HurricaneJosh

On 12/16/2019 at 6:23 PM, shaggy said:

I am probably one of the few humans who doesnt have a Twitter account but I was watching on Twitter the entire time. Really thought it was gonna barely miss you south but a few hours before landfall it was clear you were gonna catch the eye. Great video as always.

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

On 12/2/2019 at 5:46 AM, shaggy said:

Looks like Josh is gonna catch the northern eyewall and may the edge of the eye of Kamurri 

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.

1 hour ago, Floydbuster said:

Comparing Josh's vid and this Mexico Beach Michael vid, they both in my opinion, show sustained Category 5 winds. The "whiteout" conditions in both storms is very similar to the infamous gas station video in Charlotte Harbor during Hurricane Charley, where the tiny and fast moving eyewall briefly produced sustained Category 4 winds and a gust to Cat 5 within several seconds which destroyed the gas station. The "whiteout" conditions are seen in that video as well, and Charley was 145 mph by the time winds hit Charlotte Harbor.

The only thing I disagree with Josh about is that Dorian is the cherry on his hurricane sundae. I think Dorian may just be a thick layer of fudge. Just wait until he's in the eye of the next 1935. (I suspect the winds in the '35 storm were actually stronger than 185 mph, and the motion was about 6 kts in a tiny eye with 892 mb pressure).

 

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.

17 minutes ago, ncforecaster89 said:

I'm posting this comment in the banter thread, as I would suspect any convo regarding chasers (more personally) would be more applicable outside the main storm specific thread.

That said, I wanted to make it abundantly clear that I was (and am) genuinely excited for Josh to have intercepted the eye and core of Dorian.  Unlike some, I don't get jealous of others' chasing success.  Why should they?  It has no relevancy on their own chase abilities.  

My wholly scientically objective observation that the winds don't appear to have been any higher in Marsh Harbour than those I happened to observe on the western-most portion of Mexico Beach, shouldn't be taken as somehow an attempt at minimizing the effects on Marsh Harbour.  The only relevancy to Josh in such evaluation is simply an objective review of the winds he documented on video.  As stated multiple times already, I feel he captured genuine Cat 5 winds on video...which is a VERY rare occurrence.  

It makes zero difference that I happened to be the one who documented the highest winds in Michael or that Josh happened to be the one documenting Dorian in MH.  The only relevancy between the two is that each intercept location experienced the greatest impact from the two storms, respectively.  Thus, my own personal interest in knowing what the peak MSW might've been at each specific locality.

Given Josh is typically in the core of a major landfalling hurricane at or near ground-zero, I can understand why some might misinterpret my objective analysis of the peak winds that most likely were encountered in that area, and falsely presume I have some stupid ulterior motive or "agenda".  Nothing could be further from the truth! 

Even when some resorted to unjustified personal attacks when I respectfully argued that all the objective scientific data clearly suggested Patricia wasn't a Cat 5 at landfall, I didn't waver on my wholly objective opinion.   Subsequently, the NHC agreed with my precise 130 kt estimate.  Similar instances occurred in discussion of Michael's landfall intensity.   Yet again, my best educated guess (based solely on the objective scientific data) was validated in the NHC TCR.  Now, some are taking exception to my objective viewpoint that Marsh Harbour didn't get anywhere close to those one-minute 10 m estimated MSWs.  Unlike with Michael, we have a lot less access to all the available data, whereby making a specific best educated estimate of the MSW encountered in MH is far more problematic.  That's why I've asked if anyone knows of any additional data that may be available?  Regardless, I'm confident that MH saw a MSW of at least 140 kt.  

I don't personally consider chasing a sport, much less a competition with other chasers.  In sequence of events, my initial goal is to either get into the eye or the area of strongest winds from a documentation standpoint.  Secondly, record the barometric pressure at that location.  Currently in the process of obtaining an anemometer to accurately record wind measurements in future intercepts.  Next, to assist with search and rescue following a devastating event...followed by documentation of the aftermath.   Lastly, I always have (since Katrina in 2005) and always will devote at least one full day to assisting with the cleanup.  This is one thing I wish all chasers would do, and feel we all should do, considering we intentionally place ourselves in these areas of greatest impact and often times benefit from doing so.  Regardless of the other ways we help, I still think it's the least we can do...but that's just me.  

This post is long enough.  But, I just simply wanted to share my personal viewpoints on the contents contained herein to help those who might misinterpret them.  Thanks for taking the time to read it.  Hope all have a great rest of the day!

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:
 

On 3/25/2018 at 7:48 AM, bowtie` said:

Nice eye candy. Is that your footage before the head-banging started, or is it stock footage from someone else?

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

17 hours ago, Windspeed said:

 

Haha nice work, Josh! I headbanged a little. Good luck on your chases this year. May they be as successful as 2018, though hopefully less witnessing to devestation of densely populated areas.

 

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!

Agreed Josh.

Ditto what Josh said. I've been following this whole story since we all were worried if JoMo was okay during the storm that day. I've continue to follow Jomo's thread here and it's truly amazing the progress Joplin has had since the tornado took part of that city off the map. Such a testament to that city and it's people for getting done what needed to be done even though it was so much easier to give in to despair with the overwhelming task they had at hand. I would love to visit someday because there are some truly remarkable people there. They should all be so very proud of the fine example they have established for how disaster recovery should be handled. Bravo Joplin!

Thank you-- but to be clear, I had equal praise for our federal disaster response. The people of Joplin deserve credit-- and so, too, does our federal government and this application of our federal tax dollars. It is a win all around.

It's cool to see Joplin bouncing back like this. It's really a model of disaster recovery. As Californians, we were not in any way affected by this disaster. But I think as Americans we're all proud to see the federal government-- and federal taxpayer dollars-- going toward such a noble and worthy causes: rebuilding American communities and infrastructure. I think this is a good illustration of the federal system at work: we're here to support each other and pick each other up in times of need.

I never want to feel that again. Seriously. Moderate, violent, I don't are what you want to call it, I'm not hung up on that. All I know is it scared the shot out of me as our entire office on the 10th floor shook. We hauled ass out of that building. Downtown us a mess (traffic wise). For this area, this was pretty big.

To be clear... It was a significant event for anywhere. When something that size happens in L.A. metro, it's a big deal and it causes a commotion.

it's predictable, is all. none of us were talking about the actual scale when saying violent.. you probably knew that.

Everyone else was interested to see the MM scale and put the event in perspective. For some reason, it's bothering you. Sorry. Don't look at it.

Some ceiling fixtures partially fell and a couple of things were tipped over in my cube but nothing worse that that. Pictures fell off the walls at home but no biggie

That's pretty good, though. Pictures coming off the wall is a threshold indicator for me-- that it was a good jolt.

Was not trying to make fun of you either in a later post. Thanks for providing that info, interesting and informative.

You're welcome.

We would not even be having this convo if it was violent as termed by USGS since many of us would be under rubble. I get the interest in sharing the wealth but there are some things that are predictable in life and one is Californians mocking others earthquake understanding abilities.

Who was mocking anyone? Seriously, dude-- relax.

You guys had a significant event and I thought I'd share the stuff that we talk about in CA after quakes. No insult intended. Yikes.

Sorry if posted before:

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/dyfi/events/se/082311a/us/index.html

Based on how folks are describing it, this map looks exactly right. The couple of spots of yellow don't surprise me: 5.9 is pretty good, and the quake was shallow, so I'd expect some hard jolts right near the epicenter.

What impresses me most about this quake is the really large coverage of felt shaking. Like I said above (or in another thread), quakes in CA don't have such wide aerial coverage like this-- except for the really bad ones, they tend to be more localized.

Californians always have a field day when quakes happen in non quake areas. I've felt plenty ... It was 'violent' for a few seconds by our standards.

If you're referring to me-- since I'm the only Californian in this thread (): I'm not making fun of the event. It was obviously significant. I felt people would be interested to see the MM scale to understand where this event falls compared with other quakes, and also to learn that "violent" actually means specific things when discussing quakes.

Based on that scale, I'd call it moderate.

Based on the descriptions in these threads, that sounds about right-- in the IV-V range.

It''s when you get up into oranges and reds (VII and above) that it starts getting kind of insane.

I see folks using the word "violent" a lot.

That's actually a semi-technical term with a specific meaning-- i.e., that the quake produced MM IX shaking or higher. Usually in violent shaking, you have kitchen cupboards and refrigerators flying open and emptying and buildings collapsing and things like that. I don't think this quake produced violent shaking.

Here's an entry about the MM scale: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercalli_intensity_scale

this was pretty standard to me though it's been a while now since i've felt one that big. often you get a slower/nicer roll then a big shock after a bit. same thing here.

i hit the doorway right away.. many here seemed to think it might be a bomb or something (DC!). not too bad, tho the walls started making noise and i briefly imagined the building going down...

I've been in a bunch of quakes, and like weather events, each one is really unique-- feels completely different. The Northridge quake was extremely violent and very vertical-- you really felt things going up and down, in a fast, jerky motion. We had one a year or two ago that was mellow and horizontal-- like slipping on ice-- it just felt like everything was sliding. Each one is its own thing.

It also depends on the depth. This one is pretty shallow, so you get less waves and more rumble, in terms of how it feels. The wavey ones are brutal.

We might be talking about different things. P and S waves cause two different types of motion and are used to locate the earthquake's center: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seismic_wave

Re: shallow quakes... The shallow ones tend to have a sharper, edgier feel, I've found.

Was two distinct periods here. First one was relatively minor, then a pause for a few seconds, then stronger shaking (made my computer screen shake). Are those the p and s waves? Or vice versa?

Yes.

Usually the first waves are more mild and they give you a chance to duck and cover before the heavier stuff comes. Now, if you're right at the epicenter, you just get slammed all at once, and there's no difference-- whereas the further you are from the center, the more time there is between the P and S waves.

Wow-- not bad for this region.

Wow-- it sounds like FEMA has really stepped up to the plate. The temporary housing sounds really nice.

Awesome to hear when things are working right in this country!

It's nice to see a more detailed report, although I'm disappointed they still haven't assigned a max wind-speed value to the event.