WolfStock1

Is there actually increased solar energy during the peaks of the cycle? From all I've seen those peaks are the peak of *activity* (magnetic fluctuations resulting in sunspots), not actually energy peaks. Wouldn't the actual solar energy received by the earth be *lower* during periods of peak sunspot activity? (Given that a sunspot is a "cool spot" where less energy is being output) I know there are more CMEs during the peaks, resulting in more-frequent aurora peaks; but it seems like that would be just noise in what might otherwise be a general lower level of overall energy from the sun. Not an expert on the subject - just putting out a "seems to me" theory.

And yet worldwide life expectancy continues to rise. https://www.statista.com/statistics/805060/life-expectancy-at-birth-worldwide/ Something doesn't jive. Methinks it's the information in these "reports". (So much for the "good thing" of mass die-off)

Unfortunately the end toll will probably come in that high. It's early. Saving grace is they had lots of warning. However unlike the US most people just don't have the ability to evacuate, at least in terms of going somewhere hundreds of miles away in another state that's safe.

Yeah very sad situation there; and good points about being an island. Saving grace perhaps is that the most-built areas of the island - around Kingston - was not as hard hit. But yeah as you say it's not like Katrina etc. where people can be driving there from other states to help with cleanup and rebuild; it's a much harder thing on an island like that, even for people that have a vested interest. I would encourage everyone to donate some $ - there are already charities collecting funds for use for Jamaica.

Reading up - it does seem like a vessel or two - including S.S. Phemius and the schooner Abundance - that got caught in it and I guess got accurate enough measurements. Poor sods. Though it seems like they had to do a lot of extrapolating to come up with the 78-hour number.

Nah - most of those went below Cat 5 before being affected by land - e.g. the other 4 besides Melissa over the last two years. What I'm wondering about is how they knew the 1932 was Cat 5 for so long. We didn't have satellite or even radar back then; nor did we have C130's to do fly-throughs. Can't do post-hoc damage analysis on the water. So how did they know?

Yeah this. Despite having the look of most-structure-still-standing - I would venture those videos are showing well over 90% actual destruction. When you include the cost of cleanup - it may cost more to clear-out-and-rebuild those areas than it cost to build them in the first place.

Yeah wow - rapid re-formation:

Well - Mitch made landfall with 80 mph winds; Melissa of course was over double that. Orders of magnitude more damage from 180 mph wind.

Here's the thing - I've driven through Chimney Rock, which was probably the worst-hit place, just a few months ago. Roughly half the downtown was wiped out. But generally that's about it; and it's a quite-small downtown actually. I have relatives that live right there in Lake Lure, and they - along with about 95% of the area - were relatively unaffected, aside from lost power, some downed trees, and some road washouts. The vast majority of structures were generally unaffected. You see the spectacular devastation of the areas hardest hit and assume that's the majority of places, but it's not; it's media selection bias. Contrast with the eye wall of a hurricane - of this force - which will wipe out almost everything; leaving almost no structure at least undamaged, and completely destroying a high percentage. Part of the reason I say that is due to the poverty of Jamaica - they just don't have the hurricane wind standards that the US does. (Just to reiterate - not trying to understate the fact that there will be massive rain-flood damage; I'm just asserting that I think the wind damage will likely be worse, along with the storm surge flooding.) Edit to add: the "wiped off the map" verbiage was mine - but I specifically qualified it with "large areas"; what I meant was for instance miles-wide swaths. In Chimney Rock's case, for instance, the swath was roughly 300-500 ft wide (you can see on google maps). Melissa's eye wall is about 300x that wide.

Definite eye breakdown / contraction going on.

True enough - I wasn't really addressing landslides, just flooding water volume. In that respect yeah - the landslides will certainly be worse. River flow is a direct function of land area X rainfall rate/level right? While the normal flow might be higher on a per-land-area-served basis; presumably that's due to Jamaica getting more rain during normal periods than NC; given an equal amount of heavy rainfall though they both would flow the same of course. That said - one key difference here may simply be the very *fast* dumping of rain in certain areas; moreso than Helene where the rate of rainfall wasn't as fast as Melissa. So tributaries will probably be worse-off for short periods than Helene. FWIW - I've driven through a lot of the Helene areas. While the damage was really bad; it wasn't "wipe large areas off the map" bad. The bad thing about Helene was that the damage was spread over a *huge* area - like several dozen Jamaicas.

Yeah there have actually been over a dozen Cat 5 landfalls. So - asserted stat is just wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Category_5_Atlantic_hurricanes#Landfall

Perhaps, but in both case total destruction generally only happens in a small area; in the case of winds it's around the eye; in the case of rainfall it's low-lying areas - along rivers and such. River damage is only a couple hundred yards wide typically though; this eye is 20 miles wide. A house that's not along a creek or river will see no damage from rainfall but tons of damage from wind. Reality will be both of course. Bad hurricane flooding typically comes from storm surge. Helene was an exception last year of course - but that's mostly because the watershed areas are quite large for the rivers that did the big damage. E.g. the watershed for the French Broad in NC is about 10,000 sq miles. In Jamaica the watershed for say the Black River is about 100 sq miles, so even twice the rainfall as Helene would result in only 1/50 the flow. It's one of the advantages of being an island - it'll drain better. Not saying there won't be some catastrophic flooding - the will be, but I think wind will probably cause more overall damage.

OK then follow-up - why would non-straight-line winds be more destructive than straight-line? Same force isn't it? Perhaps it's that tornadoes' winds tend to swirl upward, and thus tend to lift more debris, than hurricane winds?

Labor Day was Cat 5 when it made landfall. And it was 1935 not 1932.

Official "landfall" is when *center* of the eye hits right? Seems like this eye wall - the strongest winds - is already making landfall right now, right? (based on the satellite loops)

Wow. Just... wow. One telling thing - put your mouse in the center of the eye at the beginning of the sequence, and watch what happens by the end. Ruh roh Shaggy. What comes to mind is that scene near the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark - where Belloch watches what's unfolding and declares "It's beautiful!!!".... right before his face gets ripped off.

I don't think it's an either/or thing. We can have both correlation with solar cycles AND increases due to AGW. Some people try to explain away general increase by saying there isn't really a general increase - what you're seeing is solar cycles. But if you believe there is a general increase you shouldn't just throw the baby out with the bath water and assert that therefore there *isn't* correlation with solar cycles. Based on what appears to be cyclical nature of bursts of Cat 5's it seems to me it's clear there is some there. (That jives with the paper actually; though the timing appears to be different to me.)

The tail end of that is just... scary.

Amazing. Have there ever been eye photos and videos like this?

That is a really good thing. The further west it goes, the less the key population areas like Kingston get hit - with wind and rain. Go West, young storm, go West.

There and Savanna-la-Mer, on the SW portion - will get the worst of the wind and storm surge. Montego Bay at least will be somewhat protected by the mountains; though will certainly get mudslides and such.

Not what I'm seeing (e.g. we're at a peak right now, and we've had five Cat 5's in the last two years). Spun off a separate thread though so as to not derail this one.

Prompted by Hurricane Melissa - what's the correlation of extreme hurricanes and AGW, and solar cycles? When looking strictly at Cat 5's - they definitely seem to be getting more frequent over time, but also seem to correlate heavily with the solar cycles; specifically being more frequent during peaks of solar cycles, with perhaps some lag (more frequent on the "back side"). Here's list of Cat 5's by year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Category_5_Atlantic_hurricanes Haven't charted yet, but there definitely seems to be strong correlation with the peak and/or back side of the peak of solar cycles; specifically cat 5 frequency peaking: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle Haven't charted the correlation (maybe someone else has) but it definitely seems to be there; looking at the list of Cat 5's at least. The correlation seems to be strongest in recent years: 1924 1928 - solar cycle 16 peak 1932 - solar cycle 16 backside 1932 1933 1933 1935 1938 - solar cycle 17 peak backside 1944 - off-cycle 1953 - off-cycle 1955 1961 - solar cycle 19 peak backside 1961 1966 1967 1969 - solar cycle 20 peak 1971 1977 1979 - solar cycle 21 peak 1980 1988 1989 - solar cycle 22 peak 1992 1998 2003 - solar cycle 23 peak backside 2004 2005 2005 2005 2005 2007 2007 2016 - solar cycle 24 peak backside 2017 2017 2018 2019 2022 2024 2024 2025 - solar cycle 25 peak 2025 2025 Odd thing is that a google search mentions *anti-correlation* of hurricane activity and solar cycles - but that's not what I see here, at least looking at the Cat 5's. Perhaps during peak periods there are less overall hurricanes, but more Cat 5's (?).