RU848789

I've never seen a chaser/journalist actually standing in anything more than about 100 mph winds - if you have footage of someone actually standing in verified 150 mph winds, show it. Hurricanes usually have moderately greater winds over water before landfall than actually measured on land, due to frictional effects. I'm not downplaying anything.

150 mph winds are 150 mph winds, regardless of "source," plus the radial inflow and vertical winds in both types of storms (vertical motion exists in both kinds of storms) are far lower than the tangential/horizontal winds and I'm certain standing in 150 mph winds from either source will lead to injury or death. However, it is true that the rate of change of the wind speed in a tornado is usually greater than in a hurricane due to the shear/torque component of tornadoes and that can exacerbate damage, but the far bigger component is the actual horizontal wind speed. Also, Cat 5 hurricanes have a lot more mesoscale vortices than weaker hurricanes and these produce more turbulence/localized shear and can behave more like tornadoes.

Landfall... Hurricane Melissa Tropical Cyclone Update NWS National Hurricane Center Miami FL AL132025 100 PM EDT Tue Oct 28 2025 ...CATEGORY 5 MELISSA MAKES LANDFALL IN JAMAICA... ...ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL HURRICANE LANDFALLS ON RECORD IN THE ATLANTIC BASIN... Melissa has made landfall in southwestern Jamaica near New Hope with estimated maximum sustained winds of 185 mph (295 km/h) and an estimated minimum central pressure of 892 mb (26.34 inches). THIS IS AN EXTREMELY DANGEROUS AND LIFE-THREATENING SITUATION! Do not leave your shelter as the eye passes over, as winds will quickly, and rapidly increase on the other side of the eye. Residents should remain in place through the passage of these life-threatening conditions. To protect yourself from wind, the best thing you can do is put as many walls as possible between you and the outside. An interior room without windows, ideally one where you can also avoid falling trees, is the safest place you can be in a building. You can cover yourself with a mattress and wear a helmet for added protection. The next position update will be provided with the intermediate advisory at 200 PM EDT (1800 UTC). SUMMARY OF 100 PM EDT...1700 UTC...INFORMATION ----------------------------------------------- LOCATION...18.1N 78.0W ABOUT 25 MI...40 KM SE OF NEGRIL JAMAICA ABOUT 145 MI...235 KM S OF GUANTANAMO CUBA MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...185 MPH...295 KM/H PRESENT MOVEMENT...NNE OR 25 DEGREES AT 9 MPH...15 KM/H MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...892 MB...26.34 INCHES

No, 30 mile wide path of Cat 4/5 winds right now; 60 miles wide is hurricane force, but the EF3 (or even EF4) "tornado" winds are only ~15 miles out from the center.

Wind is wind. Have you seen the swath of destruction from Andrew? I also accounted a bit for winds on land being less than over water at the surface (due to boundary layer frictional effects) by saying EF3 (136-165 mph) for most, not the 185 mph sustained winds over water right now. Plus, winds will be even greater above 500'.

There's likely going to essentially be a 30 mile wide path (where the Cat 4/5 winds are - very compact system) across the island which is essentially being hit by an EF3 tornado (136-165 mph winds) with near total destruction of many structures and many to most trees downed. Those tin shacks will all be gone along with anyone who stayed in one, sadly. The EF3 damage description is: "Severe damage; entire stories of well-built homes destroyed, large buildings severely damaged, trains overturned." And some areas, especially at elevations above 500' (large parts of Jamaica in the path of the storm) will experience an EF-4 level tornado. The one saving grace if there is one, is that the storm is so compact, so at least the winds won't be a major issue more than about 30-40 miles from the storm's center, as hurricane force winds only extend 30 miles from the center (except maybe for areas over 500-1000 feet where winds will be maybe 20-30% greater than at sea level). But as the experts have said many times, the torrential flooding rains and mudslides will be an issue nearly everywhere on the island and the 9-13' storm surge is catastrophic right now for most of the south coast. Also, the track is going to be over a sparsely populated area - just imagine the devastation if this hit 50-60 miles east in Kingston, the nation's capital with ~600K people.

Appears to be - there's a paper on it with regard to what happened in Irma... https://x.com/MikeFischerWx/status/1982642835418722602

The 5 pm and 8 pm NHC cones are identical, as they usually are, as I don't recall them ever updating those maps for the intermediate advisories. Files too large to paste here, which surprises me. https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2025/MELISSA_graphics.php?product=3day_cone_with_line

Thought this tweet from Ryan Maue was interesting, contrasting how Dorian (2019) had Dvorak numbers of T 6.5 vs. T 8.0 for Melissa, while Dorian had 160-knot winds from observations, while Melissa is "only" at 145-knots.. Basically, one can't just go by satellite data, as real observations don't always line up. Hopefully, future recon flights won't be restricted due to turbulence (assuming they can be made safely). Still haven't figured out how to have tweets show up in preview mode. https://x.com/RyanMaue/status/1982844394022789254

The view of a peaceful starry night, inside the maelstrom of Melissa.

Interesting. I didn't realize the Sandy record surge/tides at Barnegat and on LBI in general (6-8'), were significantly lower than the record tides from Seaside north to Sandy Hook (8-12') and in Raritan Bay (up to 15'), which were 3-5' greater than previous records, as opposed to the 1' or so above records for LBI. I always thought that LBI would've had just as high of tides, since Sandy came ashore in Brigantine putting LBI on the stronger, north side with NE/E winds. I get why AC and south had significantly lower tides from Sandy, being on the south side of landfall. chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.nj.gov/dep/wms/download/suro_hurricanesandy_njwatermonitoring_meeting.pdf

Surprised nobody posted the 0Z Euro - just a slight increase in QPF vs. the last run, lol. The rumors of this storm's death have been greatly exaggerated to paraphrase Mark Twain.

We can agree on this.

Off base with this criticism, like most people who say such things. Declaring the SOE is simply for planning purposes so the State is ready to release funds for emergency response and recovery when and after a natural disaster strikes. It doesn't shut anything down, per se. https://nj.gov/njoem/about-us/state-of-emergency.shtml#:~:text=What is a State of,event exceeds the State's resources.

Greg Postell on TWC was just saying he thought there was enough evidence of a low level closed circulation to name this Imelda and isn't sure why it hasn't been named yet. Personally, given the wildly varying model runs to this point, I wonder if the NHC simply wants a bit more time to issue actual track/intensity forecasts. He also mentioned the conflict between anomalously warm waters ahead of Imelda vs. some very dry air aloft forecast to be in its path, making intensity forecasts very difficult - and we already know the impacts of the closed SE low and Humberto with possible Fujiwhara effects are making the track forecast very difficult. The one thing that seems almost a given is that at least parts of SC/NC/VA, especially near the coast, will get a lot of rain - how far inland that very heavy rain gets and whether we're talking 4-8" of rain (which most can handle) or 10-20" of rain (big flooding) is an open question.