I've updated my medicane blog about this. I suspect the remnants of the medicine interacted with the alps to produce the heavy rain and storms. 17 people have known to have been killed in this event. I really think we need to take medicanes more seriously. 

Even on the western flank of the storm as it was just kicking off, there was considerable tree felling in Minorca according to relatives of mine staying down there. Apparently, the majority of residences on the eastern side of the island are in view of at least one fallen tree. That sounds pretty extreme but they may have been getting a bit carried away with their description.

I have long regarded Medicanes as a serious threat to Mediterranean coasts in a warming world, particularly east of the Balearic Isles.

In the meantime, don't lose sight of ex-Joaquin. GFS, ECM and Fax have all changed their mind, and instead of its remnants being swept up in the general direction of Iceland, being rebuffed by a growing high-pressure cell over the UK, ex-Joaquin is now set to head to NW Spain (T=150) and become a low pressure centre over France (T=180). 

http://www.theweatheroutlook.com/twodata/datmdlout.aspx

That looks like heavy showers for the South Coast early next week to me, and if the track is only a little more northerly, more extensive rain and wind for the south of the UK.

But it could all change again - keep watching!

If Joaquin ends up in the Mediterranean (as all major models predict) we can't rule out another medicane, a vortex combined with moisture and heat from the tropics could make such development more likely.

OR how about Joaquin's remnant low moves slowly across the UK as per the ECM 12z op run 

An outlier solution, the two most consistent outcomes are the Low skirting to the west of the UK and then moving north, or the LP moving south under HP. I recon the later option is the most likely to come off. 

Indeed: that is, if the models don't change their mind. GFS has Joaquin remnants close to or over the UK which is different from yesterday - ECM still favours a more southward track but has it dying on its feet before getting to the Med.

My money is still on ex-Joaquin sitting off SW Britain and throwing up troughs and showers from the south

Sorry for the rather obsessive postings, but looking through the archives; I don't think the recent medicane was the first of the season. A much weaker one hit Sicily on the 8th. Going to look into this. 

How long will Joaqain survive as a tropical system?

I suspect NOAA will declassify it shortly after image 2 (+42hrs) where it has gained some atropical characturistics. However I wouldn't call it fully extratropical until 114hr (last image)

Looks like we have a new potential medicane.

this one looks like it could hit mainland Italy. Still pretty uncertain despite being less than 72 hours away.

Actually this one looks potentially much stronger than the Sardinian medicane we had at the start of the month. WRF even shows a well defined eye on the cloud projection

At this point it has a depth of 986mb which may not sound a lot but its very deep for a medicane. The sardinian medicane at the beginning of the month only had a depth of 1003mb.

Could the remnants of Joquain regain tropical characturistics?

Eye forming just of the SW coast of portugal. Models debating on whether or not to give the system a warm core, if not tropical then we could see an interesting subtropical or hybrid system. 

20C isn't usually considered warm enough for tropical development, however the system does boast an impressive upper cold pool; at higher latitudes the SST requirement can be waived if there is a strong temperature contrast and low wind sheer.

This one is even more impressive.

Bottom left, the circular well defined eye lasts a good 8 hours too. Wonder if this might actually be classified as a tropical cyclone by NOAA; that would be so cool, although I doubt it.  

Holy crap, I can't believe how good the conditions are just to the SW of spain for tropical development:

-Warmer than avg SSTs

-Upper level cold pool

-Virtually zero wind sheer

-Unusually moist environment

All the models are now showing a system that has the following features:

-Warm core (or transition state between cold and warm core)

-Symmetrical circulation

-Eye wall, and eye feature which is amazingly well defined in terms of cloud, precip, CAPE, thetaE, 0C isotherm e.c.t.

Basically I think we have another hurricane vince, but this one is even further NE. Why am I the only one that seems to care, its amazing if this ends up being classified as tropical; a real first!

System is beginning its transition to tropical-like. Currently we have an occluded cold core system, over the next several hours as it moves south into a low sheer environment it will begin to transition to warm core.

Potential for up to 1500mm of rain for Luzon through Wednesday.

This is the current situation

The system is currently completely extra-tropical however in as few as 15 hours it will start to develop tropical characturistics. You can see the frontal systems on the low which are very well defined, the LP will slowly begin to loose its fronts as the transition begins.

Currently the centre has no thunderstorm activity although to the SE of centre there are light thunderstorms, which are blown off centre by a sheering wind. Again, over the next 15 hours the sheer will reduce and thunderstorms should develop closer to the centre. The environment its moving into (LP on a SSE trajectory) is also moister and warmer and should allow convection to begin to take over. 

The SST of 20-22C should not be a problem for a system this far north provided all other factors are perfect.

GFS image of storm at its peak:

We can see how symmetrical it becomes (left) with any fronts hundreds of miles away from the centre and completely decoupled. The precipitation projection on the right shows a well defined eye, and spiral banding typical of a tropical system.

Exciting times indeed!

This is tommorow at 6pm incidentally.  

ICON model, showing cloud with hand drawn fronts. The progression is very interesting.

We start with current conditions. There is a very well defined cold front, warm front and occluded front with the occluded front wrapping right into the centre of the LP. This is a depression well past its prime in mid-latitude terms. By midnight tonight, the occluded front has fragmented into two parts, the warm front has all but vanished; this is an elederly and rapidally weakening depression. By 6am tommorow, the warm front has completely vanished leaving a weak occluded front and cold front. At this point you would expect the depression to start to decline very rapidally, however instead it begins to deepen, indicating the source of its energy is no longer baroclinic. By 6pm tommorow all that is left is a weak occluded front, however convection bands begin to form around the centre of the LP which continues to deepen; convection is now the LP's main source of energy. By 6am Tuesday the LP has a warm core, the remanants of the occluded front lie hundreds of miles away from the centre and an eye and eye wall is now visible. According to the ICON the now tropical system reaches its peak at about 10am Tuesday (rather later than other models) at tropical storm strength and then very rapidly dissipates.  

Mmm, not really - it's just a regular low, fronts-n-all!

http://oi62.tinypic.com/111ilad.jpg

Wouldn't take much for a transition to begin though. 

Tbh based on the 0Z WRF it looks like we will now have to wait until midnight before any transition begins. 

Into the early hours the central part of the low starts to become more symmetric and deepening occurs. Why should an elderly low deepen, unless its source of energy is convection?

Well its 26.5C for normal tropical development.

The SSTS are 21-22C

But

The SST requirement can be waived for storms that form so far north. The reason is because upper troughs can bring much colder air at the ~300mb level at these latitudes than would be possible at the tropics. In actuality, SSTs are not the reason hurricanes do not form at higher latitudes, the reason is actually wind sheer (its also the reason you don't get storms in the S atlantic or SE pacific).

Look up hurricane vince and tropical storm Grace. 21-22C is easily warm enough at this latitude for tropical development; hell Medicanes can develop in SSTs of 15C! Polar lows can develop in SSTs of 3C, and its actually theorized that a true arctic hurricane is indeed possible, were polar lows longer lived and didn't intercept land so quickly.

Also look up Lake Huron hurricane.

There is a saying that goes "if it looks like a tropical cyclone, it is a tropical cyclone". To me, that looks like a tropical cyclone! 

OK, I'm going to be honest, to me this looks more like a subtropical cyclone than a tropical one. But even a subtropical storm here is an achivement, and if a subtropical system forms then it could easily be upgraded to a tropical storm.