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Another pass at 925 mb. Meanwhile, 12z HAFS-B showing considerably more weakening near landfall vs. 6z run. Up about 10 mb run over run in last few hours before landfall. EDIT: Same with HAFS-B, but HMON is actually stronger vs. 6z.

One thing I noticed with the 18z Euro and now with the 0z GFS is pretty nifty little right turn shortly after landfall. What's really interesting is that the new CMC makes that right turn BEFORE landfall and so what looks like a Tampa landfall ends up being south of Sarasota, almost to Venice. Keeping in mind Helene's late wobble to the right, this might be something to keep an eye on.

HAFS B comes in 27mb too high at the start ...

I copied and pasted that sentence so I could ask the EXACT SAME question.

Crazy agreement between 12z HAFS-A, HAFS B and HMON -- you can throw a blanket over their landfalls right around or just north of the mouth of Tampa Bay.

You would think so, but it's still well off Tampa Bay at 3z Thursday.

Meanwhile, the HAFS-B gets Milton down to 884 mb at 9z Wednesday, then increases by a whopping 71 mb in the next 18 hours. The way things are going, not sure which of those is less believable.

0z UKMET had the storm at 993 mb at 10 am. What's 53 mb among friends?

This is a good point -- have heard a lot of people pooh pooh an other-than-Tampa landfall, but Sarasota, Bradenton, Venice, Englewood, Ft. Myers, etc have plenty of population.

No kidding -- at 11 am Thursday on the 12z run the storm was well out into the Atlantic. I remember storms with wide envelopes of track, but not sure I remember one with such disparity on the timing of landfall.

Verbatim 12z Euro literally takes the eye right up the mouth of Tampa Bay into Hillsborough Bay and the Tampa docks. Will never happen (gulp) but quite a breathtaking track.

Hurricane models really showing this pre-landfall weakening -- 12z HAFS-B show about 60 mb of weakening in the last 20 hours before landfall.

Yeah, almost Cat 2 by landfall near Tampa. No bueno given the surge they just had.

Classic example of diminished media (and weather board?) interest because of a lack of crazy wind/mb model runs, but practical impact is off the charts with these potential rain totals.

Hope everybody doesn't ignore the potential Gulf low because of its dwindling chances to become a hurricane. Because the models just show it parking in the gulf, the QPF maps are insane. 12z GFS through hour 234 shows over a foot of rain for almost the entire peninsula from I-4 south. 0z CMC had 20 inches confined to southern part, but now shows the 20-inch blob staying offshore. Anyway, it could all be overdone, but doesn't seem so crazy given that pretty much every models keeps low pressure wandering around in the Gulf for 10 days with a front draped over the peninsula.

So given that Helene is now east of 84N, is this less-than-a-day-old run considered good verification? Is asking why the NHC deferred so strongly away from the globals and toward the spaghetti models still a dumb question?

A LOT. The NHC ignored the global models ... then, for the last 24 hours, the hurricane models and went with spaghetti plots in the face of pretty good agreement from all the other models on planet earth.

Yeah so Tallahassee went from "the black line is right over my head" to OUT OF THE CONE! Yeah, yeah, yeah, impacts will be still be great, but can we please have a post-storm discussion about wtf happened here?

Well, upon further review, doing the math comparing 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. NHC statements, it moved .9 degrees north and .3 east. If that continued, it would cross 84W before landfall, which would be consistent with those 18z plots.

I agree -- not making enough eastward progress at the moment.

Allan -- who is a fantastic met -- used a great visual to make the point that has been made here over the last 2 days. https://x.com/RaleighWx/status/1839374056753451138

I sure hope not - that's not how forecasting is supposed to work.

Needless to say, game-changing development for Tallahassee.

Oh yeah, the surge story has been written. Can't change it now. But wind damage -- still some wiggle room depending on track.

Totally agree- - 25-50 miles of eastery trend would make a massive difference for TLH.