newbie Isabel questions/comments

[clueless newbie]

Hi, can somebody explain to a clueless newbie:

1. Why does the SW quadrant of Isabel look so different (very smooth outflow), while the rest is more "normal" ragged. What causes this and what does that mean?

2. How to understand the look Isabel had last night: highly elliptical central cloud pattern SW ti NE with the eye at the NE corner. It looked to me as if something was pulling her SW, but the eye (more precisely, the rotation centre) had so much inertia/energy that it simply pulled through NW anyway.

3. Often when you watch hurricane loop there are waves in the cloud pattern propagating from the centre. What does that mean? Distant echoes from eyewall dynamics? Can you infer something from these waves?

I really did not like the look of Isabel with her huge ragged eye, or the elliptical shape, but in the last picture 19:15 UTC she is a real classic beauty. More like a strong cat 4 then a marginal one.

[ColdFront77]

Welcome to Storm2K, clueless newbie. I look forward to your future posts.

I have an idea on the answer to these questions, but I would prefer someone else (or others) answers them. Sometimes it is nice to find what others answers to questions are.

[southerngale]

Hopefully one of our experts can answer your questions, but I wanted to welcome you to storm2k....cute name!