hawkeye_wx

With the euro doubling its runs, I'm going to have to make a real effort to get up and exercise or do something else once in a while.  I already get too stuck in my computer chair during tropical/winter storm action.

I hope the Saturday morning low doesn't gradually fall over the next few days like it often seems to.  Upper 30s would be great, because I wouldn't have to worry about my garden.  Mid 30s I have to start covering stuff.

I went for a walk around the neighborhood and saw a larger tree with a 30 ft long, 12" diameter side branch/trunk down a couple blocks away.

My garden really took a beating.  One of my big hummer plants was partially broken and another was snapped off near the base.  There may be more damage once I more closely examine the garden.  Little bits of tree debris are strewn across the yard, with a few bigger pieces mixed in.  A neighbor lost a 4.5" limb off one of his trees.  I was expecting the severe wind to come from the west, but it oddly came more from the south, which was bad for my garden.

Just received my first severe wind in years..... probably 70 mph.

Cedar Rapids is now warned.  There may be a bit of bowing out just west of CR.

Trami was an awesome super typhoon, but once it stalled it didn't take long for the upwelled cool water to hollow out the core.

The storms are already pretty frisky-looking out in central Iowa, despite no heating.  Even here in CR, we've been socked in with clouds all morning so our heating may be minimal.  There's more sun and heating in the Burlington to QC area.

Quote

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Quad Cities IA IL
1024 AM CDT Tue Sep 25 2018

.UPDATE...
Issued at 1005 AM CDT Tue Sep 25 2018

Severe Potential: Looks as though elevated convection will begin
to overtake the warm sector and become rooted in the BL. This
should occur shortly before noon and likely just west of the CWA.
Overall convection speed will slow down and begin to move into our
area. This will give time for CAPE to build this afternoon across
the CWA. Synoptic models show that shear doesn't support
tornadogenesis, due to SW sfc winds. It appears that a sfc wave is
forming across SW IA. This wave will back winds, much like the
HRRR shows. I believe that we will have a tornado threat from any
mesovortex that develops. I also believe that shear will be
greater than what synoptic models forecast due to this low. As far
as severe parameters go, tend to favor CAM solutions related to
shear. Severe threat for winds to 70 mph, hail and tornadoes
remains for the area.

One more good shower boosted my rain total to 1.90".

A couple potent lead cells and the main line of storms have dropped 1.6" of rain on my yard so far today.

Regarding the upper level conditions, four days ago the NHC discussions talked about day 2 being the best, allowing Florence to max out at 150 mph, and then shear would pick up some as it approached the coast, leading to some weakening.  The opposite happened.  Shear knocked it down on day 2 and diminished as it approached the coast.

I'm still not seeing any recon SFMR data higher than 75 kts anywhere in the very flat wind field.  100 mph is pretty generous.

I don't think that big gulp of dry air swirling around in the core will allow the inner core reorganization to proceed very far, but recon did just find 84 kts at the surface in the north quad, which is a bit higher than they've found in a while.

It's unclear how successful it'll be, with pockets of dry air still pinwheeling around in there, but Florence appears to be trying to rebuild the inner core.

2 minutes ago, NJwx85 said:

71kt in the NE eyewall. She's barely a hurricane at the surface. 

Yeah, each recon plane is finding a lower max wind than the last.  Florence appears to be a large cat 1.

On the latest nw to se pass through the storm, recon only found max FLIGHT level wind of 85 kts.  The core wind has really cratered.  A bit of shear advecting dry air into the core, when the core is already having ERC issues, can really do some damage.

Recon just made their first pass through the core.  Even in the stronger northeast quad, the top flight level wind was only 101 kts and the top SFMR wind was only 79 kts.  The wind field has become large, but the core wind has really come down quite a bit.

Update:  Central pressure is 956 mb.

Models are now tightly clustered, showing a very slow landfall around Cape Fear/Wilmington.

The IR loop shows Florence's core continuing to slowly deteriorate.  The eye is now losing its shape.

While outflow is quite good to the west, north, and east, it appears to have become increasingly restricted to the south today.

The 12z GFS suggests the best upper flow may be Thursday.

Second recon pass found the pressure back up a few mb to about 947 mb.

Several eps members are turning Florence sw quite far from the coast and maintain the strength as it turns back to the coast.  What a tricky system.

Over the last several hours, Florence has gradually been losing that "undercut-by-a-bit-of-shear" look.

00z ukmet has the center drifting westward into southern NC Thursday night.

The SFMR data during the first pass was not very impressive.  Even the ne quad only showed 105 kts.