GaWx

This is well known. The first one that was seeded was one in 1947 that was moving NE OTS, meaning a seemingly safe one to seed. However, shortly afterward, it turned sharply (135 degrees to a westerly heading) and subsequently hit Savannah. There’s the possibility that the seeding weakened it enough to lower the mean steering level, which conceivably could have helped lead to more influence from a high to the north. I believe that that sharp turn and subsequent landfall lead to a stoppage of that program. But I feel that bringing up these past experiments now is a red herring because they’re not occurring now. Marjorie T. Greene lied about this for pure political purposes, of course. She decided to just make up that “they” (meaning Democrats) were controlling Helene. The best thing would be for the media to ignore her.

Maybe the model average but definitely not all of the major globals had a too far left bias with these three. This was especially the case with UKMET. UKMET was: -best with Ian with it near actual landfall point well to the SE several days in advance. I documented this in detail in the Ian thread for future reference. The GFS and CMC were horrible with them way too far left, including some Panhandle landfalls just a couple of days out! Euro was also too far left but not by nearly as much. Icon was 2nd best to UKMET with a smaller too far left miss overall. - UKMET a good bit too far right for Milton (along with the CMC) a few days in advance. GFS overall missed too far left about the most of the globals. I need to go back and analyze more closely but my gut feel is that Euro may have done best overall with perhaps Icon in 2nd - UKMET and Euro did well overall with Irma in advance, better than GFS, as I clearly recall

I follow you as I was thinking about that myself, but this was all I had available (and also is an amazing record, regardless). The total for 10/9-10 at St. Petersburg was 18.85”. So, I also dug further into the area’s monthly records for the heaviest events listed in that other link’s heaviest daily records from past years back to 1916 to try to get a feel for whether or not adjacent days would have added enough for a full event’s total to reach Milton’s 18.85”. Based on that extra digging I concluded there’s a very high likelihood that no full event rainfall reached that. The closest event actually looks like storm #1 of 1915, which gave them 15.45” on Aug 2nd. But for even that one there are no indications that the event total exceeded 18.85”. Thus it is my belief that Milton not only produced their heaviest daily rainfall on record but also their wettest full event rainfall in recorded history.

To add to tornadoes, winds, and storm surge, the rainfall in central FL was highly anomalous considering the storm wasn’t large or slow moving. The rainfall rates were extreme with St Pete getting 5” in one hour! This lead to a record for any single day (records back to 1914)! The flooding in central FL was awful, including at Daytona, and still is ongoing.

For the last ~30 winters: Dec a good barometer for rest of season at NYC during La Nina - Dec 3” or under (6 seasons), rest of season averaged 10.6” (range 2.3”-17.7”). Note, however, that 16-17 was only barely above 3” (at 3.2”) and the rest of the season had 27”. - For >3” in Dec (8 seasons), rest of season averaged almost 3 times as much, 30.1” (range 21.6”-64.1”)! - So, the high end of the Dec 3” or less rest of season range (17.7”) is actually lower than the low end of the rest of season range (21.6”) for Dec greater than 3” seasons during La Niña!

Thanks, Don. So, the Oct fcast for DJF is clearly the warmest of these going back to 2021-2. The +1 to +2 in the current one covers nearly all of the US, which is larger coverage than all of these. Note also that none had anything >2. I wonder if that is due to a cold bias. Note also that E Canada is warmer than 2021-2 and 2022-3 although it is less warm than 2023-4. So for the E US: -2021-2 ended up too warm, especially Midwest/Lakes -2022-3 ended up not warm enough especially NE -2023-4 ended up not warm enough Midwest/NE

I know it’s not apples to apples since these are probabilities vs anomalies, but am I correct to say that the comparison implies that 2024-5 is probably the warmest Oct (Sep) forecast by a good margin back at least to 2021-2 for the US as a whole?

I posted earlier about the record high rainfall at St. Petersburg for any day in history back to 1916. Here’s the official NWS release about the 18.54” which has history slightly further back (to 1914). This is interesting because they noted the previous record from 8/2/1915, 15.45”. That extreme an amount seemed to be very localized based on a much lower amount at Tampa and other cities. It was a result of storm #1 that had a landfall at Titusville with it recurving well E of St. Pete: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1915_Atlantic_hurricane_season#/media/File%3A1915_Atlantic_hurricane_1_track.png RECORD EVENT REPORT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TAMPA BAY FL 400 AM EDT THU OCT 10 2024 ..WETTEST DAY ON RECORD AT SAINT PETERSBURG ..RECORD DAILY MAXIMUM RAINFALL SET AT SAINT PETERSBURG A RECORD RAINFALL OF 18.54 INCHES WAS SET AT SAINT PETERSBURG YESTERDAY. THIS BROKE THE OLD DAILY RECORD FOR OCTOBER 9TH OF 1.56 INCHES SET IN 1953. THIS ALSO SET A NEW DAILY RECORD FOR ANY DAY OF THE YEAR BREAKING THE PREVIOUS RECORD OF 15.45 INCHES SET ON AUGUST 2, 1915. RECORDS IN SAINT PETERSBURG BEGAN ON AUGUST 1, 1914.

Don, how does the US map compare to the Oct 1 C3S forecasts for DJF in recent years? Do you have access to those maps to do a comparison?

This tornado outbreak was noted as having the most warnings for FL of any day in their recorded history. It was also noted as having the 2nd largest number of warnings for any day for any state, second only to AL in the great 2011 outbreak: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Super_Outbreak

I agree that NHC did a pretty bad job with the projected track of Helene through GA (disappointing because they usually do much better) but I’m saying that because the global model guidance was overall actually not bad. In contrast several globals did a great job in consistently calling for the center to track well E of the NHC’s W GA track in going NNE into NE GA, which is what actually occurred. In contrast I thought the NHC was excellent with Milton, which is typically how they do.

Whereas the Euro preseason forecasts for ACE missed way too high, the shorter term Euro Weeklies did very well. They forecasted the very active early season, the inactive peak season, and the very active last couple of weeks.

Check this amazing stat: St Petersburg got over 18” of rain yesterday!! How big is that? Since records started in 1916, the prior record high for any one day was 9.61” on 9/5/1933 (from storm #11 that hit SE FL as a MH and then moved just NW of Tampa). They got 7.76” on 6/23/1945 from a H that had a landfall 100 miles to the N. They received 7.42” on 9/4/1935 from the Labor Day Hurricane moving N just offshore. None of these days are even close to what Milton gave them! And steady rain is still falling there! https://www.currentresults.com/Yearly-Weather/USA/FL/St-Petersburg/extreme-annual-st-petersburg-precipitation.php

“126 tornado warnings were issued today by NWS offices in Florida This is a record for the State of Florida It's also the 2nd highest number of tornado warnings issued in the U.S. for a single calendar day - trailing only the 2011 Super Outbreak (Alabama)” From hylandwx’s Twitter (Pat Hyland)

Radar estimated rainfall St. Pete 9”+ and still coming down very heavily. Flooding must be terrible.

BULLETIN Hurricane Milton Intermediate Advisory Number 19A NWS National Hurricane Center Miami FL AL142024 800 PM EDT Wed Oct 09 2024 ...MILTON CLOSE TO MAKING LANDFALL ALONG THE COAST OF WEST-CENTRAL FLORIDA... ...LIFE-THREATENING STORM SURGE, DAMAGING WINDS, AND FLOODING RAINS OCCURRING ACROSS PORTIONS OF CENTRAL AND SOUTHWESTERN FLORIDA... SUMMARY OF 800 PM EDT...0000 UTC...INFORMATION ---------------------------------------------- LOCATION...27.2N 82.8W ABOUT 20 MI...30 KM WSW OF SARASOTA FLORIDA ABOUT 130 MI...205 KM SW OF ORLANDO FLORIDA MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS...120 MPH...195 KM/H PRESENT MOVEMENT...ENE OR 60 DEGREES AT 15 MPH...24 KM/H MINIMUM CENTRAL PRESSURE...954 MB...28.17 INCHES

Is this the 2nd tornado in St Lucie county today?

18Z Icon: landfall 8PM TB ~2 hrs earlier than 12Z run had

Looking like may be as early as a 7-8PM landfall! Opinions?

3PM NHC update: 948 mb, up from 944 mb at 2PM update. Not unexpected.

To put this 944 mb into better perspective for the area, the 1921 cat 3 Tarpon Springs storm had a landfall there at 952 mb.

CMC (12Z) is no longer a S outlier as it is near Bradenton just like the GFS and near the UKMET, and only very slightly S of the Euro/Icon at TB.

The analysis I did looking at -NAOs and sunspots was for winter, only, and for the last 35 winters, only. All 6 winters of the last 35 with a sub -0.25 NAO (1984-5, 86-7, 95-6, 2009-10, 10-11, 20-1) had a winter SSN under 35 and was within ~2 years of a solar minimum. -NAOs during the last winters have been much less frequent than they were during the prior 25. OTOH, -NAOs have become much more frequent during summer over the last 17 or so. Im not saying there isn’t one, but I’m not aware of any proven connection of solar and NAO outside of winter. NAO tendencies have been very seasonal as per the above.

It seems to be pretty close to the others for the landfall anyway. 12Z landfalls of main globals Euro 11PM Tampa Bay ICON 10PM Tampa Bay CMC ~12:30AM ~Bradenton GFS 11PM Bradenton UKMET ~10PM ~Bradenton

12Z Euro: coming in much earlier than the 5AM of the 6Z; this run is in line with the other models and landfalls near Tampa Bay around 11PM