NeonPeon

It's a good thing this thing just simply doesn't have much time to work with. The rate at which it recovered intensity is impressive.

Japan, Portugal, Poland, Croatia... the list goes on and on. Plenty of places have declining population. Even American holdings like Puerto Rico.

The track certainly could have been worse, if the intensity actually could not have been any worse. The other thing jamaica escaped was the stall and turn to the north occurring close enough to cause a longer duration heavy rain event. For a time 40+ inches were on the table in the east.

A little worse for wear too after she ran through Jamaica?

Straight line winds.

Right, but it was unremarkably strong at landfall.

It looks rather like the eye is oscillating within the storm. The bulk of the storm is still making eastward progress.

The overarching story there is "we are contributorily negligent." This thing was well forecast.

Many will do, as this was very well forecasted.

What has always fascinated me about hurricanes is the combination of unbelievable strength and fragility. This one was sure to be devastating when land falling but on several occasions I thought it was definitely going to at least temporarily weaken slightly and instead several times it has actually just deepened. The long loop of this hurricane is a meandering buzzsaw.

Sure, but it's better than it hitting the eastern side of the island at least, both in terms of landslide risks and the population. Tourist areas also will rebuild, while no one will invest funds to address the abject destruction of slums in and around kingston.

The trough is also moving into influence which can begin to affect symmetry and convection on the periphery of the TC, including the outflow channela. Otherwise, Melissa's core is about as textbook as it gets for a powerful Atlantic Caribbean hurricane. Current appearance kind of reminds me of Matthew. I think it's more the latter, yeah you can see part of the outflow racing off to the northeast. As the whole storm turns it'll reorient, but if the coastal interaction happens before it can wrap the convection around more, I don't see how it isn't currently at around its peak strength, which is impressive enough.

It's already at 160mph. It's some ask for it to rapidly intensity from there! Esp when it is looking less symmetrical.

First appearance of any asymmetry in a while on ir. Deeper convection away from eyewall in ne quadrant. Imagining this is an ewr beginning? Hopefully it can't finish before becoming a slightly larger windfield version of the same beast we just saw.

I think my total rainfall in may will exceed my total snowfall for the season.

I repointed part of the basement. Expecting as much as 4 inches of rain today. What a fun stress test. This has been a remarkably wet May. Ive been waiting and waiting to paint the house, and it will not get dry. It's going to wait till June at this rate.

We can switch next time said the man with a fieldstone basement. Almost three inches this am, mostly in an hour and a half.

Mild drought here. Though this soaking will do a lot of work.

Crocuses blooming, even the shadiest banks almost gone. We're leaving an awful winter and heading into the interminable series of false dawn that is coastal spring. Hurray?

Robins strutting all over the park. Sun feeling properly warm. Almost no snow left. False dawns mud and fog till June. Was it too much to ask for a single significant snowfall?

Ah yes, March to June. Add interminable fog and you've captured the joy of spring here.

They have in my back yard against a longer mean. A half a degree colder in jan, almost bang on in February. Unusually high wind-chill though.

The temps here have been just about average, which is to say mean temps have been 3 to 4 degrees above what they've been the last five years. To hear people though, we are deep in an arctic tundra. There's definitely recency bias comparing to abnormal warmth but it also does feel cold, this is because it has been a remarkably windy winter, especially for one that hasn't really had any notable storms. On that front... This has been yet another atrocious winter for snow. With little to hope for in the forecast here and approaching March... This could be the third year in a row of single digit snowfall here.

It does happen, I think you've got a lot of confirmation bias here, in that we tend to remember negative outcomes. I've gone from no winter weather advisory to 13 inches once. Most negative busts I've had have been within a range of probabilistic forecasts, i.e. if you looked at the 10% outcome for a low snow output, then there you go. 10% isn't particularly unlikely. I think it's just the better the models get the more distant we look until we are at a point of relatively low confidence. Modeling has never been better, out expectations never higher.

Do you normally roll down the window and say I told you so, then loop round the next exit and repeat? That seems harsh.