MANDA

The area from Boca Grande south to Captiva and Sanibel including Pine Island look about ready to fully enter the eye over the next 30 min or so.

Boca Grande and Cayo Costa getting nailed with eastern eye wall now.

Yep, I'm watching the windows on that yellow house to see how high it gets. Hope we don't lose the camera.

Going to be real close to that area. Water is going to rapidly pile into Gasparilla Sound / Charlotte Harbor on that track. Those homes on Boca Grande are well built - we're about to find out how well built.

Look at the rush of water on the Periwinkle and Casa Yebel cam.

Amazing satellite presentation. Maintaining intensity right up to the coast with no degradation whatsoever - none. We are watching something rare unfold.

Can you imagine!? I have to believe there were some terrifying moments in that aircraft.

I think they have now gone offline? Stream unavailable.

We forget it is dangerous work. Especially in something like Ian.

You, me and many others. TPC was wrong but in the other direction. Intensity forecasting as I said a few days back is still the holy grail of tropical forecasting. I was uncertain if Ian would fully recover from the ERC. Sometimes storms do and sometimes they do not. I was counting on some shear to keep Ian below the TPC 130 mph max intensity. Was thinking 110-120 mph at landfall. Dead wrong. I did mention yesterday though that the ERC started at the wrong time and that potential did exist for full recovery, it fully recovered and exceeded!

Someone else feel free to chime in but considering the intensity, size, surge prone coast being affected, major population area, high end real estate and rainfall associated flooding could this be the costliest CONUS hurricane of all time by the time ALL is said and done? Katrina stands out in front of the pack but have to believe this will make it into the top 5. Any thoughts?

Would imagine water will be rising quickly over the next several hours in Charlotte Harbor as south to southeast winds will be piling a ton of water into there. Boca Grande could be hit hard with surge as water piles in and eventually rushes back out.

Based on current trends - just my opinion but I'm targeting the area near Englewood or just south of there for landfall. Irrelevant for most things except wind direction and max surge values. Barrier islands from Captiva up to Englewood area are going to get hit very hard. Anybody who stayed on those barrier islands better be in a WELL constructed structure on pilings of 12' or more. Area from Charlotte Harbor to Ft. Myers and associated canals etc. need to brace for at least 12' of storm surge and perhaps more.

Eye continues to clear. Nothing short of spectacular at the worse possible time. So similar to Charley (only much larger) in the hours prior to landfall. Surge near and to the right of landfall will be devastating. Per latest from TPC: Peak Storm Surge Inundation has been increased for the following locations: * From Englewood to Bonita Beach...12-18 ft * Charlotte Harbor...12-18 ft * From Bonita Beach to Chokoloskee...8-12 ft * From Chokoloskee to East Cape Sable...5-8 ft The 12-18' foot forecast areas are no joke and life threatening is not an exaggeration. Bad.

HPC rather aggressive with rainfall for most of this forum with 1-2" for long suffering south shore of L.I. Northwest NJ on northeastward with much less. I'm thinking not as robust as they are showing but lots of time to watch. SNJ of course has best chances for heavy to perhaps some excessive amounts.

First visible of the day! Surge is going to be horrific near and to the right of exact landfall. Feel bad for folks on the barrier islands from Boca Grande down towards Sanibel. Also for Fort Myers area. Some extremely expensive real estate built to high standards but we might just be about to find out how it withstands an extreme storm surge and near record winds and low pressures for that part of Florida. Even if Ian has peaked or is peaking now the surge is built up and is going to get shoved onto the coast. Bad situation. Satellite and radar extremely impressive.

If ever there was a year for the rug to constantly be pulled out from under you 2022 would be it. Long ways to go on this. Main question for me is does the .50" make it to south shore. I'd have to say questionable. 12Z run looked way too wet and 18Z looks way too dry. 12Z EURO looking like a good compromise at this point. SNJ for sure has the best chance at 1-2".

We know that is not happening and I'd make a sizeable wager against it happening.

I'd have to agree. I'm thinking 110-120. Much will depend on how Ian cycles overnight and into tomorrow morning.

Again another slight nudge southeast at 5pm with TPC projected landfall near Charlotte Harbor. No change in forecast surge numbers on FL west coast with 8-12' from Longboat to Bonita. Intensity at landfall a bit questionable but seems as though Cat. 3 is most likely at this time. Major impacts likely central and southwestern FL coast from large and expanding wind field, surge and excessive rainfall.

You can sure see how Ian would have weakened coming into the Northern Gulf coast. DP's right to the gulf coast in the mid to upper 40's and PW generally just about .50". Definitely not the case from Tampa southward. Also very dry over the southeast so very cautious about Ian maintaining fully tropical characteristics once off the N FL coast if that track is realized. Will have ample supply of dry air to ingest. Most of the wind generated over the GA/SC/NC coast I think would come from the pressure gradient with big high to the north and lower pressure of Ian to the south. We'll see. I'm not looking for any notable second landfall.

The moat feature has almost completely filled in and nice convective band is rotating around from the SW side. Eye is very circular and has been contracting. Tremendous hot tower erupting on NW side. Based on satellite and radar looks to me like Ian is still in intensification mode. We'll see what recon finds. Certainly has not weakened or lost any organization this afternoon. Would expect TPC to either keep track steady or most likely nudge it a slight distance SE for a landfall point. Not by much maybe 10-15 miles based on 12Z models /ensembles and 18Z tropical models.

Looks to be tightening up for landfall near or just north of Charlotte Harbor.

Looks to be tightening up for landfall near or just north of Charlotte Harbor.

If correct not a good time to have that happen. It will have time to "recover" / tighten up before landfall. If it did not tighten up then the result would be a much more spread out wind field. We'll have to see how this goes.