WxWatcher007

Totally agree. More would’ve tested the coast and the area to my SE if the area had a better road network (and it was daylight). And yeah, while it was a good eyewall I also thought given the velocities aloft the winds would’ve been much more intense. I know you’re not downplaying anything. That’s a legitimate concern. Edit: if I had to guess I would say we peaked between 100-120. I know the floor was verified with the airport report, and I think based on some of the damage I saw compared to Idalia the year before that there were isolated pockets closer to 120 gusts. I think that’s in line with what others saw—high end 2/low end 3 gusts. With a similar radar velocity profile Laura was much worse.

It looks like both the latest iterations of the GFS and Euro want to bring its remnants or whatever up here after the Gulf, but, ya know, . The first and only time I’ll ever use that emoji.

Appreciate the kind words. Would love some thoughts from others too but looking back at least at the Perry airport data it does seem like there were more gusts than high end sustained winds. Part of that may be related to what recon was finding pre-landfall. There were a lot of tremendous flight level winds but not a lot of surface estimates that matched up—but note that the NHC is reviewing its SFMR process. It’s possible that in the hours it took for Helene to close off its inner core and expand its hurricane force wind field Thursday that there just wasn’t enough time to effectively translate those very high winds aloft to the surface. Each hurricane has its own sound, but there wasn’t much of a howl in the eyewall. It was definitely more big gust dependent. Funny enough, looking southeast there was tremendous lightning and a big roar just off the deck, but the southern eyewall was nonexistent when we got to the other side of the eye. As for the gusts further inland, they were definitely aided by two things and maybe aided by another. All created the perfect conditions for a generational inland wind event. 1) This was a fast mover. It reminded me of NE systems that rocket north and bring wind far into the region. The 1938 Hurricane was a classic example. It didn’t decay quickly by crawling inland. 2) The trough/jet assisted in maintaining Helene’s intensity without a doubt. See Windspeed’s earlier post about a possible sting jet. Even without that, the jet enhanced winds aloft as Helene was moving quickly but decaying—keeping high end gusts on the table. 3) This is somewhat educated speculation, but I think the big winds aloft at landfall allowed for the storm to keep producing big gusts inland. Kind of related to #1 but if Helene isn’t intensifying at landfall and producing big wind just off the deck there’s no way the gusts we saw could propagate as far inland as it did.

I haven’t had a chance to post here until now but I took the time this evening to read every post. I cannot begin to express how sorry I am for your region being devastated like this. I truly hope and pray that resources arrive swiftly and that the recovery can start as soon as possible. To @wncsnow and @calculus1 especially, you and your families are in my thoughts and prayers. Hopefully this is helpful but for folks that have intermittent signals and need to reach family, if you have an iPhone that’s been updated recently there’s a feature to text by satellite. All you need to do is go outside and the phone will walk you through it. I used it in Perry literally on the backside of the eye when services were down and it worked well.

Glad you are ok. An exceptional system in a multitude of ways.

Maybe it’s too fast again, but the Gulf signal looks real. Could be a hurricane in the Gulf and open Atlantic next week. I don’t think the ceiling is nearly as high as it was for Helene but it’s obviously very early. Beyond that, I wonder if we will keep the activity going with tropical waves getting west to a more favorable environment.

I’m guessing if there were higher echelon winds, it happened to my SE in the zone between Perry and Salem where there’s nothing. We were more northern eyewall than that exceptional east side. Do you know if any chasers measured wind in that zone? I will also say I saw someone driving in Laura’s NE eyewall in pitch darkness. People are crazy lol.

Glad I could help. Unfortunately idk how to do it for FB.

Final video and wrap up.

Thanks for the question. Here are some of my thoughts about the chase (long post alert): I think the wind delivered. It’s extremely hard to visually estimate wind speeds (which is why doing a damage report after the storm is so important) but the Perry airport reported a wind gust of 99 and they only report 3x an hour and didn’t have a peak wind from what I could see. I like studying wind. Perry is about 10-15 miles inland so there’s going to be significant wind reduction due to surface friction, and I think the general public and even chaser/wx enthusiast wind expectations can be out of whack. If any storm is making landfall, I lop off a significant percentage of what I expect in sustained and peak wind gusts. But it doesn’t diminish the storm. At all. That’s just the reality of surface wind reduction. The eyewall of Laura was head and shoulders above what I saw in the eyewall of Helene, but Helene was better than what I saw in Idalia just last year—to be expected since they were different categories. Laura made landfall at 150mph. LCH had sustained winds of 105 and gusts to 132 before going offline. Winds were certainly higher than those reports in both categories but still weaker than the objective advisory analysis. The damage was incredible, but many well built structures survived. Idalia was off its peak, but still produced substantial wind and lightning. There was also some structural damage. Here with Helene, it looked and felt worse, even at night, but looking objectively after the fact I wonder if we missed the worst winds just southeast between Perry and Salem. Too rural to do anything other than risk yourself in a highly rural location. I should’ve attempted to head there after to survey. Still, we were getting hit hard in Perry. That’s impressive wind even with a 20% reduction. I’m certain I would’ve seen it in Laura if I went to a more populated area, but this is the first time I saw some store fronts blown out. Here’s my last video documenting the worst. Finally—two things 1) It’s truly extraordinary to see the extent of the catastrophe. Record surge in Florida, potentially generational inland wind damage all the way into the Carolinas, and of course, the historic flooding in GA, the Carolinas, and TN. This will be the storm of record for a lot of people, and it continues to rewrite the rules on the ceiling of CAG systems. 2) Something I said last night elsewhere— This was the first time I really saw chaser convergence for a TC. There were some that understood that there are people whose lives would be dramatically different after the storm and others that did not care. There are always some that do things that make first responders jobs more difficult. I sat with an elderly couple in the lobby of the hotel as the eyewall was approaching. Folks from Perry. Terrified. Guys were talking about 150+ mph winds at 4000 ft or whatever and backslapping and making it feel like a party while the wife was barely holding back tears. I took the time to explain to them why some of us do what we do and the science of surface wind reduction. Took the time to explain that the hotel was very well built and that they didn’t need to spend the night in the staircase. Showed a little empathy and reassurance that their home wasn’t going to get ripped apart like an EF-5 in Oklahoma. I would consider myself a pro now. This is what I do. My first rule has always been to respect the people in the places you go. Now I’m not perfect and I can’t be. I say that and my hotel room is one less a person evacuating could get. I defied a mandatory evacuation order though Perry is outside FL’s evacuation zones and I do not drive during the worst as a rule. Unlike when I started, these days I travel because I think I’ve gotten good enough to add on the ground value and my chases have reflected that imo. I’m not one to do the whole moralistic thing, but I firmly believe that chasers should never be the story. Show up and do your thing, but show respect to the people that don’t get to fly in and fly out. I cut out a number of clips and won’t post them because of the celebratory vibe they gave off. That’s just not cool to me in a catastrophic event.

Things have picked up a lot, but long way to go to be closer to a respectable grade. Isaac is close to a surprise MH, but will likely fall short. Peak Season Forecast (Aug 20-Oct 20)Named Storms: 15 (5) Hurricanes: 10 (3) Major Hurricanes: 5 (1) Francine (H), Gordon, Helene (MH), Isaac (H), Joyce

Quality over quantity season for sure.

The chase went about as well as it could. Ended up in the center of the eye. I posted a few videos in the thread. For the posts you have to paste the original link in another tab or window and substitute X for Twitter. So for example: If you paste the original link it’ll look like this https://x.com/burgwx/status/1839785589241258454?s=46&t=Nn9Cx92_8118fPdhHPdJHw If you change it in another tab and paste, it should automatically convert. You’ll know you’ve done it right if the tweet posts before you hit submit.

Thank you for sharing. Reposting for people that may be hesitant to click a link.

Ocean City

Pretty much dead center in Perry, FL. I was telling @ORH_wxman earlier that we had some clearing and a poor man’s stadium as the eye passed.

It was intense for sure. I’m a little surprised we didn’t get more of those insane velocities aloft mixed down, but it was a big dog even without that. https://i.imgur.com/FYdwaJe.png

I have a lot of stuff to sort through, but even though there are videos with higher gusts, there’s one video that says it all. Yahoos aside, what an experience doing this one shoulder to shoulder with one of the greats.

I have a lot of stuff to sort through, but even though there are videos with higher gusts, there’s one video that says it all. Yahoos aside, what an experience doing this one shoulder to shoulder with one of the greats.

I have a lot of stuff to sort through, but even though there are videos with higher gusts, there’s one video that says it all. Yahoos aside, what an experience doing this one shoulder to shoulder with one of the greats.

Driving east on I-10 earlier from Greenville to Live Oak had tremendous tree damage. There was a zone southeast of Madison that had legitimately large pines snapped at the base. I have never seen anything like that. Hope your family is doing ok.

Really good call, Ray. Looks like the 140 ceiling ended up getting reached. Obviously not as bad on the ground but my God some of the tree damage I saw in the path was wild. @kdxken @tamarack what kind of wind does it take to snap moderate to large pine trees at the base?

Getting back on the grid. Thinking of the folks still in harms way up north. I will get some storm videos up later but here’s the damage survey around Perry. It's significant to extensive in spots, but could’ve been a lot worse.