previous NHC forecast


FORECAST POSITIONS AND MAX WINDS

INIT  18/0900Z 12.1N 137.0W  115 KT 130 MPH
 12H  18/1800Z 12.5N 139.0W  120 KT 140 MPH
 24H  19/0600Z 13.0N 141.5W  120 KT 140 MPH
 36H  19/1800Z 13.7N 143.6W  110 KT 125 MPH
 48H  20/0600Z 14.0N 145.5W  105 KT 120 MPH
 72H  21/0600Z 14.5N 149.5W  100 KT 115 MPH
 96H  22/0600Z 14.8N 153.1W   80 KT  90 MPH
120H  23/0600Z 15.7N 156.5W   65 KT  75 MPH

$$
Forecaster Avila

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