Castaway

Some of the lightning/thunder that just passed through sounded epic.

I was watching south seeing flashes in the distance with the rolling thunder going across. 

At one point it sounded like it had a helicopter chopper cutting up the deep thunder thinking from bouncing off the terrain etc. 

Sometimes these late night storms have some of the best storm sound. Top stuff. 

49 minutes ago, hlcater said:

Lol

55 minutes ago, Baum said:

I'm I -88 and 355 may as well ride this thing until the bitter end.

I’m 88 and 83. Feeling the same

It’s still there on Radar.
 

It started flaking here nicely in Oak Brook and saw it on radar a bit ago as well.

Noticed the dew point drop on the nam earlier with the drier air pushing in. Was thinking it made sense why the sharp cut off is the there in the northern counties. But  wasn’t sure if it’s over done etc

Had a sense earlier it’s May and not December. Being 58 right now with my balcony door cracked for a couple hours watching this.
 

Especially this long tracked tornado with insane debris signatures…

Sam seemed to struggle yesterday on the sw quadrant as well for awhile. Just remembering observing it yesterday for hours.
 

Beauty representation earlier. Looks good now, despite the skidding on the sw.  Based on pure hunch and eyeballing, it should kick out again and produce some acts of major+ characteristics next hours into tomorrow.

Current mesos appear in tandem.

appears a more northern/nw track once and if the other meso swings around east

5 minutes ago, Windspeed said:

16 minutes ago, NeonPeon said:

Eyewall looking less perfect on radar at the moment. Erc? Or just fluctuation?
 
Speaking mostly about how the SW outer band is pulled in.

Visually, Ida is essentially text book for an intensifying eyewall at present. You get deformation from isolated intense cells bursting within the eyewall, this leads to mesos. Also radar is still long range with the beam height above ~25 k ft at this time, so it is possible the reflectivity dbz of the core band will become more of a bright ring as Ida gets closer and the beam reflects from lower is the eyewall. We're essentially limited to the higher/most intense elongated cells at this height.

Do more dominant meso(s) have an effect more or less of steer. Wobble more or less?

 Currently based on Radar, with  a possible more dominant northern vortex. This looks like currently it’s goin straight northly

Dynamically it can pull some of the rest  northerly in natural fluidity

Next hour will be interesting 

Buffing up cat 3

1 minute ago, cstrunk said:

 

Well, losing a engine would certainly be a good reason to not fly into a Cat 4 'cane. But what are we doing? Flying WW2 planes into hurricanes? It's 2021 for crying out loud. This program needs more funding.

It’ll be a mixture of highly engineered drones soon I’m thinking. Later human presence will be then evaluated. 
 

there will be humans in the thing I’m guessing either way always obviously regardless 

It’s been getting that other look now very recently. 
 

Looking more balanced wrapping around Into a more circular disk. It’s intensifying as we speak. 
 

if this took a step west yesterday right before Cuba between San Juan y Martinez and Sandino… we’d have a classic buzzsaw by now.

edit: this is why I was focused a lot yesterday right before it was hitting western Cuba. If it jogged west just a bit before hitting land. The little farther westerly track would of had this set in buzzsaw prime mode by now.
 

Low elevation. Quicker exit. More time.
 

it’s been intensifying as we speak. Those light bumps yesterday chugged it a bit. Even if by mere hours
 

It seems the current track has the center going between San Juan y Martínez (which has a elevation of 70ft)

And Guane which has an elevation around 82ft. 

 

If it was tracking more to the East, maybe the terrain there would of had a little more of an effect (200-300ft). Even then, it wouldn’t be that much imo.

Edit: Looking at the last 2 frames it looks like it took a good step west.  
 

might go over Sandino area. Which has an elevation around 33ft.

Some nice tops by elk grove village 

Have to see if it’ll close off soon. 
 

Based on Radar, it certainly has been trending in that direction and continuing.
 

Can’t remember off the bat in recent memory seeing one close off right before/on landfall. 

The line is losing some steam on its way to Chicago. Sucks. It had some nice frequent lightning and ctgs a bit ago. 

Showing power outage in Boone county, IA.

Cell looked impressive rolling through on radar earlier.

With dews above 70 today, a pop up is now getting steam and down pouring after midnight producing some faint rumble activity . Air smells phenomenal.
 

Missed those nights for awhile now.

83 but it’s been feeling sticky today with dews around 72. 
 

Might get some thunder action soon in a few minutes.

The comma head looks really nice right now.

Shifted northeasterly towards us nicely past hours.

Nice swirl on the velocity on the svr warned by Princeton. Showing some nice gusts

1 hour ago, IWXwx said:

RFD?

Not sure. It could of been debris being thrown around or some homes just had weaker siding or roof shingles that got affected more than others.

But it seemed in one area it was more how the narrow track of high intensity was maybe touching down at parts. Or maybe other vortices very briefly spinned up near it. 

I remember going through Ranchview area or it might of been a little after it between rt53 and 355 seeing the narrow track on one side, with a couple homes next to it in generally good shape, and then a little more damage on the other side next to them. About a couple houses apart at most. 

Just what I noticed briefly going through that area as there was traffic and crews busy cleaning up. Plus some roads in the neighborhoods were blocked and detoured around a bit. Think it was Everglade Ave that was blocked off
 

I had a chance to go briefly through the area yesterday. Started in Naperville by 75th and Rickert and went east. 
 

You can tell there was a very narrow track of higher intensity. It seemed like in some areas there were other narrow tracks going along parallel with it that were a block or so apart but not sure. It was hard to tell. Some roads were blocked.

Was a lot of action by the home that was leveled. Seemed like there was another one behind it too. 
 

Wide spread tree damage around. Tree canopies snapped near the main circulation.

Saw a empty field/lot that had a row of trees down in the track before hitting homes where roads were blocked. 
 

You can already tell that some neighborhoods look different already from the substantial tree damage to the taller/matured trees around. 
 

They cleared out a lot and are making good progress. 
 

Didn’t get the chance to make it past 355 in Woodridge