jm1220

Guess there was too much of a breeze to radiate more. Westhampton got down to 28 where it calmed down for a few hours.

It’ll ramp up right in time for climo to get cold enough for it to snow.

The damage in Punta Gorda with boats tossed around town and the severe structural damage on the barrier islands looks like it was a serious surge, 10’ or higher like you said. There was a gauge in Sarasota that apparently recorded 10 foot surge, and the worst surge may have been south of there in the harbors/inlets that channel in the water.

Thankfully the summer IMBY was wet enough but not excessively like just east of here. Not a drop yesterday, was a very nice day. But it’s really needed. Much of the country is developing drought conditions since there aren’t any large scale storms around outside the tropics.

It’s very likely fish food this time of year. If one trough misses it, there’s probably multiple chances of one picking it up.

2/22/08 was just about the one front ended snow event that did work out for NYC. I think that was half of the season’s snow. The Dec one that clobbered SNE and rained in NYC set the tone for that whole godawful winter. Dec sets the tone for NYC almost every winter especially Nina’s.

07-08 was a series of lake cutter storms with a high over Quebec/Canada that locked enough cold in for New England to have big front end snow or have the low redevelop south enough to keep them snow. NYC was too far south and either rained in all of them or had brief sleet to rain, over and over again. I lived in PA at the time and had more sleet than I've ever seen.

Nina in general is significantly better the further north you go. I'd rather claw my eyes out than go through another 07-08. El Nino is better overall I'd say from I-80 and south.

The days after a disaster like this are some of the scariest and most uncertain in people’s lives and it’s…. despicable that con artists online and in the media out to monetize it somehow and scumbag politicians like MTG and other “conservatives” use it to help themselves politically (and of course drive donations and media appearances for themselves). It’s a feedback loop grift between social media for attention, influencers who want views, media that want ad dollars and ratings, and “conservative” politicians who want all of the above and votes. I can’t imagine what kind of a lowlife scumbag you have to be to threaten FEMA aid workers or meteorologists who are trying to help people through times like these.

It’s at the point in some of that area from Ft Myers north to near Sarasota where you have to ask whether it’s worth it to rebuild. 5 hurricane hits either direct or close enough for significant damage in the last 3 years-Ian, Idalia, Debby, Helene and now Milton. I have no idea how many hoops you’ll have to jump through or deep your wallet has to be to get flood/hurricane insurance there soon. You can build better and more resilient for wind, that doesn’t help with water unless your home is high enough above sea level or you spend probably tens of billions on mitigation like seawalls, which climate change will render moot anyway because of rising sea levels.

N of Tampa wasn’t taken out of the probability cone until about 24 hours before landfall. In a large metro people need to prepare 48-72 hours in advance. We saw the late shifts with Helene and numerous other storms in the last 5 years or so.

It was more likely than not to lose strength, sure. Models highlighted the shear and dry air in the eastern Gulf for a few days. But it was also moving over 85+ degree water, and small changes to the jet interaction, steering, dry air etc could’ve made for a much different outcome. Michael in 2018 wasn’t expected to come in as a Cat 5, if I remember right it was supposed to weaken or be a Cat 2, maybe Cat 3. The center of the cone was south of Tampa for a couple days but a couple of northerly wobbles over 48hrs would’ve brought it into Tampa or north. And you have to warn a major metro like Tampa well ahead of time, we all saw the packed highways and stations out of gas. What natural barriers or dunes there were for protection were also lost in Helene. Sure media especially national oversensationalizes all the time, but I totally understood the need to prepare and evacuate for the areas that did. Much better than Clearwater for example not preparing and the wobbles N plus less shear and less weakening happen and they’re now staring down a borderline Cat 5. That was in the window of possibility, fairly unlikely but could’ve caused a massive number of casualties from lack of preparation. Imagine the outcry then?

There was clearly no need for people on Treasure Island let’s say to prepare for the worst and evacuate. They should’ve just stayed home. We’ve never seen situations in the past where the official track could be off by 30 miles or the intensity forecast is off for any of a multitude of reasons. It was obvious 48 hours out that they and Tampa would be fine and the media/emergency officials were overhyping!!!

There was no possibility that the predictions for weakening before landfall would be wrong and instead it would’ve come in as a strong Cat 4 let’s say? It was a definite that the storm would weaken? And 120mph Cat 3 storms aren’t dangerous? Or there wouldn’t be a SLIGHT deviation in the track to bring it NW of Tampa instead? All this was just known days ahead of time and I guess there was no need for people around Tampa to prepare or evacuate. It’s such an inconvenience after all right? I’m just glad some here don’t work in emergency preparedness.

There was absolutely 100% a need to prepare for the worst case scenario because a tiny change in track would’ve brought the eye into or N of Tampa Bay, and predicting the wind speeds is hard to say the least. It hit Cat 5 twice. It wasn’t overhyping or sensationalizing at all to say it could’ve been a worst case scenario. And the places it did hit directly are still heavily populated. Tampa/St Pete also had widespread flooding and wind/power damage. St Pete had its heaviest rain in an event ever.

In Port St Lucie, Fort Pierce, Wellington, Punta Gorda, Siesta Key etc people should just relax because “FL did just fine”? What a load off their shoulders!

Down to 40 here, looks like a couple 39s nearby. I’m slightly elevated just E of Rt 110 so I don’t radiate quite as well as lower elevations.

I can see it again-purple glow looking north.

Even down here and in NYC the purple glow was quite noticeable. Never saw that in my life. Hopefully another coming soon!

It was brief, for me it lasted a few minutes. With my luck it’ll come back when I’m asleep.

One dividing line between the good Nina winters here and the bad ones is whether we can get a snow event in December. In Dec 2020 NYC had a 10” snowstorm, in 2010 there was the Boxing Day blizzard, 2017-18 just missed December but had the big 1/4/18 storm. 2000-01 had the Millennium 12”+ storm and ended up above average with more snow in Feb. 3/5/01 would’ve annihilated us with some better luck. In 17-18 and 20-21 as well we then had a Part 2 later in the winter with more snow to get us over average. 10-11 was of course a blitz of many storms until end of January. I rate 21-22 as a lousier one for NYC even though the late Jan storm could’ve been a crusher back to NYC with a tiny shift to a consolidated coastal storm vs the multiple low mess it ended up as. The lousy Nina winters flop in Dec and tend to stay that way. 07-08 set the tone early with the crap sleet pellet to rain SWFEs, Dec 2022 flopped as we all know, 1998-99 had nothing in Dec and was a below average snow winter etc.

That was amazing, never saw that in my life. For me it looked like the sky was purple looking to the north.

Wow, I can see it! Awesome!

I’m sure he’ll monetize it somehow and upgrade his boat.

A lot has to do with size as you said, since larger size means more water moving. More intensity obviously means more water moving as well, and the higher the intensity plus size means obviously a higher surge. The track of the storm matters, since a storm heading perpendicular into a shore will tend to maximize surge vs one tracking near parallel. But then you have to factor in local effects like where bays, inlets and harbors funnel water in and the slope of the shelf. There's a reason Tampa Bay, NY Harbor and Lake Pontchartrain are considered huge risk surge areas, because they are great at funneling the water in from a surge and maximizing it. Sandy was a high end Cat 1 but gigantic in size and about 10mb lower in pressure at landfall than Milton, which meant a huge amount of water moved, into a very bad area for surge due to the upside down L-shaped NY Harbor, lots of bays and inlets to funnel the water and a long sloping shelf. Sandy also tracked in a way that drove the surge NW directly into the harbor. Part of the impact is just the luck of what tide the surge hits during. Sandy's peak surge was during a full moon high tide which in my town added 4-5 feet on top to what it would've been at low tide (storm tide was 10 feet roughly where I lived then and even higher in places in NYC and certain spots in NJ around funnel shaped inlets). You pointed out Charley, and Andrew 1992 wasn't really known for surge other than a small part of Miami due to its size primarily and factors specific to SE FL. The E coast of FL isn't as susceptible to surge because the shelf is very close to shore and you generally don't have all these bays and inlets to funnel the water in. But of course any low lying location is susceptible from the right storm at the wrong time. Generally the IKE number as bdgwx posts often is a good indicator of the surge potential with the storm since it combines wind speed with overall storm size. Here's a good article explaining the different factors. Storm Surge Overview (noaa.gov)