hlcater

I can’t...

Absolute beast of a storm. Wish we had recon in a storm like that.

Big if true

Hope brandon clement is actually getting some wind/pressure data right there. In a spot such that if there were cat 3 winds in this thing, he probably would've seen them.

Most north moving gulf storms have weak/non-existent south sides. I remember when people thought Michael was remarkable because it was the exception to the rule. Not only that, take a look at environment/synoptics and a half-a-cane absolutely makes sense.

Could see this one going either way in post analysis. Lot of indicators suggestive that this may have briefly been a marginal cat 3, but nothing was overtly definitive. Pressure kept falling into landfall and bottomed out at 966. If any of this years storms were to be bumped in post, it'd be this one, pending onshore obs.

Huge fetch too on the eastern side. This is gonna be a surge problem.

Never seen asymmetry quite like this. Fascinating.

What it really needs to do is contract. A rough eye diameter is somehwhere in the ballpark of 40 miles. Pretty big...

I like the look of this one. Could make a run well into C2 status if things go well for it overnight. Actually like the vortex structure more now than I did yesterday. Seems reasonably tight and compact.

some rather glaring organizational problems here. 1) The convective bursts at present have been rather singular (as in singular updraft), asymmetric and transient. 2) These bursts are having a hard time really consolidating over the center probably because they're having trouble persisting. 3) The RMW is very broad and there isn't an inner core structure at all, despite the rather intense convective burst ongoing. 4) The large area of 50kt winds on the northern side likely indicates this storm will have trouble building an inner core in short order, at least having a hard time doing it prior to yucatan landfall. As is, I don't really see this intensifying very quickly with rather significant organizational flaws working against it. I think this makes landfall as a weak cane as it stands now. It may be a strong TS now, but it is still *very* disorganized relatively speaking. Not all 70mph TSs are created equal.

Not rapidly organizing, but on the visible loop, you can see the center consolidating a little closer to the big convective blob. Earlier today it was poorly defined and was elongated to the NW Over the past several hours, it has lost quite a bit of that elongation as pressures fall closer to the blob as evident on recon. Lots of work to do yet with it being decoupled and slightly sheared, but organization continues. in other news are there any Actually Good™ gif uploading websites? Levi's site turns out gifs that are like 25mb which greatly limits what you can do with them.

Something something quantity over quality that said, the derecho is 1000% a worthy opponent. Damage around here wasn’t quite cat 4 level like some media outlets would like to claim but more equivalent to a 90-100kt storm perhaps; in an area that does not have resilience for those kinds of winds

Well that was inevitable

Dont know where to put this so it goes here. Papin is now an NHC forecaster. Good for him

I remember when people, including myself, thought this was gonna rip a hole in space-time in the W Carib. Fun times.

Probably at peak intensity now or close to it. Favorable shear window is closing and shear begins to increase again by early morning and should induce weakening by mid day or early afternoon at the latest. A fairly large cat 3 peak offshore should be sufficient for another respectable (9-11ft+) surge along the SW LA coastline. Pretty incredible to think areas that saw 15+ ft of inundation last time around could see 10+ ft not a few weeks later. Think that would probably drive me out of SW LA or into the bottle personally.

Delta honestly looks great right now, likely as of a result of the last minimization of shear(~15kts down to ~10kts) prior to landfall due to the turn more northward over the past several hours. Has through tomorrow morning to continue intensifying. In the near term, if current convective intensity persists and continues to expand like it has been this evening, a sneaky return to cat 4 would not surprise me before weakening starts to ensue tomorrow morning afternoon landfall.

the 119kt measurement was at flight level. SFMRs are being funny at the surface, with a 39kt reading right where you'd expect vmax to be. Not entirely sure they're reliable, but who knows. Standard reduction and pressure falls lend themselves to an upgrade to 100kt C3.

those are flight level winds.

Regardless of all that, this is probably knocking on the door of cat 3 intensity again.

I thought the eye was clear 2 days ago? This is news?

Need better symmetry in the bursts like we had earlier. I don't think it's weakening right now though based on satellite, just not strengthening.

Honestly has a better convective pattern than yesterday lol.

That's putting it mildly. Granted, GOM upper layer SSTs have come down. But unfortunately upper spreading divergence is bonkers. Delta's vortex is going to intensify rapidly. 28+SSTs are perfect for the kind of poleward outflow it will experience. Simply put, it's entering a hyped environment. Lapse rates are on steroids. Think this reattains Category 4 but as a much larger hurricane. The upper divergence and excellent poleward outflow channel are the biggest pluses for sure. 28c SSTs aren't really gonna help much, but they shouldn't really hurt either. That microwave pass was the first time I've been impressed by delta in the past 30 hours. Really thought it would explode yesterday and it probably would've gotten away with it too if it werent for that meddling shear.