Floydbuster

Cute little cane.

I made a one year retrospective short documentary on Hurricane Michael. If anyone is interested, feel free to check it out.

Thanks alot. They'll probably get rid of it now.

What the hell is with all these Cat 5s? We used to get them once in a while, sure. Hugo 89, Andrew 92, Mitch 98. But it was like...three per decade. Most "insane" storms peaked as Cat 4s. Think Georges, Floyd, Lenny, Keith, Iris, Michelle, Isidore and Lili. Ever since Isabel 2003, the last 16 years have given us 14 Category 5 hurricanes. I'm a skeptic as far as global warming and hurricanes, as the late Dr. William Gray told me personally that there was no correlation. But I am a little surprised at the surge in Cat 5 hurricanes. Is it better aircraft and satellite data?

I'm looking at these models in the 5-7 range, and I'm literally saying outloud: Why isn't Karen moving? That ridge is dominant as hell, this thing should be sailing into Key Largo and Corpus, yet it spins like an idiot in the Sargasso Sea for a week.

Meh. Not as excited about tracking this one as I was a few days ago. The "slow motion" doesn't bode well. If she moves briskly, then we could have something.

You and Josh may be interested in this: https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/2007JCLI1772.1 Discussing return periods for sub-900 mb hurricanes in the United States. "The 1935 Labor Day Florida Keys storm was the most severe in our dataset. With a 265-yr wind speed return period and a 102-yr central pressure return period, it presses the fitted model boundaries. We believe this is due in part to the extreme southern latitude of this landfalling storm. Another storm of this intensity would likely again require a very southern landfalling latitude, with the Florida Keys or the Brownsville, Texas, region being the most likely hosts." Very interesting. That means, according to "return periods", a sub-900 mb U.S. landfall should come around again in about 10-20 years. But I'm also envisioning a Brownsville landfall of a storm of that intensity. I picture a pinhole eyewall on a morning visibile crossing South Padre Island. I can picture Josh now, a big white beard, tweeting from Port Isabel.

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).

Jerry's the reason Karen is so heavily sheared in part. I thought Jerry was gonna be way past Bermuda by now. What's holding it up?

Almost all the models take this system straight back west under the monster ridge.

I have to agree with Josh about Hurricane Andrew. I was only 3/4 years old, obviously I don't remember tracking it. (The first hurricanes I ever remember hearing about were Gordon 1994 and Felix 1995) However, even with the now dated-1992 radar, Andrew was so small, so strong, and clearly rapidly intensifying. The one thing that does surprise me with regard to Hurricane Andrew is the rather high pressure (922 mb). I'm quite surprised Andrew didn't drop further. My guess is the dominant high pressure ridging to the north kept Andrew from going sub-920 mb. But the damage from Andrew was so severe. My friend down in Florida showed me areas of trees in the Florida City region back in 2010 and even 18 years later you could see signs of Andrew's winds. I understand building codes have come quite a long way, as even as recently as the 1990s storms like the ones of the last 15 years would have caused even greater destruction. I'm assuming Andrew's sustained winds were more in the 175 mph range, not 165. We'll never know. I would love to see a recon or satellite image of the Labor Day Storm of 1935. My assumption is that it became a Category 5 early in the morning (much like Dorian), likely 160 mph, and then went full blast into the landfall around 2pm in the Upper Keys. 892 mb with an eye that tiny, it likely had sustained winds possibly even greater than 185 mph. Maybe more like 205 mph sustained. The stories of sand causing sparks is something I don't often hear about in hurricanes, and the idea of such a massive storm surge in the Keys despite the tiny size leads me to believe there were horrific winds.

They don't seem that enthusiastic about Jerry, mostly because the models don't seem to be either.

By all accounts, things are gonna be very active in the next few weeks. We'll see if Karen and Lorenzo make their way off Africa before that wave season shuts down.

This thing has really blown some nice convection this evening.