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It seems like it takes a special breed lol Reed Timmer with tornados, Josh with hurricanes etc.

It was a direct hit on Taiwan as a cat 5 in hurricane terms. I can't believe this storm has been scrubbed. Josh was there.

RAIN sheets of heavy rain now

Maybe it was Morokat after all. I thought it was later.

Ok, hrmm... I might be getting some of his old footage mixed up. I think I'm confusing that with when Reynolds was chasing with him.

No it was Taiwan probably 10 years ago.

I think what you are describing was when Super Typhoon Haiyan made landfall near Tacloban, Philippines. Come to think of it, that means Josh has been in the most intense Pacific landfall and the most intense Atlantic landfall in the satellite era.

I remember he was chasing a very strong Typhoon that hit Taiwan. The hotel he was in got blown out and his friend got serious cuts on his arm.

Got to go on the epic Tug Hill Feb 2007 chase.

I think on journalistic level there is an importance to storm chasing. I can overlook some of the narcissism that comes with it (incoming cliche) as that's pretty much baked into every aspect of society nowadays due to social media.

Yes, yes it is. Doesn’t change anything for me, though I wouldn’t fly around the world for it.

I appreciate this so much more after our July, August, September. I laugh at my naivete back in 2019-2020 thinking the previous decade of insane moisture would not abate. The short term models show a beautiful band from ocean city Maryland to here combining with a more north south orientation band causing a nice blowup of intensity around rush hour Sent from my SM-G970U1 using Tapatalk

This is what Josh recently posted on X ... ... "This was the strongest of the 83 hurricanes I have encountered" ... with two pictures, one looking out at the eyewall and one inside the hotel kitchen as he references below ... My location (Crawford, a tiny beach town in St. Elizabeth Parish #Jamaica) took the full force of the inner right eyewall and may have seen the peak winds in this historic, record-smashing hurricane. First pic: as it started to get scary. Bone-rattling gusts were making roofs explode into clouds of lethal confetti. The grand palm tree out front was starting to bend obscenely—in a way I found unnatural. Second pic: after we bolted the door shut because it was getting too dangerous even to watch the storm. (I'd randomly ended up in the hotel's kitchen with a local family.) The hurricane's inner eyewall was a screaming white void. All I could see through the cracks in the shutters was the color white—accompanied by a constant, ear-splitting scream that actually caused pain. (Notice the woman in the pic holding her ears.) The scream occasionally got higher and angrier, and those extra-screechy screams made my eardrums pulse. Meanwhile, water was forcing in through every crack—under the floor and between the window slats. I remember shuddering at the thought of what was happening to the town—what this screaming white void was doing to people, homes, communities. My fears were well-founded. The impact in this part of coastal St. Elizabeth Parish is catastrophic. Wooden structures were completely mowed down and in some cases swept from their foundations. Some concrete structures collapsed. The well-built ones—like my hotel—survived, but even they had major roof, window, and door damage. The landscape has been stripped bare—the trees just sticks. The roads are blocked with rubble and utility poles. Nearby Black River—a unique old historical town right on the water—was smashed beyond recognition: historical sites destroyed, main streets filled with rubble, the town market twisted like a pretzel, even the regional hospital destroyed. It's a good thing I wasn't in my hotel room during the storm because one of the windows blew out, showering the bed with glass and wood. The hotel lost most of its roof, and several third-story rooms were smashed open. But in the lower flooors, those grand old concrete walls protected us. And so far I'm aware of only two deaths in Crawford—a fellow who had a heart attack at the school next door (his body was still in his car and unclaimed the next morning, a sad and disturbing sight), and a woman who drowned in the storm surge in Gallon Beach. While walking down the devastated streets of Black River, I ran into the Jamaican Member of Parliament for this region, @floydgreenja . He's a great dude and I appreciate that he already has a gameplan for turning this catastrophe into an opportunity—to build this region back better. And I vowed on the spot that I'm going to make it my mission to spread awareness of this catastrophe and get that aid flowing in. I'll be talking about MELISSA a lot over the coming months—because it is both a fascinating meteorological event and a human disaster that demands an international response. (And I swear an epic video is coming out of this.) = (location according to a respondent on X was Sandy Ground Hotel west of Crawford towards White House)

Chasing snowstorms is fun, chasing cat 5 hurricanes and extremely strong typhoons is dangerous.

Hopefully as much time as I can. Things quiet down for me in the winter so I'm hoping we can get settled quickly--though EH and CT will remain my full time location during the year overall as I have my job here. I look at the BTV site every week. I'm pretty sure eventually I'll get annoyed at the lack of big synoptic events, but I was surprised by the frequency of below zero days up there. I just hope I don't bring a +10 DJF and historic snow futility. I'm legit nervous about something stupid like that. Even so, with this being the first year I haven't had a tropical chase, unless it's a holiday I'm hoping to be all in on some kind of epic winter chase.

I can't speak for any other chaser, but I've followed wx all my life and the first time I went on a chase (for snow) I knew it was going to be a core piece of my life for as long as I could make it so. Yes, there is something a little crazy about traveling thousands of miles to chase wx and be in disaster zones, but it goes well beyond just experiencing the overwhelming power of nature, though I suspect none of us would do it if that wasn't first. I'm never more focused in my life than when I'm on a chase, especially tropical. Days before a storm even arrives I'm forecasting, figuring logistics, and preparing. It's all consuming and there's a peace to be found in that. There have been very few storms where I wasn't spontaneously needed either, especially as I became good at chasing. Whether it's comforting an elderly couple in Helene, telling a hotel manager when to lock things down in Laura, helping staff check on hotel occupants in Beryl as the windows were blowing in, spending hours digging a man out of a snow bank in an epic LES event, or carrying kids from a car stuck in water in Florence, knowing what to do and how to respond to the people impacted is meaningful too. Sometimes you're the only one who can (safely). Respect the storm, respect the people, and don't make yourself the story. Ever.

Managed to time getting to Iceland this year during a crazy blizzard in the capital! Felt very similar to a nor’easter of yesteryear, but not as much wind (surprisingly). This was just a gentle but very steady and heavy snowfall, I mean on our balcony I counted 17 inches. They claim a bit less “officially” I think, but I definitely saw amounts up to 20ish walking around Reykjavik at the end. https://www.icelandreview.com/news/reykjavik-snow-depth-may-set-early-winter-record-expert-says-photo-gallery/ https://imgur.com/a/SDxRGlR

Wasn’t there a Black River hospital with videos early on?

Josh has a new post https://x.com/iCyclone/status/1983730201860206979 I can't figure out how to embed an X post.

Some potent stuff showing up on models actually. 3"+ amounts locally. Severe maybe?

Sorry to be greedy, but we need it. Culver’s lake in Sussex was very low (presumably lowered) and the Jersey City Res. was very low when I drove by this morning.

Got one last mow in this afternoon at the farm - ready for this alleged fast start to winter in a month or so…

Rain. Nice to see a system actually hit our area flush again. Looks like particularly heavy rain after 3 am up toward Fallston.