Hilary, Irwin locked in ‘dance of death’

Neither hurricane is likely to hit land

Hilary may have outlasted Don, but could Irwin do her in?

A pair of eastern Pacific storms — Hilary and Irwin — are forecast to be locked into a fatal dance this week as each whirls around like a meteorological fidget spinner.

Hurricane Hilary and soon-tobe Hurricane Irwin will pivot around a specific point by midweek in a phenomenon meteorologists call the Fujiwhara effect. One storm should then absorb the other.

The effect describes the rotation of two storms around each other. It’s most common with tropical cyclones such as typhoons or hurricanes but occurs in other cases.

“Think of the teacup ride at Disney or the Tilt-a-Whirl at your local county fair, but with tropical systems instead,” Weather Underground said.

WeatherBell meteorologist Ryan Maue tweeted, “Hurricane Hilary on clear path west to victory ... then comes Hurricane Irwin with ‘Fidget Spinner’ and wreck.”

The National Hurricane Center said the “winner” in the Hilary-Irwin battle could be Hilary but admitted the storm’s “long-range forecast is a mess with the likelihood of some binary interaction with Tropical Storm Irwin.”

As is typical with many Eastern Pacific hurricanes, neither Irwin or Hilary is likely to impact any land areas.

Although Hilary’s maximum winds are forecast to be about 126 mph, making it a Category 3 storm, it probably won’t be the world’s strongest tropical cyclone this year, Maue said.

That title goes to the 150-mph Cyclone Ernie in April, which remained off the northwest Aus- tralia coast and “bothered nobody,” he said.

Amazingly, two western Pacific storms, Typhoon Noru and Tropical Storm Kulap, are also locked into the Fujiwhara dance pattern this week, Weather Underground said.

Noru is the first typhoon of the year in the western Pacific Ocean, an unusually late date for the season’s first one, according to Colorado State University meteorologist Phil Klotzbach.

Storms in the Fujiwhara effect rotate around one another as if they locked arms and were square dancing.

As for Tropical Storm Don, it went out with a whimper in the Caribbean last week.

“Think of the teacup ride at Disney or the Tilt-a-Whirl at your local county fair, but with tropical systems instead.” Weather Underground