NorthHillsWx

Yep. This storm is going to be an absolute beaut with a pretty eye too. By tomorrow morning (maybe earlier) I expect cat 4

Wow, go back 3 weeks and I’d just like to admit how wrong I was about this season. The Caribbean was sheared, TUTTs were running rampant across the Atlantic, the east coast trough was more dominant than the monsoon trough in western Caribbean, and SAL was killing all African waves shortly after they entered the Atlantic. With ENSO and the promise of El Niño shear becoming an increasing part of the picture, I openly questioned CSUs bullish prediction. How wrong I was. We have entered a hyperactive period in an El Niño year. If you told me the last 10 days of august would feature 6 named storms, 2 majors, and we’d carry that into September I’d laughed at you. But here we are. Lee is going to be a high end hurricane and Margot looks like another storm with major hurricane potential. Just wow for an El Niño year. I admit defeat, I was so very wrong

Cat 2 incoming at 11:00

Bombs away…

97.9 imby. On the subject of RDU, the airport consistently reports max temp readings 3-4 degrees above what I see. They broke 100 today and we were not particularly close EDIT: RDU broke 102 today!

160 mph Cat 5 at 11 pm. 80 kt increase in intensity since this morning. Absolutely nuclear

I’ll interrupt your regular scheduled programming to tell you to hop over to the EPAC and check out hurricane Jova. One of the most intense bouts of rapid intensification you will see and this thing has likely become a category 5 beast

Hit 95.7 yesterday. Hotter than a hoochie Coochie today. We’ll likely top that…

As expected, loss estimates from Idalia have come way down. While some early estimates placed damage at nearly 20 billion, estimates have fallen to a more paltry number of 3-5 billion https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/private-market-insured-losses-hurricane-idalia-be-3-5-bln-moodys-rms-2023-09-04/

Textbook look on last images of visible this evening. Cannot wait to see this thing explode in the open ocean. I’d say the odds are probably 90% this thing recurves but it may come close enough to cause impacts beyond large waves

Topped out at 95.7 today. Dry as a bone

Isabel was a similar setup to the 18z in terms of ridging though that ridge built in longer driving the storm NW further

I know I just have friends in Tampa and work for the utility company that covers NC, SC, and Fl. It was extremely underwhelming for us (good thing) but 20 billion is extreme and there didn’t seem to be extreme damage but in areas no one lived. My point I guess is if this is the case a cat 1 hitting Tampa would also be a 20 billion $ disaster

Where is the damage? Usually there are picture’s everywhere. Other than a few micro communities and Perry I do not see where this value comes from. In NC where I live there was some flooding down east but nothing you wouldn’t expect from any tropical system. Maybe crop damage jacked it up? I just do not see 20 billion in damage from anything I’ve seen so far

Not sure I’ve ever seen a cluster of storms in such a small area. That’s insanity in the Atlantic right now

0.85” storm total for Idalia, with an additional 0.15” from the storm the evening before. Exactly an inch between the 2

Likely a convection less low level swirl if it gets left behind. If it’s generating deep convection it’s going to exit stage right

Only bc it slammed a WMA instead of a populated city

Has there ever been a major hurricane that wasn’t retired after a US landfall? This one might be a candidate to avoid retirement based on early returns

Perry looked like a meat grinder this morning https://x.com/icyclone/status/1696922050454028731?s=46&t=NyKvXvI1o-sJQb-68mmo4g

Entirely due to a tiny core of winds (roughly 15 miles diameter of maximum winds with the eroding inner eyewall) and it hitting a WMA instead of a town. Inland gusts rarely reach MH strength even in the worst storms. IDA in particular was able to generate gusts to MH strength well inland but that’s bc the topography of that area is basically an inland sea especially with surge. I have no doubt MH+ winds occurred in a small area near the coast where this thing came ashore. I think we’ll see gusts to 100+ as it starts impacting a few more populated areas and the wind field expands

Interesting. I wonder where they were. Maybe those high end velocities didn’t mix down efficiently bc radar showed 130+ mph in the NE eyewall

Radar returns of 60.5 dBZ showing up near Perry!!!! Wow that’s high for a TC

Perry in the center of the NW eyewall

Look at Tampa radar. I’m not sure it was open on SE side