NorthHillsWx

What an absolutely strange last few months in rainfall department. 0.54” in June, over 15” in September, and now looking like we’ll finish October without any measurable rainfall. From the wettest month since I’ve lived here to the driest.

First 30’s of the season! 38.5 with very light frost on rooftops

Almost neutral-weak La Niña might be more helpful than a strong El Niño or string La Nina we’ve become accustomed to last 5 years. Blocking has been excellent late summer-now. I’m sure that collapses but I feel better this year.

Still no rain here this month. Wonder if we make it through October without measurable rainfall

It looks like a tropical depression to me. It’s been generating organized convection over a tight LLC overnight and into this morning

After getting 15” last month I’m not going to say we “need rain” here but we’re sitting at 0.0” for the month

Totally disagree with the “surge is already baked in” notion with small storms. With a large storm like Helene, Ike, Katrina, Laura, yes, sure. If it was a large strong hurricane when the storms winds reached shelf waters, landfall intensity matters very little for surge values. There is nothing wrong with over-preparing and I think Florida did an incredible job getting people out of harms way. The majority of the deaths from this storm were from the tornado outbreak which you cannot really prepare for

IMO the storm did exactly what you’d expect a cat 3 to do. I think some hyperbole was due to the extreme strength of the storm earlier in its life, but that tiny 1 mile eyewall wasn’t going to have any impact on landfall impacts. This is a novel concept, but sometimes a major landfall can be just that, a major landfall and the exact impacts one would expect. Every major isn’t going to be Helene or Katrina, but this was a highly damaging storm and did exactly what a low-end cat 3 should do- 8-12’ surge in eyewall, 100-115 mph gusts just inland. The tornado outbreak, however, was exceptional. This storm likely will be retired due to its historic strength and widespread damage in Florida. So far Florida receives an A+ for hurricane prep for all 3 storms this year. Desantis, love him or hate him, is very effective at managing hurricane impacts in Florida.

Someone said it earlier, but my god the tornado outbreak over water east of Florida on that loop. Probably some EF3+ waterspouts

Agreed. It’s a very populated area, just not Tampa populated. Still, from reports south and north, it seems the devastating surge was limited to a small area, we’re just waiting to see how hard that area got hit. It seems strange to downplay 5-8’ surge (like many of the areas weve seen reports from experienced) it just doesn’t seem as severe being those same areas experienced that same surge two weeks ago with Helene. Still a lot of surge

My post got deleted yesterday (not sure why) but I said thank the lord this things core stayed very small while it was at high intensity and when the wind field expanded it did so mostly on the northern side so offshore winds. This greatly mitigated surge potential. The fear was that after the first ERC this would grow significantly and though it grew, it didn’t really grow that much. It went from tiny to small. That being said, I’m sure there were a few 10’ surge readings, Siesta Key would be my likely ground 0. Still haven’t seen anything from there. That is a devastating surge, it just wasn’t over as broad an area as we feared. As for inland winds, honestly the number of 100+ mph gusts is impressive. Certainly an area with plenty of observation locations but getting 80-90 mph gusts on east coast is super impressive and shows how the jet aided this storm even though the tropical core collapsed. Seeing those extremely strong backside winds almost no rain falling is absolutely a sign this was losing it’s tropical characteristics at landfall and drier air and the collapsing core pulled those winds in and kept them going inland. Overall, what I’ve seen sounds like intensity was accurate. This was likely verified as a low-end 3. Surge was probably a little less than most majors we’ve seen recently simply bc it had a small core especially in the part that created the surge (southern side). Wind damage is extensive and power outages are extreme. The tornado outbreak was one of the most severe in history for a tropical system. Very damaging major hurricane strike and hoping loss of life was kept to a minimum as Florida is excellent at preparing for these things.

Cantore was there. Said it was on par with Helene’s surge at his location

Strongest winds were on the north when it made landfall

Co worker in st Petersburg just replied and said there are branches down and a lot of street flooding but at least at his location not too much damage. They held power until well after it made landfall. Sounds like back half was the worst for them. Conditions Improving at his location

Finally getting released from Helene storm work. Thoughts and prayers continue for all those affected by this horrific storm. Lots of good out there too with folks helping one another. Awful situation continues in mountains. Hopefully they aren’t forgotten after Milton

Looks like it’s a go for round 2 of intensification. An interesting thing I’ve noticed on some of the hi res models is the strongest winds appear to transfer to the north and western sides of the system as it approaches Florida (sting jet?). While north of track areas would escape the surge, that’s cat 3+ winds showing on that side of the eye. If it goes slightly south of you, you are by no means safe simply because you avoided what will 100000% be a catastrophic surge on the south side. Heed evacuation orders

We need to save this for posterity. That’s absolutely absurd

False. Plenty go north.

Is there any cool pool left from Helen’s upwelling east of the loop current?

Given the current structure, cat 5 isn’t only on the table, it might be a likelihood at this point. I’m usually conservative but this pinhole has that look

My untrained eye says this is going to run into the Yucatán

There will 100% be an ERC (or 2) before Florida. One thing about that is a larger hurricane will be much more immune to negative environmental factors, like shear and dry air intrusions. That might be the difference in global and hurricane models as it relates to pre landfall weakening

Wow. Now this is rapid strengthening. That can be classified as the dreaded pinhole

Globals don’t really want to weaken this into landfall. O6z GFS and 0z Euro are very similar. Not sold on the degree of weakening some of the hurricane models show. Also not sold on this missing the Yucatán, keeps heading SE

Models were about as spot on with Helene as they can be. There was a slight east correction into landfall so this is true but that was a totally different setup with an interaction with an ULL. Any trends from Helene’s modeling can be discarded as this is a different setup. For the Tampa metro, track will be extraordinarily crucial. This will be another lopsided storm and if it goes just a hair south of the metro, impacts will be minimal vs catastrophic I hope everyone prepares for the catastrophic worst case even if the metro gets lucky. For now, they are solidly in the bullseye