csnavywx

33 minutes ago, hlcater said:

 

I dont think the eye is 60-70 miles wide. It may look like it is, but recon did a little loop inside the eyewall. Unless that wasn't what you were using to judge size. Does anyone have a vortex message?

Ah, you're right, didn't see the loop. My bad for not double checking -- 25-30 looks about right based on the most recent pass.

Inner eyewall looks like it is gone finally. Still multiple wind maxes though.

Mostly agree, though Florence hasn't suffered what Ike did -- a total inner core disruption when it passed over the Yucatan. It never really recovered from that. The surge on this one is going to be ridiculous because of the insane fetch, strength and duration. The radius of hurricane winds is getting a bit out of hand.

That shallow wind shear just below the outflow level on the southwest side stays there until late tonight or tomorrow morning on the GFS, then abates. Might have another opportunity for strengthening then.

That last recon pass - wow. There's like 3 cocentric eyewalls and a big stripe of hurricane force surface winds like 80-100 miles away from the center. Still obviously a decaying inner eyewall too. The center "calm" area has grown to 60-70 miles wide. The wind field has grown too big to strengthen quickly unless that big second eyewall can consolidate a bit and rob the rest of the wind maxima. Bottom line, the size is likely to continue growing, even if the max winds really don't.

This storm loves its ERCs. The outer eyewall in the last MIMIC image is massive. That thing has to be like 50-60 miles wide. We could have a giant truck tire by the end of the day or tonight.

That southern outflow channel is especially impressive.

Florence is looking pretty chunky on satellite. Been gorging on all that meaty OHC.

Wouldn't worry about the satellite appearance too much. This is probably 125-130knots atm.

It also has some time to complete another EWRC and expand even more if it decides to do so.

This is the nightmare scenario I was afraid of. That trend from 3 days ago never did stop and now with the midwest ridge helping out, we've got ourselves a coastal staller. An earlier stall isn't necessarily good either, because while there will be some extra time for wind shear to weaken it, I don't expect the shear to stay indefinitely and the Gulf Stream will abate some of the weakening associated with upwelling, especially if there actually is some slight southwest motion.

We're dangerously close to this thing not quite making it onshore on the last few runs. This weakening trend of the WAR is bad news. This also has implications for the track forecast since a stronger/offshore vortex will not be pushed by just the weak lower level southeasterlies and will have a propensity to stay offshore due to weak southerlies or southwesterlies aloft. The individual EPS members show just that and a decent minority now don't have landfall for several days, hovering offshore instead.

Also a minor note since I brought up the EPS -- it's still displaying a small left of track bias. This morning's position is again on the right edge of the envelope. It's a relatively small track error and may not end up mattering, but given the situation later on, it might make a difference to landfall times, since the right side of the envelope is favoring closer to Morehead City, NC and a longer stall/loop.

The tendency is restrengthening after the completion of an EWRC, especially since it will be in ideal conditions over the next 48 hours.

Secondary wind max definitely showing up on that last pass. The wind max is out a ways, so this one may take quite some time to contract. The bad thing is that this is going to significantly increase the wind radii.

Not really much of an issue. There's some dry-moating going on due to internal processes (perhaps the start of an ERC since it appears there might be a secondary wind max trying to form further out).

Careful with that shear product. Some of that is contaminated due to storm outflow. Actual shear is only about 5 knots right now. There's a bit more on the southeastern side of the circulation (you can see the outflow restriction there) and that might be responsible for part of the more poleward motion than expected in the last several hours.

Edit: The shear product lags the TC center since it is only updated every so often. You can see where the TC center was actually analyzed at the time.

18Z HWRF is notably slower and further northeast for landfall now -- matching the HMON. Uncertainty now abounds on what happens after landfall as steering collapses.

Some southwesterly vertical wind shear is likely by this point, making me think the vortex will tend to favor turning a bit more poleward. It's not out of the question that it may be a bit of a struggle to get it onshore as frictional torquing and shear try and oppose landfall for a while.

Definitely a hefty mesovortex in there. Probably some sig. winds ongoing over Prince George at the moment.

Healthy bow starting to develop. Low-level shear isn't anything to write home about, but average boundary layer flow is easterly, which should maximize convergence. Effective bulk shear is around 40 knots though, so this could become a prolific wind producer if that cold pool continues to develop and/or a nice bookend vortex can get going.

On 8/9/2018 at 4:53 PM, mattie g said:

Can be a few things, but bacterial wilt and squash bugs or cucumber beetles are the first things to come to mind.

Yep. Fusarium root rot can do that as well. I had a real issue with that a couple of years ago. Had to start using RootGuard to keep it in check, which works well if you keep up with it.

9 hours ago, MN Transplant said:

That’s not a DCA thing.  That is how you make observations.  Remember, many of these obs are at airports for a reason.

 

DCA 052026Z 18008KT 10SM TS SCT060CB SCT110 SCT250 33/21 A3011 RMK AO2 LTG DSNT SW AND W CB E MOV E VCSH E CB DSNT SE-SW MOV SE T03280206

Exactly. Thunderstorms and/or lightning strikes within 5 miles are considered to be "on station" per observation rules. Storms from 5 to 10 miles away are considered to be "in the vicinity". Either condition is good enough to trigger a SPECI (special) observation.

Full wipeout of the Beaufort is ongoing, per usual, along with all of the cycled MYI there. With the current clear conditions and forecast over the ESS, I doubt much of that ice survives past mid-August. It's already showing negative signs from just the past 2 days on Worldview. The big block will probably thin CAB ice as well, but there's some solid stuff left there, as mentioned earlier.

On 7/28/2018 at 12:59 AM, nzucker said:

Are we sure that isn't satellite error? It seems like an awfully big change from just a week or so ago, not sure if that's possible.

Worldview seems to corroborate the satellite data. Lots of soupy/ragged looking ice over there. Typically symptomatic of a reduction of floe size as it thins.

It looked relatively fine up until the 15th or so, but deteriorated quickly after that.

3 hours ago, FallsLake said:

Don't normally post here because much of the discussion is out of my knowledge level. But I do know that each week we pass (with cold, cool, average, or even not blazing temps) towards early September minimum is crucial. So just looking at the 6z GFS, it doesn't look that bad for surface temps. 850 temps do show pushes of much above normal temps but surface temps are at or just above freezing (more reasonable). So I think the big question is cloud cover; but again the farther into August we can get the lower the sun angel and the less affect of clear skies.

https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/?model=gfs&region=nhem&pkg=T2m&runtime=2018072906&fh=0

 

Don't be fooled by surface temps. They never deviate much from about 1C at this time of year. This is due to heat exchange between the ice and the overlying atmosphere. 850/925 temps and winds are important. Even if 850s were at 20C with the sun out at full blast, surface temps would not rise much due to heat absorption from the ice phase-changing to water.

It's the same principle as having ice in your drink. The temperature of the drink will not rise much until it is nearly all melted.

SMB doesn't account for calving and discharge at the periphery, which is significant. Despite the cooler conditions, this surface melt season is still above the 1981-2010 average and with the oncoming melt in the next week or two, it will probably remain so for this season. The 2012 melt season was exceptional and doesn't (yet) represent the norm. When we get to the point where SMB can't crack positive (as it almost did that year), it'll represent the non-viability of the ice sheet in the long term and a permanent shift to widespread net ablation. I suspect that will happen consistently when we lose sea ice in the late summer.

Bluewave,

You posted this paper earlier and the post is gone:

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14375

I meant to comment on it earlier but ran out of time that day.

It's definitely an interesting and concerning paper. I've read it a couple of times before. I'm not sure that's what's going on here, as it seems that most of the cooling was from diabatic heat loss, but the mechanisms mentioned in the paper are definitely a concern down the road. It looks like most of the ones that predict deep ocean convection collapse in the SPG target right around mid-century. The SPG collapse happens almost regardless of emissions path too (happens in 2.6 and 8.5). The fact that only the higher skill models do it and it happens regardless of emissions scenario does set off an alarm bell that they might be on to something. The authors obviously thought so as well.

It's interesting that the earlier paper you linked (from 2012) showed some SPG instability that the authors dismissed as a 'freak occurrence'. Perhaps not?

11 hours ago, bluewave said:

Just beginning to see the area loss rate slow. Looks very close to 2013 as of the most recent update. The CPOM September average extent forecast based on melt ponding was near 2013. The longer this reverse dipole persists, the more confidence there will be for a NSIDC September average extent at or a little above 5 million sq km.

The flip side to this is the fact that the record +AO still isn't enough to get a recovery to pre-2007 levels -- only enough to mostly cover for the higher winter temps. You may be right that when we look back, 2007 may have been the most important point in the entire sequence. I'm sure we'll get to some point where extent drops out rapidly towards zero in late Aug in the future, but the biggest change was probably the Beaufort gyre turning from a nursery for ice to a MYI graveyard. That change looks irreversible at this point.

On 6/26/2018 at 9:58 PM, WxUSAF said:

Deer eat our tomato plants all the time. Along with everything else.

On 6/26/2018 at 7:29 PM, Eskimo Joe said:

I'm going to hit them with some liquid fertilizer and guard with some fencing and coyote urea.  That'll hopefully do the trick.  It's still June so we should be good.

After extensive issues with deer and my gardens and fields over the years (including bramble-berries like raspberries and blackberries), I have some strong advice for you:

Do two fences, spaced 3' apart and make the inner one taller -- say 6 or 7 ft. If you want, string some hot wire in there to make it even more effective. I had 5 strands of electric fence (3 inner and 2 outer) and that finally stopped ALL deer activity inside my plot. They'll jump the first one but the limited space and being surrounded by barriers spooks them and they never make or even take the second jump. It worked wonders for me. It's a lot of extra up-front effort, but it'll put a dead stop to that nonsense.