NorthHillsWx

While I’m sure this strengthens when it turns northeast this is one of the worst model/forecast intensity performances of the season. SHIPS had a very high chance of RI even 24 hours ago for the present time. Seems everything underestimated the north, NW shear. That being said, the system has a vigorous circulation and with shear vector improving and bath tub water beneath it this should still be a strengthing hurricane through LF though it will definitely be a half-a-cane and 85 kts seems like a reasonable ceiling, which is far less than what it seemed most of the week

Pretty sure this is going to be downgraded to a TS based on recon at next advisory

I’m not going to say there’s a 0% chance being it’s over bathtub water, but it’s less than 10% this thing gets even close to major imo. Heck, it’s entire center of circulation is now exposed and recon’s first pass has a small area of stronger winds well away from the center. It’s definitely not strengthening and if anything has weakened since overnight

Pamela really seems to be struggling with some westerly shear and dry air. You can see outflow boundaries from collapsing storms on the NW side and cloud tops are definitely being sheared from the west. Hurricane hunters will be in the storm later today and I’m wondering if they will find more shear is present than being analyzed at the moment. Definitely not the sexy hurricane I was expecting that we’d seen on models over previous few days. NHC continues to advertise the storm being near major hurricane status at landfall but I’m seriously doubtful looking at the presentation this morning and the fact this thing is about to be ejected to the NE. Likely to be a half-a-cane regardless

HWRF brings the low off the NC coast to hurricane status in rapid fashion this evening

May have spoken a bit early . We had 2.56” overnight and still raining lightly. Looks like we were on the very low end in the county too, seeing a lot of 6”+ lollipops your direction

Picked up 0.02” overnight and this morning for the first measurable rain of the month. That makes our 15 day total 0.04” so it’s been very dry. Tonight looks promising so hopefully we can get a soaking rain!

0.01” more than we got or have received today at my house. Had a great storm at Rex hospital yesterday evening where I’m staying as my first child was born yesterday morning! Definitely was a good break to watch the lightning and rain from the room while my daughter napped. Needed it, zombie status today

8 US landfalls including two Hurricanes and a major plus a major (one of the most expensive and damaging hurricanes in history) landfall in Mexico and a strong, rare hit on Newfoundland? I am struggling to see how this alone is a dude, not including the fish storms and ACE

Anyone downplaying this season is a joke. Numbers, ACE, major landfalls… I mean come on

One of the great fish storms in history. Sam deserved a landfall somewhere just to be remembered (though I’m sure whoever would’ve been impacted would disagree!). Just crazy all the days we’ve woken up to a beautiful eye on satellite imagery

Sam has cleared out a symmetrical, beautiful eye once again. This is an incredible storm

Pretty incredible to maintain this intensity for this long these don’t happen every year…

This has been quite the specimen for sure. And absolutely gorgeous this morning to boot

Picked up 0.02” overnight my mtd is now 3.53”

It’s possible Sam could reach or exceed 40 units of ACE. That’s incredible

Dry as of late. Looking like 3.51” is going to be the total for the month. Beautiful weather, even yesterday’s 87 degrees didn’t feel too terrible. Rest of week looks amazing

Sam looks quite healthy atm.

For those tracking seasonal ACE we will be exceeding the typical year end value for the Atlantic overnight. With two likely areas of development and Sam ongoing as a major hurricane for the next couple of days, we are likely to end up well above the average by next week. Knowing the frequency of strong October storms in recent years, the 2021 ACE value could be incredibly high by seasons end. Sam is likely to exceed 30 units, as Larry did earlier this year, making these exceptionally high ACE producing storms

You’re not lying! This looks like a major that just made landfall. Just even more impressive how resilient Ida was after landfall to maintain that intensity over land/marsh while watching this storm collapse over open ocean

Rapid, rapid decay right there. Wow

That’s an awesome animation.

I bet they mention in the 11:00 advisory that it’s possible Sam attained cat 5 for a period this afternoon

From a “look perspective” it’s hard to imagine how a storm could be any stronger presentation wise about 5-8 hours ago. It definitely degraded since recons departed and even more so once recon arrived. A small tight core like Sam has it wouldn’t take much degradation for wind speed to come down quickly, unlike larger storms. There is literally zero hard evidence to support a cat 5 from earlier. However, sat estimates almost always fail to get the exact intensity and have a low bias for tiny storms, like Sam. It would honestly shock me if this didn’t peak at least 140 kts just from the ferocity of that satellite shot and the speed those eyewall towers were moving. Also, the pressure is consistent with a cat 5 storm of this size. That being said, there is zero hard evidence this made it to cat 5 and then does it really matter if it only maintained that intensity for a couple of hours? To us, yes, but NHC issues advisories based on intensity at time of advisory or based on hard evidence between them. Lacking the latter, this is going to stay a 4 in post analysis. Ida has a chance for an upgrade bc there was hard evidence, from wind measurements on land, recon, and pressure that it did reach the threshold. This to me was likely a stronger storm at peak but will be very unlikely to be upgraded without the hard evidence of nonstop recon and ground truth.

It’s really, really difficult to find a more beautiful satellite structure of an Atlantic hurricane than the one we have with Sam right now.