CheeselandSkies

My take on the aurora from Thursday night. Photographing one has been on my bucket list for a while, especially after not going out for the last big event back in May because I didn't think the clouds would clear in time over southern Wisconsin. Took me awhile to find a decent spot in rural western Dane County, away from the light pollution of Madison, where there wasn't a tree-lined ridge completely blocking the northern sky. Then of course when I finally found one it was right during a lull in activity. Eventually another substorm hit and a faint glow appeared in the northern sky, gradually brightening with some pillars visible to the naked eye, although the colors really weren't.

Photographing the northern lights is still on my bucket list. Didn't go out for the big display in May because I didn't think the clouds over southern Wisconsin that night would clear in time.

Yeah, I saw that live and thought that was funny too. Lawn sprinklers going in the middle of a hurricane.

Good point. I think of Ian as a Punta Gorda/Pt. Charlotte storm (like Charley); but they didn't get the surge there. Sanibel and Ft. Myers Beach did.

I think in this case, north runs more into the shear along/behind the front. As a lot of these storms are, it's gonna be riding a fine line between enhanced upper divergence/baroclinic enhancement; and getting ripped apart. Absolute worst case scenario for impacts (not likely by any means, but can't be considered off the table, either) is it gets larger following another EWRC, finds the baroclinic sweet spot to maintain intensity at around say low-end C4, AND said sweet spot happens to be JUST far enough north to take the RFQ over Tampa Bay.

Taking all of today's developments into consideration, IMO there seems to be a reasonably good consensus that: A.) There's a higher likelihood than not that Tampa Bay avoids getting right-front-quadded with a worst-case surge scenario. However, it's far from a guarantee. Such an outcome would be well within the forecast margin of error. B.) Even if the center does go south of the bay, it's likely to be waaaaay too close for comfort and will bring significant wind, rain and surge impacts to a large part, if not all of the Tampa/St. Pete/Clearwater/Bradenton area. It's impossible to determine at this point where within that area receives the heaviest impacts. Therefore, no one within that area should be taking a victory lap or heading home from their evacuation spot because they read on the Internet that "the cone shifted south" or whatever. At the coast, the 5PM cone goes from about Crystal River to North Naples, and that's just the range of uncertainty for the center track. It says right at the top of the graphic, "Hazardous conditions can occur outside of the cone." Disclaimer: I'm not a professional meteorologist, just a guy who likes tracking hurricanes and is a chaser (with a mediocre at best success rate) of land-based severe convective weather.

Wasn't the HMON the weakest of the hurricane models for a long time with this system? Now HAFS is weaker; maybe the model was so surprised the hurricane actually matched its intensity prediction that it broke. While I'm on the subject, anyone know the reason the HMON doesn't have a sim IR product like the HWRF and HAFS-A/B; at least one that's available on TT?

Exactly. From the start I've seen a lot of posters on multiple forums (including some pro mets) treating this as if it was another Charley, Irma or Ian situation. IMO that's a dangerous assumption to make with this much different setup, even if the RFQ ultimately does go in south of Tampa Bay.

The way I think of it for example, is... Hurricane Ike was so bad because it had tremendous IKE.

Man. The frame by frame analysis on here and other forums. It's strengthening! No, it's weakening! Getting whiplash reading through it. Personally I think (purely conjecture) it's probably about steady-state right now, still sorting out its structure post-ERC and dealing with some slightly sub-optimal atmospheric and oceanic conditions. We'll see what happens later today if it gets in a sweet spot of upper-level ventilation while passing over the Loop Current.

In 2017 I think Irma was going to but crashed into Cuba. In 2019, IIRC Lorenzo's first peak looked better on satellite at the dreaded 135kt but it was the second that was actually assessed as Cat. 5.

Globals (apart from the GFS for some reason) have difficulty resolving TC core intensity and their pressures should never be taken verbatim. Worst offenders IMO are UKMET, ICON and Euro, in that order.

Might be one of the most ominous forecast graphics I've ever seen from the NHC; perhaps short of last years' for Otis that effectively were "OH BTW A CAT 5 IS GONNA MAKE LANDFALL IN ACAPULCO IN LIKE 6 HOURS OOPS SRY."

Compared to one with a stable core, tropical cyclones undergoing EWRCs are more vulnerable to disruption by unfavorable environmental conditions; even transient ones, such as dry air entrainment from even modest amounts of shear. This is what usually causes substantial weakening post-EWRC, not the EWRC itself. If the conditions remain favorable and the cyclone has enough time before land; it can/likely will resume intensification as the new eyewall takes over and contracts.

12Z hurricane model suite is bombs away yet again. HWRF initializes with the current NHC pressure and has a borderline major hurricane within 12-18 hours. Both HAFS peak well into sub-920/Cat 5 territory, with HAFS-B once again flirting with the 900mb mark.