NorthHillsWx

There should be a pinned thread at the end of the year and awards given out for posts that aged the worst. Some of the ones from August complaining that the long range GFS not showing development meant 2020 was going to be a dud of a tropical season belong there as well

Some pretty decent footage from key largo last night. As I mentioned before this is evidence the system was very near a cat 1 when that core briefly wrapped up last night. Some of these winds certainly seem to be close hurricane strength. Doesn’t really matter but would’ve made for yet another hurricane landfall in the US during this crazy season. Certainly came close

Radar looks like the storm ramped up right at landfall and probably was near hurricane strength. Given the low topped storms, it’s unlikely sustained hurricane force winds occurred or mixed down effectively but it was probably close. Some gusts to near hurricane force were recorded. Key largo looks to have taken the brunt of that. Since then dry air choked off the core that had formed, a process we will likely see play out over and over again next couple days. Beyond that, guidance has definitely trended towards the storm missing the connection with the passing trough and in turn meandering and winding down harmlessly in the gulf as it feels the influence of dry continental air, shear, and decreasing SSTs. Still not certain but that’s been the trend overnight

11/9 looking more like a mid-season tropical outlook

Had to turn AC back on yesterday. Inside temp had risen to 78. High of 79 low of 54. Torch continues

Resilient system aided by upper level divergence. Not bad for having dealt with 30kt of shear and having just crossed Cuba’s midsection. It seems reasonably vertically stacked. Might be extending our high number of US hurricane landfalls on the year

Now forecast to become a hurricane. Certainly seems reasonable. I am skeptical of the deepening shown on some of the models given the proximity to extremely high shear and dry air. It would really have to thread the needle

For real

Models are slowly coming into better agreement and this looks like it will be a fairly significant impacts for southern Florida. It will not be a high end event by any means but given the interaction with the closed low this should take on at least some subtropical characteristics which will lead to an enhanced wind field well away from the center and a long duration onshore flow for the east coast of Florida. Widespread power outages, especially given the antecedent rain and large wind field, are on the table too. This, meteorologically, is going to be an interesting one to watch as it may go from purely tropical to a hybrid on our doorstep and a strong hybrid at that. A minimal subtropical hurricane is certainly on the table with this evolution before dry air kills it in the eastern gulf. These subtropical attributes will allow it to pass over Cuba mostly unscathed and also develop through the keys despite land interaction. This is not going to be a high end wind event, I’m thinking it does make another run at minimal hurricane, but I do think it will bring widespread impacts to southern Florida and may be a decent storm for those there due to duration

Wow. Didn’t the worst of the eyewall pass to their south too? I know eta wasn’t at peak strength when it made landfall but it definitely had completed its ERC and had a rapidly improving sat presentation not to mention the time it spent raking the coast as it crawled onshore. 140 mph LF is nothing to shake your head at. If there had been more major population centers there this would’ve been disastrous

You can faintly see some westerly motion on the southern end of convection but, as expected, the system looks extremely strung out. With a consolidated area of convection ongoing though this isn’t in the worst shape considering the time it spent over land. Would not shock me to see it organize relatively quickly today. Shear for the moment isn’t terrible and it already has a weak circulation and is back over water

Though it’s tough to see a defined center at this point, Eta is generating a large blowup of convection this morning

I’ll take the torch in November and the first half of December if it means winter drops the arctic hammer on us afterwards!

I’m just going to say it... the board jinxed eta

Probably closest analog, just a little more north.

For the convo about best looking storms we forgot a relevant one in this region: Mitch at peak

Plane must be dealing with radar attenuation

I said best looking. That giant cleared out eye approaching land was insane. Rita, Irma, Wilma, even Isabel all come to mind. Lend it to being more recent than the others but that was a perfect looking storm. edit to add Gilbert as well. Beast

Dorian was the all time best looking Atlantic storm

This is one of the funniest evenings on the board in a while. Good stuff folks good stuff

I can’t believe 2020 pulled off a cat 5 in November

Yep, they don’t get much better than this one, 2020 catching up to 2005

908 165kts

130 mph would be very conservative...

Without recon I wonder what NHC will asses as the 1 pm advisory? My guess is slightly conservative 130mph cat 4