HurricaneJosh

Thanks so much, shaggy. I'm glad you enjoyed it, and I hope you're doing well. Nice to reconnect with you like this.

I most certainly did-- got right smack in the eye. Here's the action. It's one of my better nighttime videos. The hotel was on a generator, so there was some light to work with.

Hey, thanks, Mike! I'm flattered that you have such a firm belief in my ability to pull that off again-- or top it. If I go to my grave with DORIAN being my biggest score, I'll feel like I did what I was put on this earth to do. But, hey, it's always worth striving for that next level. Anyhoo, thanks for watching the video. Hope you're well, man.

Thanks for your interest in my work, Tony. I appreciate it.

Hey, folks! Haven't been here in a while. Just wanted y'all to know my show is premiering at 9 pm EDT (8 pm CDT) Sunday 15 September on Science Channel. It starts with a bang-- a double episode that brings you with me into the eye of Cat-5 Hurricane MICHAEL. Let me know what you think! Here's the on-air promo:

Thanks, Gene! My show, Hurricane Man, is broadcasting in a bunch of countries now, including the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, etc. In the USA, it'll premiere on Science Channel in September. It was going to be June, but that's a dead zone in terms of TV. The network really digs the show and decided they wanted to have it as part of their big fall primetime lineup, so they rescheduled it. I'll announce the premiere date as soon as I know it. Thanks, man. Well... The lead dude on an action-adventure TV show needs to be... expressive. I might also add that I do find myself in legitimately dramatic situations-- like, you know, Cat 5s in the jungles of the Philippines. It's not like I'm hamming it up in 40-knot winds and drizzle in Myrtle Beach. Thx, Will. I've taken some dumb risks over the years and I've had a few brushes with death-- but, hey, I'm still here after 28 years of chasing around the globe, so I'm doing something right. P.S. I miss our collaborations. You used to be one of my go-to guys. My crew was amazing. There were actually three crews. When I first went to England to meet them, I was worried as hell-- these folks had never been in a hurricane, and I was thinking, "Holy crap, can they handle this?" But I trained them on what to expect and how to survive, and they were very brave. They never freaked out or complained-- even as I took 'em in to the cores of multiple Cat 5s (Super Typhoon MANGKHUT and then MICHAEL). They kept their heads down and got the shots we needed to create awesome TV. I'm damn proud of the show. In case anyone's curious, here's the promo they used to promote the show in the United Kingdom for this premiere this past spring:

And here's my video from WILLA. This was my coolest, naughtiest—and stupidest—chase of the year, as I drove into the eyewall at the very last minute to make sure I penetrated the eye (which I did). You'll notice WILLA's core was extremely turbulent, with violent gusts and frequent lightning (unusual in hurricanes). The calm eye lasted about a half hour and was very sharply defined. Notice how the wind seems loudest and most intense just before the eye—as if the inner ring was the very strongest part—and also how the winds come roaring back very suddenly starting at 7:44 pm.

Wow, I want to say thanks to all you guys for posting all the WILLA porn as it came ashore. This was a pedal-the-metal kind of chase and I didn't have much time to collect any imagery-- so it's awesome to find the treasure trove of stuff in this here thread. WILLA was my best chase of the year-- the one I'm most proud of. Chasing without radar is a bitch-- it's like chasing blindfolded, because IR images are so coarse and there's major parallax displacement-- so punching the eye requires more skill, more finesse. I deployed sensors (and collected high-quality data) at three locations along the landfall zone, and managed to perfectly nail the eye with a final, risky position adjustment that had me driving into the eyewall. (Yeah, yeah, it was stupid-- whatever.) WILLA's core was surprisingly violent-- with frequent lightning and the sound of a train. This here infographic summarizes my work on WILLA. I deployed the sensors at Locations B and C in advance, then rode out the cyclone's core at Location A. (That's why the data trace for Location A is shortest-- I got there last.) Notice I was able to estimate the eye dimensions (12 n mi diameter) and boundaries via eyewitness interviews afterward. P.S. I should be releasing my WILLA video in the next week or so.

Hey, thanks! I felt good about my work on MICHAEL: got in the eye, collected quality-controlled data from two locations in the core (one in the eye, one in the inner eyewall), got some crazy video, and got out in one piece. It wasn't my strongest cyclone of the season (that honor goes to Super Typhoon MANGKHUT in the Philippines), nor was it my favorite chase of the season (that would be Hurricane WILLA in Mexico), but it was definitely one of my top chases of 2018.

The calm intro shots of L.A. are licensed stock footage! I don't do that kinda fancy photography!

Hey, thanks! Glad you liked it! Agreed-- it would be nice to see less human impact this coming season-- the last was a bit much.

Oh, hey. My latest YouTube channel ad. A lot of my recent chaseporn crammed into a minute. Enjoy!

Sorry to be responding three months later! Anyhoo, you're clearly very familiar with my work, because yeah, those are my Top 3 (in chronological order): HAIYAN, PATRICIA, and MARIA. They're kind of in their own special category in terms of how violent and just OMG they were. ODILE would be a solid and undisputed No. 4. In some ways maybe it deserves to be in the Top 3. It was just a really intense, edgy hurricane. The classification as Cat 3 doesn't do it justice. That sh*t was vicious.

ODILE is not in my Top 3. MARIA was worse!

My complete MARIA report: http://icyclone.com/upload/chases/maria/iCyclone_Chase_Report_MARIA2017.pdf I was on the SE coast of Puerto Rico, just a few miles N of the landfall point—a perfect location to get totally right-front-quadded. Needless to say, the conditions were ferocious. The most distinctive thing about this chase? Concentric eyewalls that brought two distinct wind maxima—separated by a marked lull—on the ground. This aside, I calculated air-pressure gradients up to ~7 mb/n mi in the inner core—among the highest I’ve measured. (PATRICIA still holds the crown: I calculated gradients well over 10 mb/n mi in that one). In terms of intensity, data, and just wow-factor, MARIA is one of my greatest chases—maybe Top 3.

Yeah, he mentioned to me he's going down to Marathon to get that station. I'm excited to see what he got. I love his work-- it's very cool.

Yeah, I was commenting about this on Twitter today. The wind data from the Keys in IRMA was really blah across the board. Just not impressed.

Max winds in a hurricane happen in narrow streaks. Winds will vary greatly even within one city. (See CELIA 1970 in Corpus Christi for good example of this.) Whether or not folks can stand on downwind balconies or in parking structures is not a good way of assessing wind speeds. In Cat-5 Super Typhoon HAIYAN, I stood on a balcony during the worst of it. (It was stupid and I almost got killed, but I did it.) Thank you so much, Steve! I really appreciate that. I was really tortured about the length, and in the end, I'm glad I included those elements. I'm psyched you feel like they add to it. Awesome.

Yeah, to be clear, I'm talking about where I was: Palmas Del Mar. Nothing there is wood. P.S. I added clarification to my original post to say "where they have means" they don't build with wood.

Exactly. ANDREW was a stronger hurricane than MARIA (Cat 5 versus Cat 4), so it inflicted heavier wind damage. I'm not sure why you're arguing that point, since it's to be expected. But, yes, the type of structure *is* relevant. A shopping center can be constructed well or constructed badly. Pre-ANDREW, a lot of Florida was constructed like crap. Now it's much better. The minimal damage in Naples after IRMA (during which the city had officially measured gusts over 120 knots) is a good indicator of how far Florida has come.

P.S. To add to my point... The damage caused by HARVEY in Rockport and Aransas Pass looked much more dramatic than the damage caused by MARIA in Palmas Del Mar. In HARVEY I saw complete building failures, whereas I did not see that in MARIA. But guess what? MARIA's winds were much stronger than HARVEY's. It's just that Rockport and Aransas Pass have lots of older, wood-frame or lightweight-metal industrial buildings-- and lots of mobile homes-- whereas in Palmas Del Mar, everything is solid concrete.

Thanks! The drive from Humacao to San Juan was pure hell and I was sure I wouldn't make it-- I was planning to sleep in the car on the side of the highway-- but somehow I did make it. Re: your wind estimate... I don't want to belabor the point, but this is important to address: On what basis do you say the damage looked like Cat 3? Like I said above, everything there is solid concrete, so these buildings will survive even Cat-5 winds. The trees where I rode out the cyclone were 100% defoliated and in many cases debarked, and there were (as you saw in my video) many palms decrowned or snapped mid-trunk, which suggests really extreme winds. Really, only structural engineers-- guys like Tim Marshall-- are qualified to look at buildings and say, "This is Cat-4 damage," and "This is Cat-3 damage." The rest of us (me included, despite having been in the cores of 36 hurricanes/typhoons) are just kinda making it up. That point aside, thanks for your very kind words. I appreciate it.

Hey, guys! Hope you're all well. I know I'm not here much these days, but I saw y'all were discussing my chase, so I thought I'd pop in and say hey. Now that I've had time to process it, I'd say MARIA is a Top-3 chase for me in terms of the quality/violence of the eyewall. It helped that I was in the perfect spot: at the coast, just a few miles right of the exact landfall point. I got totally right-front-quadded. The NHC's verdict (high-end Cat 4) felt right to me-- that is, not quite a Cat 5 but harsher than other Cat 4s I've been in. (Yes, that's a subjective take, not a scientific opinion.) I'd say MARIA was in the neighborhood of PATRICIA, but much larger and longer-lasting. (PATRICIA was a total microcane-- the extreme winds lasted about 17 minutes in my location-- whereas MARIA was pretty large and the extreme winds went on for over an hour.) My lowest pressure was 929.4 mb. (Actually, that's my lowest *recorded* pressure. I saw the barometer dip below 929, but the 1-min sampling didn't catch the absolute extreme.) Below is my video. It's long, so if you want to skip to the daytime Cat-4 eyewall porn, the red-meat stuff goes from 6:18 to 6:21 am (timestamp in lower left), then there's a brightening/calming as I apparently graze the edge of the eye (although the lowest pressure did not happen at that time), and then the really severe sh*t starts around 6:56 am. By 7:15 am you can't see a damn thing, and I'd say it's the most extreme eyewall whiteout I've experienced in my decades of chasing (with the single possible exception of PATRICIA). The worst of it was over before 8 am. Oh, one point: Be careful of trying to estimate peaks winds based on the damage to buildings-- especially in the town where I was (Palmas Del Mar). Two points: 1) Puerto Rico builds for hurricane winds and 2) this is a very affluent area. All of the buildings there are **solid concrete**. (Actually, this applies to a lot of these tropical islands, American and not. They don't have mobile homes and where they have means they don't build wood houses like we do on the mainland. They know better.) Damage to roofs and windows was heavy. Enjoy!

[quote name='Saki' timestamp='1354975121'] Jmho, no reason why amateurs shouldn't be allowed to do the same. Some would elect to post there and it would probably thin down the forums some. Especially amateurs that donate and or are subscribers. Otherwise you might as well to straight to the "amateurs must subscribe to read/post" to support the community. It would accomplish basically the same thing. [/quote] Agree with this. The met-only litmus test is kind of random, since some mets are terrible posters and some non mets are important contributors to the weather community-- either as chasers or whatever. I get that not everyone should have a blog, but this way of parsing it doesn't sit quite right.