Chinook

Denver (KDEN) reached 94° at 2:25 pm MDT this afternoon breaking the record high of 92° set in 2000.

Denver tied a record high with 92 today. High 92, low 60 puts Denver at +12 degrees for the day. Fort Collins had 93/51 on Thursday (yesterday), which was not a record for that date. So, basically, we have had 4 to 6 days of 90 degrees, going back to Sunday. Lows in the low 50s are close to normal though. Fort Collins has had 0.01" of rain since August 19th, but my place has had 0.15" since August 19th. In general, this area may finish the month of September with 0.10" of rain or something like that. I am not sure what will happen with future cold fronts, but certainly not much will happen soon. August + September rainfall could be quite low, and the US Drought Monitor will likely expand the D0 coverage in Colorado soon.

Recent 72mph gust from the southeast at the buoy shown in the eye, 94mph gust from the southwest, on the southwest eyewall

Denver tied a record high with 96, with a low of 64. Average high and low are 80 and 49. That makes it 15 degrees above normal for the day. The winds have been keeping Denver warmer at night.

Yes, that matters a lot. Lots of things depend on the level of the surge. Just think, back in Hurricane Katrina, which was Category 5 over the Gulf of Mexico, weakened to cat 2/cat 3 (??) at landfall in Mississippi. There was something like a 25 ft storm surge at Bay St. Louis/ Waveland/ Pass Christian MS. I think that may be a record for the USA. I saw that area in 2010-- nearly everything had been rebuilt. At one place in Bay St Louis, there were just stilts left over from a home that was long gone. So, that is making me wonder. Is this storm bringing a 15 ft storm surge? I haven't checked, but it is a big deal. I also used to be at Myrtle Beach. I was not there for any disasters, but it seems like some areas are not too protected. Like a 5-7 ft storm surge might hurt pretty bad south of Myrtle.

Wrightsville Beach near-shore and offshore buoys now both getting 70 kt (81mph) wind gusts. The outer buoy (41037) seems to be in the eyewall convection. Cape Lookout station getting pretty decent 89mph (77kt). Still category 1 wind gusts. It is kind of true with such a low pressure of 957mb, normally you see cat 2 to possibly cat 3. But the winds of cat 2 just aren't quite there.

Cape Lookout CLKN7 station (C-MAN station) has 82 mph gust to 97mph, which is impressive in itself. Onslow Bay Buoy - gust to 112mph (buoy #41064)

Denver hit record highs of 93 on Monday and Tuesday. Fort Collins hit record highs the last two days, Tuesday and Wedesday. It was 92 both times for Fort Collins. Fort Collins tied a record high of 92 set on 9/11/1895. Who ever said the 1890's weren't warm?? Today, my car said it was 97 at 445 PM. Gee! I believe I may be seeing a cloud that's a smoke plume from near Rabbit Ears Pass. It shows up on satellite imagery. The smoke was over the Mummy Range, and the color looked a bit weird. I think NWS Boulder posted a tweet that said (at least) one smaller fire flared up yesterday.

Based on some of this information, surface winds may max out at 85 kt - 95 kt (cat 2) in the more substantial part of the eyewall. Flight level winds are above 96 kt (cat 3) in a few varied spots northeast of the eye. A pressure of 959 mb is still quite substantial, supporting a general cat 2-cat 3. The Saffir-Simpson scale is no longer based on pressure, though.

Super Typhoon Mangkhut is now a textbook Category 5 cyclone, and JTWC predicts that it will impact the northern Phillipines (Luzon.) It might be a pretty close call with landfall

The latest recon pass has about 106 kt at the surface and 112 kt at flight level. Pressure still about 945 as far as I can tell. So the pressure is still close to what it was yesterday, no drastic changes into the 950s or 960s. The previous recon pass had about 130kt at flight level. So I think they can still argue that the surface winds may be that borderline 113 kt category 4, based off the previous recon pass about 1-2 hours ago. I'm not sure what the flight level to surface standard reduction is, maybe 90%. As far as the IR satellite is concerned, it does look a little bit lopsided, but not too crazy. The extremely cold cloud tops still wrap around the wide eye, with a fair number of miles of -60C cloud tops. So the IR satellite techniques, I'm sure, are still up there. (I haven't personally checked the Dvorak technique here, but probably category 4).

Could somebody post AF309 mission #9 recon plots from Tropical Tidbits? It would be so interesting to see the wind plots for 1 or 2 passes into the eye. I have to go and I won't be able to see Tropical Tidbits again until later, when the plots are gone. As of right now, recon is hitting 45mph winds and getting closer to the storm.

We had a breezy hot, dry day today with winds out of the south and west. A random rain shower hit Loveland for a few minutes. Otherwise, it was a beautiful partly cloudy day, with maybe a couple of areas of virga/ rain showers. I don't even know how the rain happened, given the dew point around Denver was near 32 degrees. I wish there would be anything interesting. The forecast is just repeated 90 and sunny. Fort Collins-Loveland Airport: 94 Greeley 96 Broomfield-Jeffco: 86 Front Range Airport: 93 KDEN Denver 93 degrees KAPA- Arapahoe County- Centennial 89 degrees KBKF - Denver Buckley AFB 90 degrees

The wettest month in Washington DC history was September 1934 with 17.45" of rain. I assume this had something to do with a hurricane. Washington is already above 5" for this month, with Hurricane Florence on the way. Could Washington DC make a run for the wettest month in history? Could they make a run for the wettest year in history? I hope not, for the sake of all of the millions of people in the Mid Atlantic who have already had floods affect their communities this year. Currently Washington is not too far from the wettest January 1st - September 10th of all time. (45.9" vs 49.5")

Did anybody post the hurricane recon plots from AF308 Mission #7 into Florence? I can't find the data on Tropical Tidbits since the mission is over. It's just so neat to see these plots from Tropical Tidbits. If not, I am curious about the vortex data message pressure/ max FL wind/ max surface wind.

I would suppose this is an actual picture of a storm over Chicago on Monday. If so, this is amazing. It looks almost like some of those hoax pictures where somebody took an image of a supercell wall cloud on the Plains and superimposed it over a different picture of a beach in Florida and said it was Hurricane Katrina, or something like that.

This situation is starting to remind me of the remnants of Tropical Storm Grace (2003) which made landfall in Texas as a weaker tropical storm, then the moisture kept moving along a stationary front, all the way from Texas to the Midwest to the Northeast. Rainfall values from Aug 31-Sep 5 2003: Toledo - 2.78" Indianapolis: 8.29" Columbus: 3.24" Dayton: 2.96" Louisville: 3.71" Paducah: 2.58"

Sometimes, there is a weird thing that happens with Atlantic named storms within a season. Let's take for example, subtropical storm Alberto (2018) which made landfall near Laguna Beach FL on May 28. Winds were 45mph. According to what I remember, the core structure of the tropical storm looked better over land in Alabama than it did at landfall. Now, 3 months later, we have had a more significant TS Gordon make landfall on (I believe) Dauphin Island, AL. This is only 132 miles from Laguna Beach FL. 2017 - Tropical Storm Cindy made landfall near Beaumont TX (Sabine Pass LA). 2017 - Hurricane Harvey made a 2nd landfall as a tropical storm near Beaumont TX, and most expensive weather disaster in US history. 2016 - Tropical Storm Colin made landfall on the Florida Big Bend, and tracked to near Jacksonville, and northeast, near Georgia and South Carolina. 2016- Hurricane Hermine made landfall on the Florida Big Bend, and tracked northeastward, north of Jacksonville, into Georgia and South Carolina. 2016- Tropical Storm Julia developed in Florida and tracked to Jacksonville 2016 - Hurricane Matthew followed the Florida coast and was just east of Jacksonville, and made a tropical storm strength landfall on South Carolina. 2015 - no direct correlations 2014 - no direct correlations 2013 - no direct correlations 2012- Tropical Storm Alberto formed offshore from the Carolinas (near to shore) and tracked toward Jacksonville before turning around. 2012 - Tropical Storm Beryl made landfall near Jacksonville Beach, Florida, with winds of 65 mph 2011 - Tropical Storm Arlene developed in the Bay of Campeche and made landfall on the west side of the Bay of Campeche 2011 - Hurricane Nate developed in the Bay of Campeche and made landfall on the west side of the Bay of Campeche 2011 - Tropical Storm Harvey made landfall on Belize 2011 - Hurricane Rina came close to Belize 2010 - Hurricane Alex made landfall near Soto la Marina, Mexico (Northern Mexico) 2010 - Tropical Storm Hermine made landfall near Matamoros, Mexico. (Northern Mexico) 2009 - Tropical Storm center of Claudette made landfall on Santa Rosa Island, Florida Panhandle 2009 Hurricane Ida track analysis says that it was close to the Mississippi River delta and Mobile AL. Final points of the track have it in the Florida Panhandle. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Atlantic_hurricane_season#/media/File:Ida_2009_track.png)

After a partly sunny 80-degree day yesterday, some thunderstorms developed at 10PM or 11PM, at the foothills. Then this happened. (Denver is in the center of this)

I guess they got roughly 2.5" to 9" of rain near the landfall point

Best wind speeds/gusts Buoy 42039: 40mph gusts Buoy 42012 (Orange beach): 40 mph gusts Buoy 42040: 27 mph gusts Pensacola Naval air station (Airport KNPA): 36 mph gusts Destin Airport: 33 mph Orange Beach/Gulf Shores: 23 mph gusts wave heights peaked at 17 ft at Buoy 42039 This is not really super amazing, with only 40 mph gusts. The convective core is already close to Gulf Shores and Pensacola. How many more hours can it go before landfall? Maybe 6 or 7 hours.

Tornado reported at Vinton, IA, possibly continuing eastward a few miles right now.

Typhoon Jebi has been analyzed by the JTWC as 80 kt (down from 90 kt earlier today) and will most likely make landfall on Japan at Shikoku, (one of the 4 main Japanese islands,) west of Kyoto. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shikoku

Considering the past several days of precip, some areas of IA/WI are already above 150% of normal for a 30-day time period (Aug 3- Sep 2). That generally gives indicators of where creeks and rivers are above normal or currently flooding. Some sections of Iowa, Missouri, and Kansas are in D1 - D4 drought, but many of those drought designations will change with the current and future heavy rains. Some areas of Michigan are in D0 - D2 drought. Maybe a few positive changes in Michigan are coming up.

I found out something kind of interesting. Football games Nebraska vs. Akron. and Iowa State vs. South Dakota State were football games canceled for impending severe weather and lightning. (Lincoln NE and Ames IA)