LibertyBell

the 125-136 measurements for gusts are similar to what was reported for Laura out in SW Louisiana.

very marshy areas and moving quickly, probably wont weaken until north of NOLA

what time is high tide?

not only that, those marshy areas aren't going to weaken it much, if at all.

Yeah and I'm not sure they have any official wind instrumentation near those bayous to measure wind or surge for that matter. I remember the same issues with Laura with surge as people thought surge was lower than expected because of where it occurred, but later studies showed that the surge was higher, but in a much more sparsely populated area.

I just wanted to be clear that's what you said because in the first part of the sentence you said it would be reported as 110 mph and in the second part you said 115 mph lol. This part: Not cutoff at 2.5mph and if it's a 112 major they'd say it was 110. They'd say 115 cat 3 if winds support 112. Regardless, interesting read: https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2020/10/28/hurricane-zeta-track-louisiana/ Flight-level winds during a midafternoon Hurricane Hunter reconnaissance flight hit 138 mph; extrapolated down to the surface, that would suggest 101 mph winds at the surface. A dropsonde, or probe, released shortly after found a surface wind of 115 mph in the southern eyewall. That would indicate Zeta is near or at major hurricane status. The National Hurricane Center did not upgrade Zeta in their most recent advisory, raising the potential that the measurement was suspect. Regardless, Zeta continues to increase in strength and could approach Category 3 intensity as it makes landfall.

New advisory has a pressure drop to 970

ha not worth the effort. It looks like it may be upgraded later anyway. We went through all this with Michael too. I remember that discussion well.

Okay so they dont follow the rules of significant figures and if they measured 112 or even 111 it would be reported as 115 in the public advisory?

Wind speeds in the official reports issued to the public sure are rounded- that's why you see official reports of wind speeds always listed in 5 mph increments. And on top of that the categorization of these storms are based on those rounded numbers, which is why the SS scale should be rounded to the nearest 5 mph too. I work in data and this is a thing we call "significant figures." You can't categorize something beyond the accuracy of the information you have to do so.

But that's ridiculous because like you said "there's no difference" I dont believe they tailor their forecasts or reports based on panic either. They are objective scientists so they go by the data. If people act irresponsibly that's on the people. Besides panic at this late stage isn't going to make a difference, people will just hunker down more, which is what they should be doing anyway.

This has nothing to do with politics, but the simple fact that wind measurements aren't accurate enough to separate a Cat 2 110 mph storm from a Cat 3 111 mph storm and wind measurements are rounded to the nearest 5 mph anyway. But like the other poster said, this is likely to be upgraded later anyway.

Also is there such a thing as the "speed of a surge"- so a faster moving storm means more force from the surge because it moves in faster too?

How about the rapidity of its movement? Does that increase the surge factor too?

it gets confusing lol- because we have the old English system of mph and then we have the metric system with kmph and then we have knots. I dont know why there is so much resistance to the metric system here (we use it very comfortably for focal lengths and objective apertures of lenses and telescopes.....I could never imagine measuring focal length or objective aperture in "inches" lol)

It may be semantics, but someone is going to get hit hard by this hurricane. It's definitely NOT a weakening junk storm falling apart landfall like I thought it would be. It's one more to add to the list of the RI storms we've had in the GoM this year. I didn't think it would be doing this either (no one did), it looks like the shear didn't affect it the way people thought it would.

it depends on the local geography

Looks like they are going for a SE to NW pass. We should know definitively whether or not this has reached MH status prior to landfall. It's Cat 3....111 weird lower threshold for Cat 3 should be 110 since all measurements get rounded to nearest 5 mph anyway.

Isn't this the worst direction for N.O. though? I always thought that storm surge flooding is worst for N. O. when storms pass just to their east and keep the city under a northerly flow, so they get surge from the lake. N. O. is too far away from the GoM to get a lot of surge from the south.

This is basically a Cat 3, the weird SS threshold of 111 notwithstanding. That scale needs to be rounded to the closest 5 mph just like the measurements are. It's a Cat 3.

and now I'm going to go off on the SS scale. There is literally no reason for Cat 3 to begin at 111 mph. No one measures winds at this speed- this is a Cat 3. They need to round out Cat numbers to 5 mph intervals....Cat 3 begins at 110 mph.....no reason for the weird number "111".

this could be a Cat 3 at LF a direct hit from a Cat 3 there is no picnic

regardless this is going to bring the growing season and allergy season to an abrupt end. YAY

isn't this just flurries and snow showers coming in with the passage of the arctic front?

ouch! this would be a lock for below freezing lows areawide.....do you have a similar map showing the lows Monday and Tuesday morning? Typically if the highs are 45 or below, the lows are guaranteed to be below freezing with clear skies.